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The yellow wallpaper theme women's role in society
Feminist analysis of the yellow wallpaper
Feminist ideas used in the yellow wallpaper
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Women have always been subjected to confinement in some manner throughout out history. It is a timeless theme carried through generations, and most prominently through literature. Gilman portrays in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the many constraints women in the nineteenth century faced. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, displays to readers the effects of these constraints on women in their daily lives. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the inside and outside settings of the story have a great influence on the character development of the narrator. The outside setting of “The Yellow Wallpaper” represents the entrapment of the narrator, as well as the freedom the narrator is not aloud to have. The location of the house is important in the development …show more content…
Inside the nursery the narrator describes the overall setting of the room. Going through the narrator describes the “barred windows” and the “gate at the head of the stairs” (480). Barred windows and the gate, give symbolic reference to a prison. The narrator is confined to one room in which her only purpose is to do nothing, just as you would do if you were put into a prison. Further along in the story the narrator changes her view on the wallpaper. The narrator moves from distaste of the wallpaper to fascination in trying to discover the woman hidden behind the wallpaper. After analyzing the wall for some time the narrator goes on to say “the front pattern does move— and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!” (486). By being trapped for so long in the room, the narrator find her purpose in analyzing the wallpaper and trying to find meaning from it because she has no purpose to begin with. The idea of freeing the woman behind the paper is the narrator trying to free herself from her life. With the mounting fascination of the paper, the narrator makes a final decision to finally rip down the paper and free the woman. On the last day in the house the narrator decides to rip off the wallpaper: “I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor.” (488). After ripping off most of the paper the narrator makes a comment to her husband signifying she is now free: “I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” (489). The act of ripping down the paper was to strip the narrator of all her burdens that caused her to feel so trapped in her life. By clearing the wallpaper off the wall the narrator begins a new chapter in her life as a ‘free woman’. The desperate need to free the woman behind the wall was the narrator trying to break out of her
Although, for her, she has nothing more to focus on she trusts her imagination to pass the time. Over time she becomes more and more obsessed with the yellow wallpaper, which leaves her in shock. “The wallpaper becomes a projection screen of the narrator growing fright.” (Berman, p.47) This means that the narrator goes to herself on the wall. The isolated woman in the yellow paper is her own reflection. Something that the narrator still does not realize, she only feels the need to release the woman trapped in the wall. She refers to her room as a prison continuously. As she begins to feel isolated she projects her feelings on the yellow wallpaper, but the idea that the room is her prison goes from figurative to reality as insulation deepens her need to escape in some way. “Every time the narrator speaks, she is interrupted and contradicted until she begins to interrupt and contradict herself.” (Berman, p.55) She has her own plan for recovery. But unfortunately, her husband does not listen. For him, the only
All through the story, the yellow wallpaper acts as an antagonist, causing her to become very annoyed and disturbed. There is nothing to do in the secluded room but stare at the wallpaper. The narrator tells of the haphazard pattern having no organization or symmetrical plot. Her constant examination of and reflection on the wallpaper caused her much distress.... ...
