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The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
In the late nineteenth century, there was not a lot of information known about mental illness. Treatments prescribed to the mentally ill at that time were often bizarre, and cause the patients more harm than good. Suffering from a nervous breakdown after the birth of her daughter, Charlotte Perkins Gilman is all to familiar with the treatment at the time; isolation, and total rest. Drawing upon experiences from a month long stay at an asylum run by Dr. S. Weir
Mitchell, Perkins felt compelled to write a short story, about a woman fighting her own battle with mental illness and the treatment prescribed to help her. In the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator’s illness goes through three distinct stages.
The first distinct stage of the narrator’s illness is mild depression. She seems to be exhibiting the symptoms of the baby blues, also known as post-partum depression. The narrator expresses an inability to bond with her child: “It is fortunate that Mary is good with the baby. [. . . .] I cannot be with him” (Gilman 706).
Because the narrator is bedridden and unable to perform even minor tasks, it makes her feel as if she is a burden to her husband and
Jennie. What few things the narrator is able to do- such as walking in the garden and writing down her thoughts and feelings- tire her out quickly. She is beginning to worry that she is not getting better and tries to express these feelings to her husband John, who dismisses her as if she is a child. The burden of trying to hide the symptoms of her illness only seem to escalate it to another level. The second distinct stage of the narrator’s illness is severe depression. She begins to cry frequen...
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...hree distinct stages: mild depression, severe depression, and severe psychosis. By drawing upon her treatment experiences and including Dr. S. Weir
Mitchell’s name in her story, Gilman was able to make a statement about the treatment of mentally ill patients. Above all else, Gilman wanted it to be known that the rest and isolation treatment or depression might help contribute to escalating problems. Years later,
Gilman was told Dr. Mitchell had read “The Yellow Wallpaper” and changed the treatment he used for depression. Today, treatments for mentally ill patients have been improved. Most people have a rudimentary understanding that one needs friends, excitement, and escape to help battle depression rather than isolation. Perhaps if
Charlotte Perkins Gilman would have had a more modern treatment, a unique literary treasure would have never been created.
of life and now she has so little time for herself and feels so wanted
The inner feral nature of mankind is indifferent to rationality when the mind body or soul is trapped and unable to find an escape. Human beings are animals in nature, and often when a situation arises when they are, or feel trapped, they begin to lose sense of rationality and their grip on reality, and instead make unsettling and nonsensical decisions. Within “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather, the effects of a human being being trapped are explored in two different ways through two different people with very different personalities. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story about a young woman named Jane, who suffers from what she calls a “nervous weakness”, and what she writes about what she goes
“I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.” Just like anyone’s first impression of a misfit, Jane from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “Yellow Wallpaper” is unsettled by the wallpaper in her room from the first time she lays eyes on it. A misfit being someone, or something in this case, that doesn’t fit in, explains why the yellow wallpaper is the misfit character in this story. Society views those who differ as deviants, and “normal” people are expected not to accept these misfit characters for what they are. By just showing their true colors and not hiding behind society’s expectations misfits make the ones who choose to hide uncomfortable. The more time one may spend with one
The stories “Shouldn't I Feel Pretty?” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” feature a dynamic protagonist who undergoes a character development which reveals the consequences of oppression caused by societal standards. Gilman crafted the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” with the purpose of exposing the tyrannical role of gender roles to women. In the story, the narrator suffers a slight postpartum depression in the beginning, but her condition gets progressively worse because her husband John believes “that there is nothing the matter with [her] but temporary nervous depression-- a slight hysterical tendency” (331). He concludes that the best treatment for his wife is for her to be “absolutely forbidden to ‘work’ until [she is] well again” (332).
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
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s bodies of work, Gilman highlights scenarios exploring traditional interrelations between man and woman while subtexting the necessity for a reevaluation of the paradigms governing these relations. In both of Gilman’s short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Turned”, women are victimized, subjected and mistreated. Men controlled and enslaved their wives because they saw them as their property. A marriage was male-dominated and women’s lives were dedicated to welfare of home and family in perseverance of social stability. Women are expected to always be cheerful and good-humored. Respectively, the narrator and Mrs. Marroner are subjugated by their husbands in a society in which a relationship dominated by the male is expected.
work and is about to get married. The only work she has done is when
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental Feminism and Literature 's Ancestral House: Another Look At 'The Yellow Wallpaper '." Women 's Studies 12.2 (1986): 113. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.
MacPike, Loralee. "Environment as Psychopathological Symbolism in 'The Yellow Wallpaper.’” Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, edited by Thomas J. Schoenberg, vol. 201, Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center, go.galegroup.com.gmclibrary.idm.oclc.org/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&sw=w&u=mill30389&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CH1420082948&asid=562f132388d74c4bd92439b5842a2fe7. Accessed 25 Oct. 2017.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is the disheartening tale of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Set during the late 1890s, the story shows the mental and emotional results of the typical "rest cure" prescribed during that era and the narrator’s reaction to this course of treatment. It would appear that Gilman was writing about her own anguish as she herself underwent such a treatment with Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell in 1887, just two years after the birth of her daughter Katherine. The rest cure that the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" describes is very close to what Gilman herself experienced; therefore, the story can be read as reflecting the feelings of women like herself who suffered through such treatments. Because of her experience with the rest cure, it can even be said that Gilman based the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" loosely on herself. But I believe that expressing her negative feelings about the popular rest cure is only half of the message that Gilman wanted to send. Within the subtext of this story lies the theme of oppression: the oppression of the rights of women especially inside of marriage. Gilman was using the woman/women behind the wallpaper to express her personal views on this issue.
“Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman was analyzed by many perspective readers and writers. In my research paper I analyzed work by Ann Oakley and Karen Ford. These two authors had similar but yet different arguments. During my review process on both articles, I found that there can be many interpretations of any literary work. When you typically see topics written about women, you tend to see biased explanations. Reading these from a female standpoint you would go on to assume the writer will only defend what is morally right.
“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
Home, in contemporary literature, often plays an integral role often symbolizing security, unison, and support; although, things were not always this way. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts the all-too-real struggle many women faced in the nineteenth century and earlier. This short passage portrays the narrative of female intellectual oppression – an examination of nineteenth century social mores. The passage voices the common practice of diagnosing women with “rest cure” who displayed symptoms of depression and anxiety with a supposed treatment of lying in bed for several weeks, allowing no more than twenty minutes of intellectual application per day. Women, at this time, were considered to be the second sex – weaker and more fragile, unable to grapple the same daily activities as men – and such the “rest cure” prevents women from using any form of thinking, trusting the notion that naturally the female mind is empty. Not even were
would go to any extents to put it off. It was her way of dealing with