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Christina Serrano EN 127 Paper 1 March 4, 2014 “The Yellow Wallpaper”: A Commentary on Women’s Roles in the Late Nineteenth Century Women's roles within society have changed drastically throughout history. Today, women assume relative equality in society with men; women have the right to vote, own property, get divorced, and hold the same jobs, among other things. Prior to 1919, however, women were dominated by the largely misogynistic society that existed in the United States; women did not have the right to vote and were not regarded as equal to men in marriage or otherwise (“woman suffrage”). The late nineteenth century in the United States was also a time when society viewed individuals with mental illnesses as “a threat to public safety” (Holtzman). Therefore, “people with mental illness were cared for by family members, who quietly attended to their needs in rural areas” (Holtzman). These are the conditions the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” was living within. Described as an “autobiographical account fictionalized in the first person,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” chronicles the narrator as she is brought to a country house and put on rest cure, instructed by her physician husband to live in a room with yellow wallpaper (“The Yellow Wallpaper”). Throughout her stay there, the narrator appears to develop a sort of hysteria and falls into a deeper depression than when she arrived. Understanding this historical context, a major question that “The Yellow Wallpaper” raises is whether the narrator is actually sick or whether the sickness illustrated in the text is a metaphorical sickness that is to be understood as a commentary on women's oppression by the male-dominated society of the time. Due... ... middle of paper ... ...ds displays that the narrator did not have a problem with her husband, but her problem was with society; the narrator knew that her husband was only putting her on rest cure because it was the societal norm. It was all he knew. The relationship that the narrator developed with the wallpaper, or rather what she saw within the wallpaper, was demonstrative of the idea that she herself was trapped. But this wasn’t the only time the concept of entrapment was evidence in the story. Much of the language itself, even not when the narrator was speaking out loud, were words that generally are used to describe oppression, death, and entrapment. The aforementioned reasons provide evidence to support the argument that the narrator felt trapped by the chains society has placed on her, and that the telling of her sickness is a symbolic representation of her desire to rebel.
Yellow Wallpaper depicts the nervous breakdown of a young woman and is an example as well as a protest of the patriarchal gender based treatments of mental illness women of the nineteenth century were subjected to.
The stories “Shouldn't I Feel Pretty?” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” feature a dynamic protagonist who undergoes a character development which reveals the consequences of oppression caused by societal standards. Gilman crafted the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” with the purpose of exposing the tyrannical role of gender roles to women. In the story, the narrator suffers a slight postpartum depression in the beginning, but her condition gets progressively worse because her husband John believes “that there is nothing the matter with [her] but temporary nervous depression-- a slight hysterical tendency” (331). He concludes that the best treatment for his wife is for her to be “absolutely forbidden to ‘work’ until [she is] well again” (332).
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, is a first-person narrative written in the style of a journal. It takes place during the nineteenth century and depicts the narrator’s time in a temporary home her husband has taken her to in hopes of providing a place to rest and recover from her “nervous depression”. Throughout the story, the narrator’s “nervous condition” worsens. She begins to obsess over the yellow wallpaper in her room to the point of insanity. She imagines a woman trapped within the patterns of the paper and spends her time watching and trying to free her. Gilman uses various literary elements throughout this piece, such as irony and symbolism, to portray it’s central themes of restrictive social norms
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story about an anonymous female narrator and her husband John who is a physician who has rented a colonial manner in the summer. Living in that house, the narrator felt odd living there. Her husband, john who is a physician and also a doctor to his wife felt that the narrator is under nervous depression. He further mentions that when a person is under depression, every feeling is an odd feeling. Therefore, the narrator was not given permission by John to work but just to take medication and get well fast. This made the narrator to become so fixated with the yellow wallpaper in the former nursery in which she located. She was depressed for a long time and became even more depressed. This ha...
At first the dirty old yellow wallpaper makes the narrator feel uneasy. For example, she writes in her journal that “the color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight” (3). However, as time passes and she has very minimal physical stimulation, it is clear that the endless solitary confinement drives her mind towards insanity. Subsequently, she later realizes that there is a sub-pattern in the wallpaper of a trapped woman who is trying to escape. Undoubtedly, this wallpaper is a direct representation of the domestic culture and tradition of docile women in 19th century society – the time in which this literary piece was published. Therefore, the narrator’s act of tearing down the wallpaper is a symbolic representation of women asserting their self-identity and “creeps” around to signify the initial stages of the feminist
"The Yellow Wallpaper" features an unnamed female narrator who serves to exemplify the expectations placed upon women of the time period. As we are told early on, she is suffering from a "nervous condition" (Gilman 1). While we are not told the specific nature of this condition, we do discover that the cure prescribed by John, the narrator's husband and doctor, entails taking "phosphates or phosphites--whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise" while intellectual "work" is "absolutely forbidden Ö until [she is] well again" (Gilman 1). This poses a particular problem for the narrator, due to her desire to write, which she continues to do "in spite of them," and causes her to hide her writing to avoid facing "heavy opposition" (Gilman 1). The treatment to which t...
