Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow Wallpaper

945 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The yellow wallpaper analysis thesis

When the only way out of a society based prison is to lose sense of all reality, then losing sense of reality it shall be. In the short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Jane (the narrator) becomes obsessed with the wall-paper in her bedroom, which really is a prison that has been forced on her by her husband. Jane is an imaginative young lady who enjoys writing stories, however her husband forbids her to write. Jane is suffering from a nervous condition and her husband, who is also her doctor, feels he knows what is best to keep his wife from going mad. This leaves Jane trapped in a room with no imaginative outlet, surrounded by the god awful wall-paper that begins to close in on her sanity one day at a time. …show more content…

Jane’s husband does not allow her to write because he feels that with her imaginative power and nervous condition it would lead to fancy. “John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies” (Gilman 649) without her outlet of writing Jane begins to see women in the wall-paper creeping around from the inside of the wall-paper to the outside in the gardens. She also feels that the women are trapped behind the first layer of design on the paper as if it was bars keeping them trapped. “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as is she wanted to get out. I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move.” (Gilman 652) Jane also begins to believe that the wall-paper know what it was doing to her “This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!” (Gilman 653) Jane starts to relate to the women being trapped in the paper and like she is trapped with-in the bedroom. Jane becomes one with the women in the wallpaper and referrers to the women as I. Jane begins creeping along the baseboards trying to release the women from their prison of wall-paper, which will release her from her

Show More
Related

  • The Narrator of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Short Story, The Yellow Wallpaper

    565 Words  | 2 Pages

    In everyday day life we go through changes and sometimes we even break down to the point we do not know what to do with ourselves, but in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story” The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator is an obsessive person. The story focuses on a woman who is going through postpartum depression and has had a nervous breakdown. Her husband John moves her into a home where he wants her to rest in isolation to recover from her disorder. Throughout her time in the room the narrator discovers new things and finally understands life.

    Read More

  • Patriarchal Society In The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Gilman

    737 Words  | 2 Pages

    The wallpaper or as is referred by the narrator as “the Paper” since the narrator (Jane) was repressed by taking her books and dairy away, is not a great stretch of imagination to posit that the paper become her text. Jane’s mind turn to her surroundings and settles upon the wallpaper as an intellectual challenge. Is not a coincidence that the woman in the wallpaper is trapped behind a pattern we can said that the social norm and more as types of patterns that metaphorically restrict our movements. The woman whom Jane imagines she sees trapped behind a pattern is simply a more direct representation of the metaphorical restriction.

    Read More

  • The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

    1488 Words  | 3 Pages

    would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper

    Read More

  • The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

    457 Words  | 1 Pages

    “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out.” The woman had started seeing another female in the wallpaper, imprisoned behind bars and shaking the paper to be freed. The wallpaper began depreciating, and so did the conquering influence that male hierarchy forced on women. Women arose to reason out of line, be conscious of their overthrow, and conflict patriarchal statute. The development of the yellow wallpaper and the narrator, within the story, indicates to a triumph over John.

    Read More

  • Self Discovery In The Yellow Wallpaper

    1080 Words  | 3 Pages

    As a result, women were stuck at home, usually alone, until their husbands got home. In the story, Jane is at home staring at the wallpaper in her room. The wallpaper’s color is described by Jane as being “repellent, almost revolting” (3) and the pattern is “torturing” and “like a bad dream” (10). The description of the wallpaper represents Jane’s and all women’s thoughts about the ideologies and rules upheld by men prior to the First World War. It is made evident that this wallpaper represents the screen made up of men’s ideologies at the time caging in women. Jane is subconsciously repelled by this screen and represents her discovering continuously figuring out what she wants. Metaphorically, Jane is trapped in that room by a culture established by men. Furthermore, Jane compares the wallpaper’s pattern to bars putting further emphasis on her feelings of being trapped and helpless. Later in the narrative, she catches Jennie staring at the wallpaper’s pattern and then decides to study the pattern and determine what it means herself. Her study of the pattern is representative of her trying to analyze the situation in which she’s in. By studying the pattern, she progressively discovers herself, especially when she sees the woman behind the

    Read More

  • Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

    545 Words  | 2 Pages

    The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman has a very negative tone towards the treatment of mental patients in the late nineteenth century.

    Read More

  • The Yellow Wallpaper Interpretation Essay

    1052 Words  | 3 Pages

    Because her husband, John, does not take her illness seriously and neglects to get her out of the house, her mind cannot take it and she loses her sanity. It should be clear to the reader, since she thinks she and the imaginary woman has worked together to pull the wallpaper down that she believes the women in the yellow wallpaper and she are both trapped and are both working together to escape. (200) Likewise, when she tells John, “I got out at last”, and, “in spite of you and jane! And I pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back”, By her saying this to John tells you she thinks she is free, because she has torn down the yellow wallpaper. She is no longer saying anything about a woman being in the wallpaper, because in her mind, she is now the

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

    914 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 19th Century, there were a lot of short stories were written about psychology. One of the most demanded stories was “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman which was a short story about a woman named Jane who was having psychological problems about her life. The story is kind of parallel to problems she had in her life too. That’s why the can be examined three main ways: Nineteenth-century psychology, how she used imagery and rhetorical devices, and protagonist-author relationship.