Ever since she has been entrapped in her room, the narrator’s vivid imagination has crafted fictional explanations for the presence of inconsistencies in the wallpaper. She explains them by saying “The front pattern does move! And no wonder! The woman behind shakes it” (Gilman 9). In the story, the narrator explains the woman mentioned creeps in and about the old house she and her husband reside in. Venturing towards the conclusion, the narrator becomes hysterical when thinking about the wallpaper, explaining to her husband’s sister Jennie how she would very much like to tear the wallpaper down. Jennie offers to do it herself, but the narrator is persistent in her desire-”But I am here, and nobody touches that paper but me-not ALIVE”(Gilman 10)! The narrator has realized the apex of her mental instability as the story
The narrator studies the wallpaper, watching how its colors change from sun up to sun down. It is only a matter of time for her to start seeing images behind its pattern. Once she starts seeing a woman in the walls, her mentality towards everything, even her husband and sister-in-law, starts changing. For example, she now thinks that they are the ones acting different, “he seems very queer sometimes, and even Jennie has an inexplicable look” (Gilman 84). At the end of the story, she finally has a mental breakdown. She fights to get the woman out of the walls, tearing off the paper and all. This woman in the walls seems to resemble the narrator, trapped, alone, and watching everything that goes on. The narrator even notes that she is freed from the walls saying, “I wonder if they all come out of the wallpaper as I did?” (Gilman 88). Freedom is a reoccurring theme throughout this story. It is the narrator trying to have her own mental and physical freedom, but she is held back by John. Finally, her tearing the wallpaper off, trying to catch the woman in it, and feeling the satisfaction is what really frees her in her own way. She no longer hides these thoughts from John. She shows them to him with no problem at all and in fact, is proud to show him. “’I’ve got out at last… in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!’” (Gilman 89). There are
The wallpaper, the center of the story, the perceived reason for her madness, was simply just wallpaper that she disliked. Every time she would describe it, her delusions would continually get worse. "I never saw a worse paper in my life." (Gilman) is her first observation of the paper. She strongly believed that there was a woman, "A strange, provoking, formless sort of figure." (Gilman) behind that paper who was creeping outside and around her room. She strongly believed that she needed to help this woman be free of the wretched wallpaper. She strongly believed that the wallpaper had a "yellow smell" (Gilman). No one could possibly make her disbelieve for one second that the woman didn't move about and yearn to be free of the strangling pattern. She believes that she is the only person who understands and can get the woman out of her
She finally escapes her life of depression and divorces her husband. The imagery the narrator gives this story lets you see how this woman uses the yellow wallpaper to show that not only was the narrator going through the imprisonment of her marriage and the psychological struggles in the late 1800’s but other women also was faced the same issues. “I 've got out at last ... in spite of you.... And I 've pulled off most of the paper so you can 't put me back!” (“The Yellow Wallpaper,” p. 53). The narrator uses metaphor in comparison of the wallpaper to the bars that held her captive in the room. One would say that the resolution of “The Yellow Wall paper” established a victory for women in the early twentieth century. After reading The Yellow Wallpaper Mitchell changed his treatment on women with and Gilman advocated for women
The first theme present in the horrific and heart wrenching story is the subordinate position of women within marriage. “The Yellow Wallpaper” begins with the narrator’s wish that her house were haunted like those in which “frightened heroines suffer Gothic horrors” (DeLamotte 5). However, this wish is in essence to empower herself. The narrator is already afraid of her husband and is suffering mentally and emotionally. She desperately wishes for an escape “through fantasy, into a symbolic version of her own plight: a version in which she would have a measure of distance and control” (DeLamotte 6). Throughout the text, Gilman reveals to the reader that during the time in which the story was written, men acquired the working role while women were accustomed to working within the boundaries of their “woman sphere”. This gender division meritoriously kept women in a childlike state of obliviousness and prevented them from reaching any scholastic or professional goals. John, the narrator’s husband, establishes a treatment for his wife through the assumption of his own superior wisdom and maturity. This narrow minded thinking leads him to patronize and control his wife, all in the name of “helping her”. The narrator soon begins to feel suffocated as she is “physically and emotionally trapped by her husband” (Korb). The narrator has zero control in the smallest details of her life and is consequently forced to retreat into her fantasies...
...rld. Throughout the story, the wallpaper becomes an outlet for the narrator to exercise her literary imagination. She soon comes to find that the wallpaper holds a feminine figure, or so she thinks. By using her initial feeling of being watched, the narrator decodes the chaotic pattern and locates the figure of a woman. A woman struggling to break free from the bars in the pattern. As her insanity increases, the narrator completely relates with this woman. She then begins to believe that she, too, is trapped within the wallpaper. When she tears down the wallpaper, she believes that she has finally broken out of the wallpaper. The wallpaper that she believes John has imprisoned her. By tearing it down, the narrator asserts her own identity, which unfortunately by now is confused. As she crawls around the room, she is initiating the first stage of a feminist uprising.
