In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Birthmark," the narrative unfolds around the central characters Aylmer and Georgiana. The story revolves around the human nature and relationships as Aylmer, the husband, becomes fixated on removing a birthmark on Georgiana's left cheek, viewing it as an imperfection. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," the protagonist is suffering from depression, is confined to a room by her physician husband, John. As she spends more time in isolation, she becomes increasingly obsessed with the wallpaper in the room, leading to a descent into madness. In Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace,” the narrative revolves around Madame Loisel, a woman who becomes consumed by her desire for wealth and status. When she …show more content…
The main character, Madame Loisel, is unhappy with her simple life and longs for the luxury she thinks will make her happy. "She was unhappy all the time...because she had no fine clothes and no jewels...she was never invited to balls or parties," Maupassant (1884). Madame Loisel's obsession with material goods is an example of the basic human need for wealth images to provide social approval. The story begins sadly at a ball when Madame Loisel loses the borrowed diamond jewelry. Fearing refusal from people and driven by pride, she and her husband make efforts to replace it, ending up in poverty. Years of suffering go on by Madame Loisel, who gives up her youth and beauty to pay back the debt. "She played her part...with sudden heroism...suffering silently and heroically," (Maupassant, 1884). Madame Loisel's journey highlights the fallout from arrogance and dishonesty as well as the adaptation that comes from hardship. In the end, "The Necklace" highlights the advantages of being calm and humble over the chase of proud wealth. Madame Loisel's dreams are crushed when it is discovered that the missing jewelry was only a fake, exposing the dumbness of her strong search for social position. Guy de Maupassant shows the importance of accepting one's situation with grace and enjoying life's small pleasures during her journey. Madame Loisel's realization is a moving reminder of …show more content…
It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper!" was how she expressed her views about being held. It reminds me of everything yellow I've ever seen—old, ugly yellow objects, not pretty yellow things like buttercups’ (Gilman). This powerful imagery shows the mental result of her being held and the negative feeling of her surroundings. The character's obsession with the wallpaper grows as her sense of loneliness grows, and she starts to transfer her own sense of feeling helpless. "Despite the wallpaper, I'm growing quite fond of the room," Gilman writes. Possibly as a result of the wallpaper (Gilman). Her husband's manipulation of her identity and her dismissing her worries and limiting her business is reflected in her elevation into sense. The wallpaper starts to represent her failing mental health and the people who are trying to limit what makes her different. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is eventually an effective attack of cultural race and a call for the freedom of women through the consideration of the female's path into madness. The protagonist confronts limits created by gender roles and social rules as she fights to establish her rights and recover herself. With a focus on the value of personal freedom and the struggle for freedom, Gilman's story forces people to face the harm that comes of the rule of men on women's lives. "The
“The Yellow Wallpaper” speaks of a woman who struggled of more than mere insanity, but also the pressures of life. Her life continuously seemed to weigh her down and she felt trapped by what was expected of her along with her mental disease. Her environment, marital relationship, and desire to escape her illness thrust Jane deeper into insanity. In the end Jane finds a way to truly escape her disease.
"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.
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
In “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant the character Madame Loisel was always longing for expensive possessions, larger
The Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an enigmatic read. The story is about a woman, the narrator, who is suffering with depression. John, the husband of the main character, will be the focus of this paper. Gilman wrote John’s character in such a way as to leave interpretation open to the reader. Some may perceive John as a caring, loving husband; treating his wife as men did during the era in which the story was written. John decides that his wife needs to be isolated; free of all responsibilities and stimulation. John’s wife disagrees with the decisions he has forced upon her. She feels “…that congenial work, with excitement and change…” would help her through her depressive state (Gilman 376). The narrator is told what would be best for her, what to
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a self-told story about a woman who approaches insanity. The story examines the change in the protagonist's character over three months of her seclusion in a room with yellow wallpaper and examines how she deals with her "disease." Since the story is written from a feminist perspective, it becomes evident that the story focuses on the effect of the society's structure on women and how society's values destruct women's individuality. In "Yellow Wallpaper," heroine's attempt to free her own individuality leads to mental breakdown.
