The Yellow Wallpaper

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Recommended: Literary analysis for the yellow wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” resembles her life and some of the struggles she endured: her trouble childhood after her parents divorced, leaving her mother trying to provide for her children, due to an absent father that rarely had a relationship with his children. Her marriage, in which conflict made an early appearance, and depression she suffered after the birth of her daughter mistreated by an acclaimed doctor, were also real life events. These aspects can be found in one way or another throughout this short story.
Gilman’s father abandoned the family when she was young, leaving her mother with the arduous job of providing for all of them and having little time for her children. Even though in the story the speaker is still together with her husband, John, they spend most of the time apart. She states that “John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious” (Gilman 958). She misses him, but this adds to the fact that she is spending more time alone, secluded from the world around her as a way to make her feel better, which it doesn’t. Also, she is somewhat detached from her son, maybe portraying Gilman’s own distance from her mother when she was younger. She acknowledges her feelings for him, but is glad that someone is helping take care of him: “Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me nervous” (Gilman 958). This can lead the reader to think that, maybe, she is afraid of hurting her child. Gilman, on the other hand, may be giving her reader an insight into her own feelings as a mother after giving birth to her daughter, believing that “maternal roles are artificial and not necessary for survival anymore” (Oakes). Her daughter remained with her husband after they sep...

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... Wallpaper” is a resemblance of the author’s experience with depression. Charlotte Perkins Gilman went through hardship at an early age, being separated from her father, having a marriage that was all but happy, and overcoming a mistreatment severe depression. It is a critique of how misguided the opinion of mental illness was around that time, especially when it had to do with women.

Works Cited

“Charlotte (Anna) Perkins (Stetson) Gilman.” Feminist Writers. Detroit: St. James Press, 1996. Literature Resource Center. Web. 29 Jan. 2014
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Making Literature Matter: Anthology for Readers and Writers. Fifth ed. Ed, John Clifford and John Schilb. Boston, Ma: Bedford, 2012. 955-968. Print.
Oakes, Elizabeth H. “Gilman, Charlotte Perkins.” American Writers, American Biographies. 2004. Facts on File, Inc. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.

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