She begins by describing the house. Mostly her descriptions of the house are positive until she reaches the room with the yellow wallpaper. "It was a nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for the little children, and there are rings and things in the walls." The irony here, it is abundantly clear that the room was used before to house and insane person. Every thought she has comes back to the wallpaper. The "revolting" color, the strange pattern makes her feel irritated. She tries to convince her husband to sleep in another room, but he becomes a great source of frustration when he belittles her. She cannot say anything about her treatment or her illness without him reprimanding her like a child. An example of this is when husband and wife talk one
The wallpaper increasingly becomes a text of sorts through which the narrator exercises her literary imagination and identifies with a feminist double figure. When John curbs her creativity and writing, the narrator takes it upon herself to make some sense of the wallpaper. She reverses her initial feeling of being watched by the wallpaper and starts actively studying and decoding its meaning, finding a woman trying to break free. Over time, she identifies completely with this woman - with the bars in her own room - and believes she is also trapped within the wallpaper. When she tears down the wallpaper she believes that she has broken out of the wallpaper within which John has imprisoned her. The wallpaper 's yellow color has many possible associations - with jaundiced sickness and with the rigid oppression of masculine sunlight (see Sunlight as oppressive, moonlight as liberating, below). By tearing it down, the narrator emerges from the wallpaper and asserts her own identity, albeit a somewhat confused, insane one. Though she must crawl around the room, as the woman in the wallpaper crawls around, this "creeping" is the first stage in a feminist uprising; though the early feminists had to hide in the shadows, they paved the way for later generations to walk with heads held
Referring to the woman in the paper, she says, “I wonder if they all come out of the wallpaper as I did?” She also says, “I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard!” Through these quotes readers can see that the narrator has started to identify with the woman in the paper herself. She believes that she is a woman freed from behind ugly wallpaper, yet she still writes like a classy societal lady. The narrator was not just telling a story of a mentally impaired woman who was obsessed with wallpaper; she was conveying a message of social issues concerning treatment of the mentally ill and of women
In a female oppressive story about a woman driven from postpartum depression to insanity, Charlotte Gilman uses great elements of literature in her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. Her use of feminism and realism demonstrates how woman's thoughts and opinions were considered in the early 1900?s.
The narrator's detailed description of the wallpaper makes the reader understand the woman is well educated and has a keen eye for detail. The wallpaper evokes an emotional response from her, such as her statement, "It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study . . . " (793).
“John is so queer now, that I don’t want to irritate him. I wish he would take another room! Besides, I don’t want anybody to get that woman out at night but myself.”(Gilman) She is now imagining the woman out of the paper and creeping around outside. She wants to catch her even though there is no one to even catch, but she doesn’t know that. Her husband is at work all day which gives her the opportunity to creep around, explore and find this woman. Her husband John would suspect her of something if she left the room at night so she must do it during the day. This quote shows symbolism in relation to the fact that the woman in the paper is symbolizing the narrator wandering around outside. Moreover, she is clearly hallucinating about this woman in wallpaper. Her visibility of insanity is quite clear when the author says, “That was clever, for really I wasn’t alone a bit! As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her. I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.” (Gilman) The narrator is imagining interactions that have occurred with the woman she sees in the wall. They begin to peel off all the paper, working together in her mind. She then begins to imagine the wallpaper laughing at her when the sun is out. It can be concluded that her husband should not be taking care of her because he is the sole reason she is insane in the first place. This quote demonstrates symbolism because the woman in the wall represents the psychotic state that the narrator’s husband has driven her to. With this in mind, the narrator becomes connected with the woman in the wall. “I have locked the door and thrown the key down into the front path. I don’t want to go out, and I don’t want to have anyone come in, till John comes. I want to astonish him. I’ve got a
in the wall paper is the narrator herself trying to break free from a male