Ignorance In 'The Yellow Wallpaper'

1753 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How does the author use symbolism in the yellow wallpaper

Ever wonder how if there was such option, would humans in the world tend to have knowledge of their death and plan out their last days or rather not know and face a sudden death?Ignorance is defined as lack of information or knowledge. Knowledge is defined as facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education in life. Many in the world are unaware of information either because they are too innocent or naive to understand and process the information or are considered a minority in the society. Jane, the narrator of the “Yellow Wallpaper”, was an unaware woman because of both of the conditions. She is trapped by the symbolic hell that is society, treated as a child, and suppressed against her will .In 19th century, …show more content…

Jane just watching and observing John laugh at her opinions/beliefs represent her as powerless to attempt to gain the respect of others and lack of decision-making ability to take a stand for herself. As the story continues Jane notices a woman in the wallpaper in the room, John had placed her,being trapped and struggling to escape to which she soon realizes to be herself. Jane mentions how after being the room for a while she starts to"see her...creeping all around the garden ... I don't blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping ... I always lock the door when I creep.... I can't do it...I know John would suspect something at once (Gilman 54-55).Jane sees her own self in the woman she imagined in the wallpaper. Her humiliation of creeping is having the freedom to think for herself and holding desires to which John has made her believe it as “wrongdoings”.The fact that she says she must “lock her door” shows that she is afraid of her husband finding her out and putting a stop to what she feels is her only comfort. She notices the women struggling to escape the prison that seems bright and colorful from outside but in reality is a dark prison trapping her to touch freedom.

Show More
Related

  • The Battle between Heart and Head

    547 Words  | 2 Pages

    From the introduction of Jane’s orphan life, she battles between her ire at cousin John’s antics and obedie...

    Read More

  • Lack Of Control In The Yellow Wallpaper, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

    1394 Words  | 3 Pages

    The narrator finally achieves an authoritative position in her marriage, with John unconscious and her creative imagination finally free of all restraints. Her continual “creeping” over his prone body serves as a repeated emphasis of this liberation, almost as if the narrator chooses to climb over him to highlight his inferiority over and over again” (Harrison). John was a weak person, Jane suffered from a nervous disorder which was made way worse by the feelings of being trapped in a room. The setting of the nursery room with barred windows in a colonial mansion provides an image of the loneliness and seclusion she experienced. Periods of time can lead to insanity. Maybe her illness wasn’t that bad but he made it worse on her part because he was a sick husband. Some critics have argued “Is the narrator really liberated? We’re inclined towards saying “no”, given that she’s still creeping around the room and that her psyche is broken”

    Read More

  • Yellow Wallpaper Misfit Analysis

    1972 Words  | 4 Pages

    She must take note of the woman that she sees in the pattern to make sense of its mysteriousness: “Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard.” Not only is this woman that is a core part of the misfit held in some sort of prison, so is Jane. In the “bright spots”, in view of her husband and other people, she must “stay still” and pretend she is alright. However, in the “shady spots”, when she is alone, Jane allows herself to let go and, thanks to the misfit, is able to be aware of the bars that surround her own life. This exact woman and the misfit that she is a part of, is the exact reason why Jane is even given the opportunity to escape the prison that makes up her current reality. The misfit, the yellow wallpaper, even lets the woman inside of it out of its grasp during the day: “It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight.” Just as the misfit is abnormal and doesn’t conform, this woman shares the same traits and she has become a part of the misfit. Jane is aware of the fact that creeping by daylight is abnormal, just like the misfit. In the beginning Jane most likely would not have accepted this behavior. Now Jane even admits to creeping, just not in plain sight.

    Read More

  • The Fight for Sanity in The Yellow Wallpaper

    1752 Words  | 4 Pages

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper is partly autobiographical and it illustrates the fight for selfhood by a women in an oppressed and oppressive environment.  In the story, the narrator is not allowed to write or think, basically becoming more dysfunctional as she is entrapped in a former nursery room where bars adorn the windows and the bed is nailed to the floor.  In this story there is an obstinacy on behalf of the narrator as she tries to go around her husband's and physician's restrictions, however, there is no resisting the oppressive nature of her environment and she finally surrenders to madness even though it represents some kind of selfhood and resistance because it allows her to escape her oppression, "She obsesses about the yellow wallpaper, in which she sees frightful patterns and an imprisoned female figure trying to emerge.  The narrator finally escapes from her controlling husband and the intolerable confines of her existence by a final descent into insanity as she peels the wallpaper off and bars her husband from the room" (Gilman, 1999, 1).