    Read More

  • The Yellow Wall Paper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

    987 Words  | 2 Pages

    The “Yellow Wall Paper “ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a chilling study and experiment of mental disorder in nineteenth century. This is a story of a miserable wife, a young woman in anguish, stress surrounding her in the walls of her bedroom and under the control of her husband doctor, who had given her the treatment of isolation and rest. This short story vividly reflects both a woman in torment and oppression as well as a woman struggling for self expression.

    Read More

  • The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

    759 Words  | 2 Pages

    Realism in literature refers to the depiction of events or ideas using pragmatic rules, and presenting those events or ideas in a realistic nature without embellishment or exaggeration. This style of literature was prominent in much of Europe and the United States during the 19th century. In this essay I will argue that American author Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses elements of realism in her semi-autobiographical short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” to shed light on the issue of women oppression during the late 19th century, thus becoming a paramount piece of American literature.

    Read More

  • The Relationship of The Yellow Wallpaper to the Life of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

    1118 Words  | 3 Pages

    "If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression -- a slight hysterical tendency -- what is one to do?" (Gilman 1). Many women in the 1800's and 1900's faced hardship when it came to standing up for themselves to their fathers, brothers and then husbands. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator of the story, "The Yellow Wallpaper", is married to a physician, who rented a colonial house for the summer to nurse her back to health after her husband thinks she has neurasthenia, but actually suffers from postpartum depression. He suggested the 'rest cure'. She should not be doing any sort of mental or major physical activity, her only job was to relax and not worry about anything. Charlotte was a writer and missed writing. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is significant to literature in the sense that, the author addresses the issues of the rest cure that Dr. S. Weir Mitchell prescribed for his patients, especially to women with neurasthenia, is ineffective and leads to severe depression. This paper includes the life of Charlotte Perkins Gilman in relation to women rights and her contribution to literature as one of her best short story writings.

    Read More

  • Emergence of Feminism in Late 19th Century America

    1174 Words  | 3 Pages

    The narrator suffers from mental illness, but she told to be passive of her troubles. Authoritative insight from her husband and family tell her to live a life of domesticity in order to feel better, but the narrator speculates “that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do [her] good” (Gilman). These clashing mindsets showcase the standards of both genders during this time period believing that men are the superior gender and know better than women. As the narrator spends her days being confined in the house, her focus shifts to the wallpaper. In the wallpaper, she observes a woman “trying to climb through,” but ultimately failing to get beyond the pattern (Gilman). This refers to all of the women who were trapped within society and felt that there was no way out of their domestic lives. The narrator is eventually able to free herself from her mind, exemplified when she writes, “there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did?” (Gilman). She is finally liberated and can see the whole situation once she is freed. Many women in society were trapped, whether it was due to mental illness or due to being women. In fact, Gilman wrote an article in the October

    Read More

  • Isolation In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

    694 Words  | 2 Pages

    The narrator first shares her thoughts with us that, “I never saw a worse paper in my life”, (paragraph 33), by sharing her distaste in it and how it gave her an eerie feeling. Over time, the narrator became obsessed, somewhat possessive of the wallpaper and what it entailed. She started off by just starting at its’ patterns and it would infuriate her. Then, she starts to see a figure of a woman, (paragraph 124). In paragraph 130, she sees the faint figure shake the pattern as if it wants to get out. The figure is Jane’s psychotic persona wanting to escape. She starts getting possessive of the wallpaper when she catches John and Jennie either looking at it or touching it (paragraphs 162-165). She also starts to turn against them as if they are trying to steal the wallpaper from her. At the end of the story, starting from paragraph 194, she claims she had seen the woman only during the daytime and never at night. During the next entry, she wants to free the woman figure and she starts ripping off the paper and starts to creep. The wallpaper overall represented her insanity and what was going on in her head as she remained in the house. Towards the end of the story she just became

    Read More

  • The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

    1150 Words  | 3 Pages

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper in 1890 about her experience in a psychiatric hospital. The doctor she had prescribed her “the rest cure” to get over her condition (Beekman). Gilman included the name of the sanitarium she stayed at in the piece as well which was named after the doctor that “treated” her. The short story was a more exaggerated version of her month long stay at Weir Mitchell and is about a woman whose name is never revealed and she slowly goes insane under the watch of her doctor husband and his sister (The Yellow Wallpaper 745). Many elements of fiction were utilized by Gilman in this piece to emphasize the theme freedom and confinement. Three of the most important elements are symbolism, setting and character.

    Read More

  • Feminist Narratology in Charlotte Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

    2446 Words  | 5 Pages

    (Lanser , 2008) describes one of the main views of feminist criticism as being ‘that narrative texts ... are profoundly ( if never simply) referential’. Semiotics in relation to verbal language is described by Herman as 'a conventional relation between signifier and signified' (p281) One way of combining the mimetic and semiotic is to look at the conventions in the semiotics of verbal language ‘which suggests a synthesis of feminist narratology reflecting the referential or mimetic as well as the semiotic experience of reading literature’. (Lanser, 2008 , p. 345)

    Read More

More about Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow Wallpaper

Open Document