The Yellow Wallpaper Essay

1706 Words4 Pages

Jasmine Dunn
Dr. Swedan
ENG-102
20 Oct. 2017
“The yellow Wallpaper”
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in Hartford, Connecticut in1860. Her father the grandson and the nephew of Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe deserted his family shortly after her birth. During her lonely childhood, she tried to establish a relationship with him. (Gilman) After becoming a tutor and a brief stint at Rhode Island School of Design, she took a job designing post cards and began to write, publishing a short newspaper article in 1883. From 1889 to 1891, she edited the Pacific Monthly in Los Angeles, and during the 1890s she toured the nation lecturing on women rights. In 1900 she married her first cousin, George Houghton Gilman, who shared many of her …show more content…

He prescribes her a “rest cure”. The woman remains anonymous throughout the story. She becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper that surrounds her in the room, and engages in some outrageous imaginations towards the wallpaper.
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 …show more content…

"Why I Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper'?" Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, edited by Thomas J. Schoenberg, vol. 201, Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&sw=w&u=mill30389&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CH1420082945&it=r&asid=fa503d396619394dc49024ab2704723f. Accessed 30 Oct. 2017.
Lanser, Susan S. "Feminist Criticism, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ and the Politics of Color in America." Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, edited by Thomas J. Schoenberg, vol. 201, Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&sw=w&u=mill30389&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CH1420082954&it=r&asid=fa503d396619394dc49024ab2704723f. Accessed 30 Oct. 2017.
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.
Perkins, George B., et al. "Gilman, Charlotte Perkins (1860-1935)." Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature, 1991. Literature Resource Center, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&sw=w&u=mill30389&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA16849243&it=r&asid=5117efbccd169926fcbf4b9213508ea6. Accessed 23 Oct.

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