    Read More

  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bornte

    924 Words  | 2 Pages

    When we first meet Jane she is a young and orphaned girl with little self-confidence and hope of feelings a sense of belonging and self worth. It is unfair that Jane already feels lonely and desperate in such a cruel world as it is. Jane is open with her thoughts during her narration, “…humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed” (Bronte 7). Jane already feels as though she cannot participate in everyday activities because she acknowledges that she is a weaker person. By Jane believing she is weak she is succumbing to her own entrapment. The novel opens with Jane feeling inadequate about going on a walk with her cousins and the novel ends with Jane embarking on a journey of her very own, this is not a coincidence.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Delusion In The Yellow Wallpaper

    1140 Words  | 3 Pages

    As the reader knows, Jane does most of her sneaking around at night when her husband is not around because she knows he would not approve. Jane begins to make it her life’s mission to free the woman trapped behind the pattern of the wallpaper, which could be interpreted as society holding the woman back from freedom. Jane becomes rather obsessed with the wallpaper and taking it down from the walls. She becomes very sneaky and secluded to the room where she watches for the woman to appear behind the

    Read More

  • St. John and Jane Eyre

    2080 Words  | 5 Pages

    Because Jane is the narrator, the reader is given a biased point of view that St. John’s character is unfavorable. Throughout Jane’s life she has had oppressive male figures dominate her life, such as John Reed and Mr. Brocklehurst. Thus, Jane can condition herself to be apprehensive when confronting men. After gaining her physical and emotional strength, Jane studies St. John’s character. Jane’s first impression of St. John is pessimistic, she states “Had he been a statue instead of a man, he could not have been easier”(Bronte 329).

    Read More

  • An Atmosphere of Uncertainty of Confusion in The Yellow Wallpaper

    1067 Words  | 3 Pages

    “ I have watched John when he did not know I was looking, and come

    Read More

  • The Yellow Wallpaper Essay

    1706 Words  | 4 Pages

    MacPike, Loralee. "Environment as Psychopathological Symbolism in 'The Yellow Wallpaper.’” Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, edited by Thomas J. Schoenberg, vol. 201, Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center, go.galegroup.com.gmclibrary.idm.oclc.org/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&sw=w&u=mill30389&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CH1420082948&asid=562f132388d74c4bd92439b5842a2fe7. Accessed 25 Oct. 2017.

    Read More

  • The Self-confidence of Jane in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

    601 Words  | 2 Pages

    At the beginning of the novel while Jane is living under her aunt, Mrs. Reed, she is treated disrespectfully and cruelly.  She accuses Jane of being deceitful and a troublesome girl in front of Mr. Brocklehurst, the master of Lowood School.  Jane is so hurt by this accusation that she cannot stop herself from defending her well being, and she stands up to her aunt.  She knows she is being treated disrespectful and has much more self-worth than ...

    Read More

  • Jane Eyre Obstacles and Love

    1468 Words  | 3 Pages

    thinks of her as burden, and low life. Jane is forced to live with her

    Read More

  • The Deeper Meaning of The Yellow Wallpaper

    1250 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Comparing The Yellow Wallpaper And Sigmund Freud's The Uncanny

    1142 Words  | 3 Pages

    She first sees a confusing pattern and as she follows the pattern she sees a woman behind the wallpaper. The narrator describes the woman in the wallpaper as a ‘creeper’ and also admits that she has same habit of creeping as well. “I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines. I don 't blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight ! I always lock the door when I creep by daylight” (Stetson 654). Throughout the story, ‘creep’ becomes the narrator’s favored adjective for describing how she feels and how she personifies the woman behind the wallpaper. Apart from creeping the other characteristics of women behind the wallpaper such as being plain, trapped and insane are also very likewise to the characteristics of the narrator. In Freud 's understanding the concept of the ‘double’ is that the self becomes confounded, or the foreign self is substituted for his own in other words, by doubling, dividing and interchanging the self (Freud 9). To get away from feeling imprisoned the narrator invented the “creeping women” in her mind and pictured it in the wallpaper to cope with her anxiety and

    Read More

  • Yellow Wallpaper Postpartum Depression

    970 Words  | 2 Pages

    But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!” (Gilaman 368) you can see a lot. Many people seem to believe that the woman compared herself to Jane. In addition you see that she finally is at ease after being stressed out the whole story. She feels some type of freedom that she has never felt before.

    Read More

  • Jane Eyre Essay on Social Class

    569 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jane is always being reminded that she is poor, and that is not very helpful, she is also always reminded that she is alone and her aunt and her cousins consider her to be of a lower class, due to the fact that she will not inherit any money. Jane thinks that she beneath everyone, even the people who are in the same household, who are all of a low social class, though in reality, she is above all the individuals in the house. Aunt Reed and others just seem to shove these horrible ideas down Jane’s throat, even when they are not true.

    Read More

More about Ignorance In 'The Yellow Wallpaper'

Open Document