Behind “The Yellow Wallpaper” In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the reader journeys into the complex, deteriorating mind of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Through symbolism, Gilman issues a profound statement against the accepted subjugation of women during the 19th century. The narrator's internal dialogue sets the tone of the story and allows the reader to experience her horrifying delusions. Additionally, the use of irony illustrates the repressive nature of her marital relationship. In the end, both freedom and insanity lie behind the yellow wallpaper of the narrator’s world. Although Gilman's short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” contains numerous symbols, the yellow wallpaper of its …show more content…
The symbolic nature of the wallpaper can be interpreted in three ways. First, on a basic level, the wallpaper symbolizes the narrator's mental decline. Initially, she views the unsightliness of the tattered yellow wallpaper as simply annoying and aesthetically unpleasing. She reveals her aversion to the wallpaper when she describes the pattern as, “One of those sprawling, flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” (305). As her mental state deteriorates, however, her repulsion toward the yellow wallpaper heightens. In her worsening mental state, she begins to envision the yellow wallpaper as a horrid, living presence, and this ultimately leads to a mental breakdown. Secondly, the narrator's inability to persuade her husband to change the ghastly wallpaper symbolizes her lack of power over her current situation and her overall life. When her husband dismisses her concerns over the wallpaper, he removes her choices and disregards her preferences. She has no more control over her world than a child would have over his …show more content…
All of which worsen her depression and eventually drive her insane. Also, ironically, her husband, a doctor and not a psychiatrist, treats her hysteria and insanity with a physical cure instead of addressing the mind. The narrator's journal also reveals her obedient nature. For example, when describing a recent encounter with her husband, she writes "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that" (303). Ironically, one would not expect to be laughed at by a spouse in a happy, healthy marriage. As a woman of the 19th century, the narrator accepts her role as a submissive and obedient wife. Lastly, Gilman illustrates the irony of the narrator's fate. She ineffectively struggles to control her own life, throughout the story. Ironically, however, her freedom to control her life comes only when she relinquishes her self-control to madness. In the end, after freeing the trapped woman from the wallpaper, she gleefully declares to her husband, "I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!’ "
The wallpaper in her bedroom is a hideous yellow. "It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others" (pg 393) The wallpaper is symbolic of the sickness the author has by the end of the story. Yellow is often a color associated with illness. It’s been suggested that she herself was clawing at the paper during moments of insanity. But there are many times when she is sane, and sees the marks on the wallpaper, and she writes about how others who had spent time in this room tried to remove the paper as well.
"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.
It is clear that in their marriage, her husband makes her decisions on her behalf and she is expected to simply follow blindly. Their relationship parallels the roles that men and women play in marriage when the story was written. The narrator’s feelings of powerlessness and submissive attitudes toward her husband are revealing of the negative effects of gender roles. John’s decision to treat the narrator with rest cure leads to the narrator experiencing an intense feeling of isolation, and this isolation caused her mental decline. Her descent into madness is at its peak when she grows tears the wallpaper and is convinced that “[she’s] got out at last, in spite of [John] and Jennie… and [they] can’t put her back!”
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
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 Yellow Wallpaper is a very astonishing story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that daringly reaches out to explore the mental state of a woman whose mind eventually begins to be broken down to a state of insanity by the appearance of a creeping woman who is trapped behind a revolting yellow wallpaper. This short story takes a look at the causes of the narrator’s insanity by how she was confined in a house alone, trapped with only her mind and a dull wallpaper; while dealing with depression and consuming strong
All in all, the heart wrenching and goosebump producing story of “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman takes the reader on a psychological rollercoaster ride. Through the swift use of theme, Gilman ingeniously illustrates the struggles women faced during the nineteenth century.
A woman driven crazy by post partum depression and a dangerous treatment summarizes the short story of “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The story was influenced by the 19th century women’s depression and their vision of life. Through phantasmagoric symbolism in “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman is able to speak volumes on the destruction and autonomy of feminist self-expression, the restrictions of gender roles, and the patriarchal paradigm.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is the disheartening tale of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Set during the late 1890s, the story shows the mental and emotional results of the typical "rest cure" prescribed during that era and the narrator’s reaction to this course of treatment. It would appear that Gilman was writing about her own anguish as she herself underwent such a treatment with Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell in 1887, just two years after the birth of her daughter Katherine. The rest cure that the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" describes is very close to what Gilman herself experienced; therefore, the story can be read as reflecting the feelings of women like herself who suffered through such treatments. Because of her experience with the rest cure, it can even be said that Gilman based the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" loosely on herself. But I believe that expressing her negative feelings about the popular rest cure is only half of the message that Gilman wanted to send. Within the subtext of this story lies the theme of oppression: the oppression of the rights of women especially inside of marriage. Gilman was using the woman/women behind the wallpaper to express her personal views on this issue.