Although both protagonists in the stories go through a psychological disorder that turns their lives upside down, they find ways to feel content once again. In Charlotte Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," a nervous wife, an overprotective husband, and a large, damp room covered in musty wallpaper all play important roles in driving the wife insane. Gilman's masterful use of not only the setting, both time and place, but also of first person point of view, allows the reader to process the woman's growing insanity. The narrator develops a very intimate relationship with the yellow wallpaper throughout the story, as it is her constant companion. Her initial reaction to it is a feeling of hatred; she dislikes the color and despises the pattern, but does not attribute anything peculiar to it. Two weeks into their stay she begins to project a sort of personality onto the paper, so she studies the pattern more closely, noticing for the first time “a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design” (Gilman). At this point, her madness is vague, but becoming more defined, because although the figure that she sees behind the pattern has no solid shape, she dwells on it and
Guy de Maupassant expresses his theme through the use of situational irony. Guy de Maupassant says, “She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her.”(De Maupassant). She is poor and thinks of herself too much and then he says "but she was as unhappy as though she had married beneath her; for women have no caste or class.”(De Maupassant). She wants more than she can get which will ruin her later in the story. When she lost the necklace by the end of the week they had lost all hope to find it. Loisel, who had aged five years, declared:
In Louis H. Sullivan’s article, “Thought,” he claims that our thoughts aren’t our own, but that they’re thoughts that other people have had. Sullivan’s article hits many points such as how the mind thinks, the written or spoken language, forms of communication etc. From discussing if we think in images or with words. He believes that people only need words as a spoken language but there are other ways to express yourself as well. He uses the example of music, painting and sculpture that are other ways of expressing yourself also by gestures or facial expression. How can our thoughts belong to someone else? Sometimes we do think alike with other people but our mind developed it on its own. Throughout his writing he claims that the things we
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
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," a nervous wife, an overprotective husband, and a large, dank room covered in musty wallpaper all play important parts in driving the wife insane. The husband's smothering attention, combined with the isolated environment, incites the nervous nature of the wife, causing her to plunge into insanity to the point she sees herself in the wallpaper. The author's masterful use of not only the setting (of both time and place), but also of first person point of view, allows the reader to participate in the woman's growing insanity.
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 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.
Guy de Maupassant is a realist whose claim to fame is the style in which he conveys political and socioeconomic themes in his literary publications. He achieves his writing style by putting small unfortunate life events under a spotlight. His literary performance is described in his biography from Cambridge, the writer says “He exposes with piercing clarity the small tragedies and pathetic incidents of everyday life, taking a clear-sighted though pessimistic view of humanity” (Halsey, par. 1). Guy de Maupassant’s story The Necklace is a great representation of the style he uses. In The Necklace the main character Mathilde Loisel a beautiful but impoverished woman married to a clerk is in conflict with her lack of wealth and desire to acquire
In the short story “The Necklace”, the main character, Loisel, is a woman who dreams of greater things in her life. She is married to a poor clerk who tries his best to make her happy no matter what. In an attempt to try to bring happiness to his wife, he manages to get two invitations to a very classy ball, but even in light of this Loisel is still unhappy. Even when she gets a new dress she is still unhappy. This lasts until her husband suggests she borrows some jewelry from a friend, and upon doing so she is finally happy. Once the ball is over, and they reach home, Loisel has the horrible realization that she has lost the necklace, and after ten years of hard labor and suffering, they pay off debts incurred to get a replacement. The central idea of this story is how something small can have a life changing effect on our and others life’s. This idea is presented through internal and external conflicts, third person omniscient point of view, and the round-dynamic character of Loisel. The third person limited omniscient point-of-view is prevalent throughout this short story in the way that the author lets the reader only see into the main character’s thoughts. Loisel is revealed to the reader as being unhappy with her life and wishing for fancier things. “She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries.” (de Maupassant 887) When her husband tries to fancy things up, “she thought of dainty dinners, of shining silverware, of tapestry which peopled the walls…” (de Maupassant 887) As the story goes on her point of view changes, as she “now knew the horrible existence of the needy. She took her part, moreover all of a sudden, with heroism.” (de Maupassant 891) Having the accountability to know that the “dreadful debt must be paid.” (de Maupassant 891 ) This point-of-view is used to help the reader gain more insight to how Loisel’s whole mindset is changed throughout her struggle to pay off their debts. Maupassant only reveals the thoughts and feelings of these this main character leaving all the others as flat characters. Loisel is a round-dynamic character in that Maupassant shows how she thought she was born in the wrong “station”. “She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was as unhappy as though she had really fallen from her proper station.