In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, a woman living in the 19th century is told about a summer she spent in a house, which turns out to be an eerie and gloomy stay. A woman, who is suffering from depression, tells the story from 1st point of view. She tells us about her experience and how she felt. She even lets us in on her thoughts. She eventually finds a way to escape from her imprisonment.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. To put it briefly, it’s about a married woman who moves to a mansion to recuperate after her physician had diagnosed her with “neurasthenia” or what they referred in the story as a “slight hysterical tendency.” What makes this story special is the treatment she received, how she was treated and most importantly what happened in the “yellow room.” Unlike most other stories that were written before and during her time, this story conveys a very strong point. It emphasizes the idea of “self-expression”, specifically for women and opposition to the “rest cure”. Having encountered similar experiences like the unnamed character in the story, her remonstration of the “rest cure” was entailed as a result of her repressed activities required by the treatment.
“The Yellow Wallpaper:” a Symbol for Women As the narrator presents a dangerous and startling view into the world of depression, Charlotte Perkins Gilman introduces a completely revitalized way of storytelling using the classic elements of fiction. Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” combines a multitude of story elements that cannot be replicated. Her vast use of adjectives and horrifying descriptions of the wallpaper bring together a story that is both frightening and intensely well told. Using the story’s few characters and remote setting, Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents the wallpaper as both a representation of the narrator and the story’s theme, as well as a symbol for her descent into the abyss of insanity. As the story opens, the suspiciously unnamed narrator and her husband, John, temporarily move into a new home (226).
Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. “A Feminist Reading of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.” The Story and Its Writer. Ann Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 1629-1631. Print.
The Yellow Wallpaper is a popular book when discussing psychology in the late nineteenth century. The author, Charlotte Gilman, wrote her experience of mental illness through her narrator. Gilman suffered with depression after giving birth and she never fully recovered from it. (Gilman 95). The narrator is depicted as a woman who has been diagnosed with what was called a nervous disorder. Her husband, a psychologist, gave her several different tonics and other substances that are supposed to make her better. She was also put on bed rest meaning that she was not able to work or do anything that would tire her out. She is told to go and rest several times during the story and it is evident that her ‘psychosis’ gets worse when she is forced to stay in her room and rest for the majority of her days and all night. She begins to see women in the pattern of her wallpaper and she becomes obsessed with it. The narrator becomes very protective of her wallpaper and gets almost jealous when she sees her sister-in-law looking at it and touching it. She even says “no person touches this pa...
The short story “Yellow Wallpaper, “written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892, narrates the story in the first person through parts, as if they were entered as a memoir. She is a woman who is going through a type of paranoiac post-partum depression, after the birth of her child. It can also be observed also a type of bipolar disorder in her. The impact of the classic The “Yellow Wallpaper” is huge, the shock of its truth is unpredictable. Gilman’s suffering suffocates everyone around her. She is locked up in a bedroom, as she describes in one of the passages that she writes, seeing “barred windows for children” and “rings and things on the wall.” Clearly it can be seen
In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, through expressive word choice and descriptions, allows the reader to grasp the concepts she portrays and understand the way her unnamed narrator feels as the character draws herself nearer and nearer to insanity. “The Yellow Wallpaper” begins with the narrator writing in a journal about the summer home she and her husband have rented while their home is being remodeled. In the second entry, she mentions their bedroom which contains the horrendous yellow wallpaper. After this, not one day goes by when she doesn’t write about the wallpaper. She talks about the twisting, never-ending pattern; the heads she can see hanging upside-down as if strangled by it; and most importantly the
"The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts a woman in isolation, struggling to cope with mental illness, which has been diagnosed by her husband, a physician. Going beyond this surface level, the reader sees the narrator as a developing feminist, struggling with the societal values of the time. As a woman writer in the late nineteenth century, Gilman herself felt the adverse effects of the male-centric society, and consequently, placed many allusions to her own personal struggles as a feminist in her writing. Throughout the story, the narrator undergoes a psychological journey that correlates with the advancement of her mental condition. The restrictions which society places on her as a woman have a worsening effect on her until illness progresses into hysteria. The narrator makes comments and observations that demonstrate her will to overcome the oppression of the male dominant society. The conflict between her views and those of the society can be seen in the way she interacts physically, mentally, and emotionally with the three most prominent aspects of her life: her husband, John, the yellow wallpaper in her room, and her illness, "temporary nervous depression." In the end, her illness becomes a method of coping with the injustices forced upon her as a woman. As the reader delves into the narrative, a progression can be seen from the normality the narrator displays early in the passage, to the insanity she demonstrates near the conclusion.
The psychological maltreatment is one of the most important subjects for women in every culture, and there is no difference regarding to what their social class, educational level or income is. The majority of wives experience psychological abandonment caused by their spouses and other relatives where mental suffering or even death is a frequent result (Emotional Neglect). The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman is about a young mother who is affected by an illness, supposedly postpartum depression, and whose breakdown results in her awareness and understanding of her own role in a marriage and society in general. In the nineteen century, the typical medical care of such depression is a complete separation from others, work and