Symbolism In Charlotte Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

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The Misogynist Wallpaper As American society progresses, so do the cultural expectations held for women. However, during the 1800s, women were viewed as inferior and were all together categorized under the domineering man. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Gilman uses irony, dialect, point of view, and symbolism to illustrate the theme—dangers of subordination of women in marriage, and also the demonization of women in society all together. In the opening of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator describes the setting, but gives very little about herself. “It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer” (Gilman 376). It can only be assumed the narrator is a woman because [she] is married …show more content…

It starts off small, with the obvious allusions to the summer house as being an abandoned mental asylum, with the “gates that lock”, and the room that Charlotte occupies where the “windows are barred”, and “It is stripped off—the paper—in great patches” that is “a smoldering unclean yellow” (Gilman 377). The oblivious narrator misses the evident implications that this room used to house a mental patient—and it is now housing another. A different symbol is the journal the narrator writes in; it shows how intellectual she really is, and how despite her physician’s orders, Charlotte knows that would really cure her. Although John has specifically told her not to exercise her imagination, the self-expression in her journal is the only way she can fully communicate. Charlotte already feels guilty because she wants to be “a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already!” (Gilman 378). He has also denied her visits from her “stimulating” friends, and so the only outlet Charlotte has left is the ‘dead paper’ journal. By taking away his wife’s mental stimulation (her journal) and her ‘right’ to fanaticize, he is ultimately diminishing her as a person, by implying that she is not worthy of such luxuries. By continuing to write in the journal and rebelling against him in secret, Charlotte is an image of present day feminism—not subsiding to patriarchal …show more content…

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