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Analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper
Analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper
Analysis on the yellow wallpaper
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To seek a worthwhile life, one must seek self-fulfillment . The female character in The Yellow Wallpaper desires to become more of what she can be in life and breaking free from oppression so she is able to secure the satisfaction of self-fulfillment. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Stetson draws on the idea that self-fulfillment is a desired need, however the means to securing it may not itself be desired. In other words, the cost to secure self-fulfillment may be arduous and require risks that may be too great for an individual to endure. The author uses elements of character development, symbolism and theme to portray this perilous struggle for self-fulfillment that inspires readers on many levels. Stetson’s character in The Yellow Wallpaper comes to want more of what her character potentially is. She did not feel self-fulfilled in her domestic role of wife and mother. This contrasted to her sister-in-law Jennie, who is described as a “perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession.” (p.650) While Stetson’s character happily gives up her domestic functions to Jennie, she is initially passive in her attempt to secure the satisfaction of self-fulfillment: “I did write for a while…. but it does exhaust me a good deal – having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.” (p. 648). Secretly writing in her journal proves to be arduous for the protagonist. Her character, mentally weak and fragile and with no desirable means to be self-fulfilled, succumbs to everything her physician/husband says because “what is one to do?” (p. 638) She is pressured to agree to a “rest cure” for her nervous disorder, although she intuitively knows that this treatment stands in the... ... middle of paper ... ...ons in the shadows, hoping that their need for self-fulfillment is stifled. Stetson uses the element of theme as she critiques the women who fail an attempt to realize self-fulfillment simply because the journey is too much to bear. The beauty of Stetson’s The Yellow Wallpaper is that even the most doomed and oppressed character can succeed in securing self-fulfillment. In the face of seemingly pervasive and inescapable oppression, the story ends with the protagonist’s asserting more and more of her creative self. Through elements of character development, symbolism and theme, the author portrays that the means to self-fulfillment is not a desirable process in itself. Readers of Stetson’s text are inspired to think that it is up them to remove those last “bits of wallpaper that remain on the wall,” knowing full well that it may be a perilous process.
Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. “A Feminist Reading of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.” The Story and Its Writer. Ann Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. Print.
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
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, is a first-person narrative written in the style of a journal. It takes place during the nineteenth century and depicts the narrator’s time in a temporary home her husband has taken her to in hopes of providing a place to rest and recover from her “nervous depression”. Throughout the story, the narrator’s “nervous condition” worsens. She begins to obsess over the yellow wallpaper in her room to the point of insanity. She imagines a woman trapped within the patterns of the paper and spends her time watching and trying to free her. Gilman uses various literary elements throughout this piece, such as irony and symbolism, to portray it’s central themes of restrictive social norms
Have you at any point been secured a dim wardrobe? You grab about attempting to feel the doorknob, stressing to see a thin light emission originating from underneath the entryway. As the obscurity expends you, you feel as though you will choke. There is a vibe of powerlessness and misery. Forlornness, caused by persecution, resembles a similar haziness that surpasses its casualty. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in "The Yellow Wallpaper," describes the account of a youthful mother who goes to a mid-year home to "rest" from her apprehensive condition. Her room is an old nursery secured with terrible, yellow backdrop. The additional time she burns through alone, the more she winds up plainly fixated on the backdrop's examples. She starts to envision a lady in jail in the paper. At last, she loses her rational soundness and trusts that she is the lady in the backdrop, attempting to get away. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the author utilizes setting and imagery to recommend that detaining persecution causes a kind of depression (in ladies) that can prompt a lethal type of madness.
Stetson made it clear in “The Yellow Wallpaper” that women in the Victorian era were portrayed less than men. In contrast, Stetson also makes it clear to readers that no certain gender role determines the abilities of men and women. While the narrator struggles with clinical depression, she strives to free herself of her husband’s authority over her. As Stetson, a feminist conveys the difficult hardships women went through during this time, and she was desired to change the society of women
Also, the paper will discuss how ignoring oneself and one’s desires is self-destructive, as seen throughout the story as the woman’s condition worsens while she is in isolation, in the room with the yellow wallpaper, and at the same time as her thoughts are being oppressed by her husband and brother. In the story, the narrator is forced to tell her story through a secret correspondence with the reader since her husband forbids her to write and would “meet [her] with heavy opposition” should he find her doing so (390). The woman’s secret correspondence with the reader is yet another example of the limited viewpoint, for no one else is ever around to comment or give their thoughts on what is occurring. The limited perspective the reader sees through her narration plays an essential role in helping the reader understand the theme by showing the woman’s place in the world. At the time the story was written, women were looked down upon as being subservient beings compared to men....
