In the “The Yellow Wall-paper,” the author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, writes about a struggling mentally ill woman, named Jane, trying to work through her individuality and her own depression. This story is centered around her bedroom, her mental state, and the yellow wall-paper on the walls in her room. The reader can easily feel the pain, anguish, despair, and struggles of a woman going through a depressive state. Gilman writes about the individual succession of the woman’s mental state through the disarray of the patterned yellow wall-paper. The theme of feminism is exposed by the main characters use of language, her feelings of inferiority, mental struggles, and anger. The language of the narrator in this story is repressive to women, from the beginning and all the way to the end of the story. In the beginning of the story, the language of the narrator appears in a few ways. The ill woman is forbidden by her husband to write in her journal until she is well, to compensate for the loss of work. She feels constricted by her husband to speak freely and writes in a hidden journal. Gilman writes “I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind” (808). Sad and true, but she doesn’t feel that she can tell her husband how she really feels and “the only safe language is dead language” (Theichler 61). The language of male judgment and control is predominant in the beginning of the story too. Her husband and brother both are physicians, diagnose her with a nervous condition, and both believe she will be fine with medicine and rest. The men in her life believe she should not work, and they emphasize that she “take phosphates or phosphites--whichever it is--and tonics, and journeys,... ... middle of paper ... ...the wall-paper torn from the wall, and he finds the woman creeping about the room, and faints. The narrator declares, “I’ve got out at last,” said I, “in spite of you and Jane! And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back” (Gilman 819). The narrator finally wins the battle of escaping her imprisonment of John the controlling husband. Jane is finally free of her depression and of her husband’s dominance. It temporarily cost her, her sanity to the point where images were being projected from the yellow wall-paper. The paper was a part of Jane’s neurosis, but also crept into the entire household. In order to cope with the madness Jane found her inner self is an image of a creeping woman trying to escape the patterned wall-paper. In order to escape her suppression, Jane immersed herself further into her insanity to become sane once again.
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.
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
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s "The Yellow Wall-Paper," does more than just tell the story of a woman who suffers at the hands of 19th century quack medicine. Gilman created a protagonist with real emotions and a real psych that can be examined and analyzed in the context of modern psychology. In fact, to understand the psychology of the unnamed protagonist is to be well on the way to understanding the story itself. "The Yellow Wall-Paper," written in first-person narrative, charts the psychological state of the protagonist as she slowly deteriorates into schizophrenia (a disintegration of the personality).
“The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out.” The woman had started seeing another female in the wallpaper, imprisoned behind bars and shaking the paper to be freed. The wallpaper began depreciating, and so did the conquering influence that male hierarchy forced on women. Women arose to reason out of line, be conscious of their overthrow, and conflict patriarchal statute. The development of the yellow wallpaper and the narrator, within the story, indicates to a triumph over John.
During that time, Mental illness and depression was not generally understood. Outspoken women were diagnosed with "hysteria" and put on bed rest. The woman gradually goes insane when she is put on bed rest for all hours of everyday. It is a criticism of a medical practice that was created solely for women, which is one reason for it being considered a feminist story. She was thought to be delicate and predisposed to emotional outbreaks. The story explains that the bed rest and the views that supplement such a practice, is what makes women hysterical.
There are multiple possible causes for the internal conflict the narrator faces. The first being nervous depression and the other is the fact that her life is being controlled by her husband. Her husband is in full control because in the beginning of the story, John, her husband, influences how she should act. He decides the actions that should be taken in regards to her health and sanctity. Although she finds herself disagreeing with his synopsis, she is confined and does not admit how she feels to him. This also brings about another a major conflict that occurred in the 19th century, men being dominant and woman being categorized as inferior. Evidence can be found when the narrator states, “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband assures friends and relatives that there is nothing the matter with o...
Right from the beginning of the story, it becomes clear that the protagonist has no voice. Her husband is very controlling and oppressive since she has to ask him for permission to do anything. He prohibits her of writing and seeing people she loves, assuming he is the only one who knows what's best for her. The fact that he's a physician emphasizes that he is a man in power and that it would be impossible for the narrator to object to the treatment he prescribed her. Moreover, she doesn't try to disobey him, but rather she hides her true feelings inside and suppresses her emotions around him, so he wouldn't send her away for more serious treatment.
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.
Sometimes trying to conform to society’s expectations becomes extremely overwhelming, especially if you’re a woman. Not until recent years have woman become much more independent and to some extent equalized to men. However going back to the 19th century, women were much more restrained. From the beginning we perceive the narrator as an imaginative woman, in tune with her surroundings. The narrator is undoubtedly a very intellectual woman. Conversely, she lives in a society which views women who demonstrate intellectual potential as eccentric, strange, or as in this situation, ill. She is made to believe by her husband and physician that she has “temporary nervous depression --a slight hysterical tendency” and should restrain herself from any intellectual exercises in order to get well (Gilman 487). The narrator was not allowed to write or in any way freely...
The “Yellow Wall Paper “ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a chilling study and experiment of mental disorder in nineteenth century. This is a story of a miserable wife, a young woman in anguish, stress surrounding her in the walls of her bedroom and under the control of her husband doctor, who had given her the treatment of isolation and rest. This short story vividly reflects both a woman in torment and oppression as well as a woman struggling for self expression.
In the final moments of this story, the woman’s husband returns to see her. She writes, “He stopped short by the door. ‘What is the matter?’ he cried. ‘For God’s sake, what are you doing!’ I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder. ‘I’ve got out at last,’ said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!’ Now why should that man have fainted, but he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!’” This final passage shows that, when this woman rebels, and “escapes the wallpaper”, it is not highly looked upon. The woman made a power statement, by telling her husband that she had, in essence, found a new role in life, and he can not push her back. When he can not handle her actions, she continues her new ways right over him.
Jane in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” was “touched” as some say long before she was prescribed, and administered the “rest cure” by her husband for her then unknown ailment now called postpartum depression. The boredom and isolation of this cure only allowed her mind to venture farther down a dark and winding corridor of insanity.
The narrator then truly drops into the realm of insanity. She starts to be untrusting of John, stating, “He asked me all sorts of questions too, pretending to be very loving and kind. As if I couldn’t see through him” (235). Her distrust reveals that her mind has truly discovered how oppressed she is. She then viciously begins ripping the wallpaper from the wall (236).
The narrator and her husband moves into an old ancestral hall for the summer, however, she immediately senses an odd feeling about the place. John scoffs at her superstitions and uses his position as a doctor to dissipate anymore thoughts of the sort. Gilman writes, “John is a physician, and perhaps—(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind–) perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster"(Gilman 16). Gilman has cleverly taken the reader into the innermost realms of a woman’s mind and experiences, yet the woman in The Yellow Wallpaper remains anonymous, a reflection of her status in society. The role of narration plays a very important role in developing the pathway the story is told. John is part of a patriarchal old-school ideology that relegated women 's feelings to irrelevant hysterics. John would have attributed his wife 's problems to "women issues" and stress. Her ultimate craziness would have been attributed to forces outside his control as a male. Gilman also highlights the importance of first-person narration by dealing with ethos. The narrator of “The Yellow Wall-Paper" appears credible as the story opens, but as her mental state deteriorates, so does her credibility. In the beginning, she writes
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was originally read and interpreted as a horror story but from the authors perspective, it was an accurate representation of the troubles most women of her time period went through. It's also considered the The text is most commonly viewed from a feminist and a psychoanalytical perspective which brings to light the apparent symbolism within the story as well as digging beneath the wallpaper and understanding the purpose behind the story.