Gilman incorporates strong imagery throughout "The Yellow Wallpaper" to set the scene for the story and foreshadow the certain madness that is to come of the narrator. As the story progresses, so does the woman's declining mental status. An example of how imagery is used to display the inferiority of women is the fact that the woman in the story is confined to the old nursery room for most of her time. Gilman describes the room as "It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium...windows barred for little children" (Gilman 311). The woman focuses often on the wallpaper of the nursery. It is described as, "flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin..the color is repellent...a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight." The fact that she focuses so meticulously on the yellow wallpaper shows her crazed psyche. Later in the story, the narrator writes, "There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down...up and down and sideways they crawl...those absurd unblinking eyes everywhere" This makes the reader feel uneasy and explicitly details the madness of her neurosis.
This ‘insane’ act serves only to show how lost the narrator’s mind is. The narrator also reveals that she has a rope that she will use “if that woman does get out, and tries to get away, I can tie her” (236). The woman is a symbol of the narrator’s pre-nervous disorder personality. She essentially uses the statement to say that if the woman she once was escaping, she will hang herself. Finally, the story reaches its climax, in which John and the narrator have a final standoff in the now wall paperless bedroom (237).
The yellow wallpaper itself is one of the largest symbols in the story. It can be interpreted to symbolize many things about the narrator. The wallpaper symbolizes the mental block mean attempted to place on women during the 1800s. The color yellow is often associated with sickness or weakness, and the narrator’s mysterious illness is an example of the male oppression on the narrator. The wallpaper in fact makes the narrator more “sick” as the story progresses. The yellow wallpaper, of which the writer declares, “I never saw a worse paper in my life,” is a symbol of the mental screen that men attempted to enforce upon women. Gilman writes, “The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing” this is a symbolic metaphor for restrictions placed on women. The author is saying subliminally that the denial of equality for women by men is a “hideous” act, and that when men do seem to grant women some measure of that equality, it is often “unreliable.” The use of the words “infuriating” and “torturing” are also descriptions of the feelings of women in 19th century society.
The short story titled, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is given its name for no other reason than the disturbing yellow wallpaper that the narrator comes to hate so much; it also plays as a significant symbol in the story. The wallpaper itself can represent many various ideas and circumstances, and among them, the sense of feeling trapped, the impulse of creativity gone awry, and what was supposed to be a simple distraction transfigures into an unhealthy obsession. By examining the continuous references to the yellow wallpaper itself, one can begin to notice how their frequency develops the plot throughout the course of the story. As well as giving the reader an understanding as to why the wallpaper is a more adequate and appropriate symbol to represent the lady’s confinement and the deterioration of her mental and emotional health. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the color of the wallpaper symbolizes the internal and external conflicts of the narrator that reflect the expectations and treatment of the narrator, as well as represent the sense of being controlled in addition to the feeling of being trapped.
As her mental state begins to fade, her husband takes her to a mansion he is renting for the summer to keep her confined away from everyone else. She begins to find comfort in her writing and begins to become fascinated with the yellow wallpaper that surrounds her in the room. While the wallpaper is symbolic to her family, the color represents her mental health. The narrator stated “The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow turning sunlight.” When something has the color yellow it is due to decay like teeth. The wallpaper color showcases her mental state as she begins to go insane in this mansion. As the days go on, her mental state begins to decay and turn yellow, reflecting the color of the wallpaper. As the narrator begins to become mesmerized by the wallpaper, she notices a figure trapped inside it. After she spends days studying the wallpaper, the figure turns into a woman trapped inside the yellow wallpaper. This woman simply wants to be set free from the wallpaper just like the narrator wants to be set free from her metaphorical cage in the mansion. The next few
In the short story, “The Yellow-Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, many readers may only focus on the authors descriptions of how the narrator feels about the yellow wall-paper and interpret it as a depressed, distraught wife complaining about her life and how she does not like the yellow wall-paper. However, while the yellow wall-paper may be portrayed in that way on the surface, Gilman expresses one of her primary focuses as a writer through the symbol of the yellow-wallpaper. Gilman wrote many works about the unequal treatment and expression of women. As readers read deeper into the text, they will notice how the details of the yellow wall- paper actually represents pain and limitations the narrator endures throughout her marriage.