“The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the story of a woman who is trapped in a room covered in yellow wallpaper. The story is one that is perplexing in that the narrator is arguably both the protagonist as well as the antagonist. In the story, the woman, who is the main character, struggles with herself indirectly which results in her descent into madness. The main conflicts transpires between the narrator and her husband John who uses his power as a highly recognize male physician to control his wife by placing limitations on her, forcing her to behave as a sick woman. Hence he forced himself as the superior in their marriage and relationship being the sole decision make. Therefore it can be said what occurred externally resulted in the central conflict of” “The Yellow Wallpaper being internal. The narrator uses the wallpaper as a symbol of authenticy. Hence she internalizes her frustrations rather then openly discussing them.
In the 19th century, women were not seen in society as being an equal to men. Men were responsible for providing and taking care of the family while their wives stayed at home not allowed leaving without their husbands. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman writes about a woman named Jane who is trapped by society’s cage and tries to find herself. Throughout the story, the theme of self-discovery is developed through the symbols of the nursery, the journal and the wallpaper.
They are written during a time period when women were not viewed as important as men. The narrator from the yellow wallpaper is suffering from post-natal depression and has been recommended the rest of her cure by her husband and her brother, both physicians. Instead of curing her, it worsened her condition. The protagonist did try to convince her husband about what she would prefer, but she could not overcome the powerful authority figure. The narrator is restricted from working, writing, which leads to her obsession with the yellow wallpaper and suffocates her into madness.
Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells her readers the story of a woman desperate to be free. Gilman’s use of symbolism is nothing short of brilliant in telling the story of a new mother suffering from postpartum depression and fighting her way through societies ideas of what a woman should be. When her husband, John, also known as her physician, tells her nothing is wrong with her mind, at first she believes him because she knows that society tells her she should. However, with her husband’s misdiagnosis, or attempt to keep his wife sane for the sake of their reputation, comes a short journey into madness for his wife, Jane. Jane’s downward spiral, as one may call it, turns out to be not so downward when the reader
The central characters in both “The Yellow Wallpaper” and A Doll’s House are fully aware of their niche in society. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator’s husband believes her illness to be a slight depression, and although she states "personally, I disagree with their ideas,” she knows she must acquiesce their requests anyway (Gilman 1). She says, “What is one to do?” (Gilman 1) The narrator continues to follow her husband’s ideals, although she knows them to be incorrect. She feels trapped in her relationship with her husband, as she has no free will and must stay in the nursery all day. She projects these feelings of entrapment onto the yellow wallpaper. She sees a complex and frustrating pattern, and hidden in the pattern are herself and othe...
Advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men, Charlotte Perkins Gilman speaks to the “female condition” in her 1892 short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by writing about the life of a woman and what caused her to lose her sanity. The narrator goes crazy due partially to her prescribed role as a woman in 1892 being severely limited. One example is her being forbidden by her husband to “work” which includes working and writing. This restricts her from begin able to express how she truly feels. While she is forbidden to work her husband on the other hand is still able to do his job as a physician. This makes the narrator inferior to her husband and males in general. The narrator is unable to be who she wants, do what she wants, and say what she wants without her husband’s permission. This causes the narrator to feel trapped and have no way out, except through the yellow wallpaper in the bedroom.
In "The Yellow Wallpaper", a story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the conflict centers around the protagonist's inability to maintain her sanity in a society that does not recognize her as an individual. Her husband and brother both exert their own will over hers, forcing her to conform to their pre-set impression an appropriate code of behavior for a sick woman. She has been given a "schedule prescription for each hour in the day; [John] takes all care from me" (155). This code of behavior involves virtually no exertion of her own free-will. Rather, she is expected to passively accept the fact that her own ideas are mere fancy, and only the opinions of the men in her life can be trusted. She is expected to take their own uninformed opinions on her mental state over her own. While "Wallpaper" presents a powerful argument in favor of the feminist movement, the true issue behind the conflict is even more fundamental: the resiliency of human will in the face of social negation.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins-Gilman explores the oppression of women in the nineteenth century and the constant limitation of their freedom, which many times led to their confinement. The short story illustrates male superiority and the restriction of a woman’s choice regarding her own life. The author’s diction created a horrific and creepy tone to illustrate the supernatural elements that serve as metaphors to disguise the true meaning of the story. Through the use of imagery, the reader can see that the narrator is living within a social class, so even though the author is trying to create a universal voice for all women that have been similar situations, it is not possible. This is not possible because there are many
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.