The Role Of Isolation In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

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In the late 1800s, the oppression of women was prevalent in American society. This idea is present throughout Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” where she portrays the story of an anonymous woman going through the rest cure based on her personal experience. The rest cure was supposed to be a cure for depressed women in which they were isolated for three months and told they could not do anything productive in hopes that getting enough rest would cure their depression. However, Gilman shows that this was anything but the case and that the rest cure actually caused problems more severe than what the victim first started with. In her work, Gilman shows to what extent women were oppressed in the 1800s by showing the …show more content…

At the beginning of the story, it is shown that the patient is “absolutely forbidden to ‘work’ until [she] is well again” (Gilman 1). This shows that the protagonist is not only isolated from the outside world while going through the rest cure, but is also isolated from any sort of stimulating activity, causing an obsession with the wallpaper. At first she finds the wallpaper to be horrifying, but eventually she becomes consumed by its patterns. The protagonist “[follows] that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics” (Gilman 2). She uses the wallpaper to try to create excitement for herself where there isn’t any, developing an addiction to it. Eventually, the obsession becomes so strong that she starts to see a woman in the wallpaper, a woman that “seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out” (Gilman 5). This shows great progression in her descent to madness at it displays how she is starting to imagine things. This woman in the wallpaper also epitomizes the protagonist’s own situation, showing that the madness caused by her isolation makes her desperately want to get out. To sum it up, the protagonist’s obsession with the yellow wallpaper is caused by isolation due to the fact that she finds the wallpaper to be the only source of excitement. Since the obsession with the wallpaper is a huge representation of the protagonist’s descent to madness, it is

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