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The symbolism in the yellow wallpaper
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The symbolism in the yellow wallpaper
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Annie Deng ENG 101-L80 Essay 1 The Results of Patriarchic Suppression The "Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is an example of how women were repressed by society in the nineteenth century. The narrator is an upper-middle class woman who is likely to be suffering from post-partum depression, but due to an ineffective cure, she starts to go insane. The narrator’s husband, John, assumed that because he was a physician, he knew best and dominated her actions. She then retreats into her obsession with the wallpaper on the walls, the only thing she can control. Her craze for the wallpaper begins when she imagines a woman behind the bars, and eventually leads to her ripping the woman and the wallpaper off the walls completely, symbolizing her exit from oppression. The narrator’s eventual insanity was the result of the repression brought on by the patriarchic society and the suppression of her imaginative power. The authoritative voices of her husband and other doctors urge her to be voiceless and passive. John’s assumption of his own superior knowledge and maturity leads him to misjudge and control his wife, all in the name of helping her. He did not realize the severity of her condition and instructed her to instead take a break with the country air and so he isolates her. She was given the “rest cure” women were frequently prescribed in the nineteenth century; a time of complete isolation with no forms of creative outlets for the mind. The connection between the compliance of the narrator under her role in the family and under a doctor is clear- where her silent compliance had led to bad consequences. She states, "If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really no... ... middle of paper ... ...wallpaper was the mirror of her freedom from oppression. She continues to stride over her husband, suggesting that she was overstepping the patriarchy and what had controlled her in the past. Charlotte Gilman explained the requirement and use for self-expression by showing its importance to the protagonist. The message is clear that the oppressive nature of the nineteenth century and its patriarchic ways is not a healthy way for all members of a society to live. The restrictions of her every day creative and active duties caused her to be overly obsessive with the room she was encased in. It became evident that the more detailed her obsession became, the further she fell into her insanity. By symbolizing the protagonist’s descent into psychosis after the rest cure, Gilman illustrates that imagination and expressive freedom are important to every one of both sexes.
The windows are barred, symbolizing the restrictive nature of the narrator’s mental condition. She is imprisoned within her mind. Her room was once a nursery, symbolizing that she is helpless and dependent on her husband’s care, similar to how a parent is reliant on the care of it’s parents, “… for the windows are barred for little children,” (Gilman 2). The narrator is not only trapped by her own mind and mental condition, but her husband’s wishes and expectations as well. The most significant symbol within the story is the yellow wallpaper. Initially, the narrator only views the wallpaper as something unpleasant, but over time she becomes fascinated with it’s formless pattern and tries to figure out how it’s organized. She discovers a sub-pattern within in it in which she distinguishes as a barred change with the heads of women that have attempted to escape the wallpaper like the woman she has been “seeing” moving within the wallpaper, “And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern - it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads” (Gilman 8). The yellow wallpaper is symbolic of a women’s place in society within the nineteenth century. It was not commonplace, or deemed acceptable, for women to be financially independent and/or engage in intellectual activity. The wallpaper is symbolic of those economic, intellectual, and social restrictions women were held to, as well as the domestic lives they were expected to lead. The narrator is so restricted by these social norms that her proper name is never given within the story, her only identity is “John’s wife”. At the climax of the story, the narrator identifies completely with the woman in the wallpaper and believes that by tearing the wallpaper, both she and the woman would be freed of their domestic prisons, “…there are so many of those
The two common threads that connect Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the narrator in her story are depression/postpartum depression, and entrapment within their roles as of women. Specifically, Gilman and the narrator are trying to escape the function society has placed on them. First, after fulfilling their expected duties as wife and mother, both Gilman and the narrator become depressed after the birth of their child. It is this depression that leads them to the infamous rest cure...
“The Yellow Wallpaper:” a Symbol for Women As the narrator presents a dangerous and startling view into the world of depression, Charlotte Perkins Gilman introduces a completely revitalized way of storytelling using the classic elements of fiction. Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” combines a multitude of story elements that cannot be replicated. Her vast use of adjectives and horrifying descriptions of the wallpaper bring together a story that is both frightening and intensely well told. Using the story’s few characters and remote setting, Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents the wallpaper as both a representation of the narrator and the story’s theme, as well as a symbol for her descent into the abyss of insanity. As the story opens, the suspiciously unnamed narrator and her husband, John, temporarily move into a new home (226).
The story "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story about control. In the time frame in which the story was written, the 1800’s, women were looked upon as having no effect on society other than bearing children, maintaining a clean house, and food on the table etc. etc. There was really no means for self expression as a woman, when men not only dominated society but the world. The story was written at a time when men held the jobs, knowledge, and society above their shoulders. The narrator on, "The Yellow Wallpaper" in being oppressed by her husband, John, even though many readers believe this story is about a woman who loses her mind, it is actually about a woman’s struggle to regain, something which she never had before, control of her life.
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.
In the 19th century society was from different from what it is today. Women were not in the workforce, could not vote, or even have a say in anything. Women were not permitted to give evidence in court, nor, did they have the right to speak in public before an audience. When a woman married, her husband legally owned all she had (including her earnings, her clothes and jewelry, and her children). If he died, she was entitled to only a third of her husband’s estate. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wanted to change this. She wanted people to understand the plight of women in the 19th century. In her short story The Yellow Wallpaper she tries to convey this to the reader not just on a literal level, but through various symbols in the story. In The Yellow Wallpaper the author uses symbols to show restrictions on women, lack of public interaction, the struggle for equality, and the possibilities of the female sex during the 1800s.
She spends a long time looking at the wallpaper to try to figure out if it moves and how the patterns tangle together. The paper gets to the woman and eventually drives her to insanity. This wallpaper surrounds her and she can’t do anything but stare at it all day so she sees patterns and movement that no one else sees. “I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try.” This shows how much she wants to escape this room because all the things she's seen in the
...lor that made the woman despise it so very much. By being able to understand the various meanings behind the wallpaper the reader is able to fully comprehend the narrative behind the entire story and why her mental health keeps diminishing. The ending of the story reveals that the woman no longer only saw the woman in the walls at night; she began to believe that she actually was said woman.
"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.
"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.
On my first reading of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper", I found the short story extremely well done and the author, successful at getting her idea across. Gilman's use of imagery and symbolism only adds to the reality of the nameless main character's sheltered life and slow progression into insanity or some might say, out of insanity.
"The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, tells the story of a woman's descent into madness as a result of the "rest and ignore the problem cure" that is frequently prescribed to cure hysteria and nervous conditions in women. More importantly, the story is about control and attacks the role of women in society. The narrator of the story is symbolic for all women in the late 1800s, a prisoner of a confining society. Women are expected to bear children, keep house and do only as they are told. Since men are privileged enough to have education, they hold jobs and make all the decisions. Thus, women are cast into the prison of acquiescence because they live in a world dominated by men. Since men suppress women, John, the narrator's husband, is presumed to have control over the protagonist. Gilman, however, suggests otherwise. She implies that it is a combination of society's control as well as the woman's personal weakness that contribute to the suppression of women. These two factors result in the woman's inability to make her own decisions and voice opposition to men.
Though she acknowledges her husband’s affection towards her, and we come to believe John truly is well-intentioned, we can pick up on our narrator’s growing frustration in not having her wishes respected. Being both her husband and her physician, it is clear that John has the final say in things, which seems to make the protagonist’s depression and anxiety only intensify. As she informs us of how well Jennie takes care of her and the house, and how well Mary cares for the baby, it becomes clear she does not hold the same principles as they do. While she admires their dutifulness, our narrator longs for excitement and expression, things it seems Jennie and Mary give very little thought to, if any at all. It seems strange to our narrator to think that they could be content with such a life, but she bears this as a reflection on herself for not confining to the role society has for her, not as a reflection on women such as Jennie and Mary. As she lies in bed unable to sleep at night, she studies the wallpaper. She begins to develop an obsession with it, as she studies it to find some sort of organization, symmetry, or order for it being the way that it is.
The woman behind this work of literature portrays the role of women in the society during that period of time. "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a well written story describing a woman who suffers from insanity and how she struggles to express her own thoughts and feelings. The author uses her own experience to criticize male domination of women during the nineteenth century. Although the story was written fifty years ago, "The Yellow Wallpaper" still brings a clear message how powerless women were during that time.
The Yellow Wallpaper is overflowed with symbolism. Symbols are images that have a meaning beyond them selves in a short story, a symbol is a detail, a character, or an incident that has a meaning beyond its literal role in the narrative. Gilman uses symbols to tell her story of a woman's mental state of being diminishes throughout the story. The following paragraphs tell just some of the symbols and how I interpreted them, they could be read in many different ways.