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Symbolism in The Yellow Wallpaper
Symbolism in The Yellow Wallpaper
What are the symbols in the story the yellow wallpaper by charlotte gilman
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In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman uses symbolism to add to the mood of her short story. While being treated for depression by rest cure, the narrator is stuck in a room covered in horrible yellow wallpaper that she claims is revolting, “The color is repellent, almost revolting: a smoldering unclean yellow strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.” (Gilman 298). Her view on this wallpaper symbolizes that she is not an optimistic thinker and also immediately shows the reader that she is not emotionally stable, as she is obsessing over a simple color. This also begins to set an ominous and eerie mood to the short story. Secondly, as the story progresses she begins to see things in the …show more content…
wallpaper, “Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over. Then in the very bright sports she keeps still, and in the very shady spots, she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard.” (Gilman 306). Gilman used this women crawling behind the wallpaper to symbolize that the narrator herself feels confined to the walls of the house and that she is truly trapped and secluded. Also, while none of the other characters have a problem with the paper, she continuously obsessives over it proving her mental state to be diminishing and adding to the frightening mood. Finally, symbolism is found in the end when the narrator tears up the wallpaper, claiming to have let the women out, “As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her.
I pulled and she shook. I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.” (Gilman 307). This not only symbolizes that she has completely become unstable, but that she does not want to accept who she as become. She let the beast out of the wallpaper and symbolical out of herself. Gilman uses symbolism throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper” to build upon the ominous and eerie mood and show the negative affects of rest cure.
Paragraph Choice II: Irony in “The Necklace”
In “The Necklace,” Maupassant uses irony to help amplify the mood and theme of the story. After getting a ticket to a gorgeous ball, Mathilde claims she needs a pretty dress and expensive jewelry. Living with a poor husband however causes her to have to borrow from a friend. Her friend presented her with some fine jewelry, but even that wasn’t enough for her, as she wanted something nicer, “All at once, in a box lined with black satin, she came upon a superb diamond necklace, and her
heart started beating with overwhelming desire.” (Maupassant 538). She took the necklace because she thought it was the best piece of jewelry her friend could loan her, but this is ironic because as the reader later finds out, it was actually a fake and the least expensive of jewelry. Now, with that jewelry she thought she fit in with the wealthy. However, irony is also found here because she actually put herself further away from being wealthy than she ever was by losing the necklace and going into debt, “Madame Loisel came to know the awful life of the poverty-stricken. However, she resigned herself to it with unexpected fortitude. The crushing debt had to be paid. She would pay it. They dismissed the maid; they moved into an attic under the roof.” (Maupassant 540). This was ironic because she took the necklace to fit in with the wealthy, and make everyone know she wasn’t poor, but she actually did the opposite and put herself into poverty. This example of situational irony also proves to the reader the theme of being happy with what you already have, as Mathilde ended up losing more than she started off with. Finally, in the beginning of the story she claims that she is too pretty to be poor, and proves that she values her good looks more than anything else. Being in debt however makes her have to do hard labor to repay it. This ruined her looks, which was, in her mind, all that she had, “Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become the sort of strong woman, hard and coarse, that one finds in poor families.” (Maupassant 540). It was clear that she had to work every hour of every day to repay her friend, and this is the most ironic because it made her ugly. The whole purpose of the necklace was for her to be looked at as pretty, but now years later her appearance worsened and she was no longer the beautiful girl who didn’t belong in a poor family that she claimed to be. Her pursuit to be pretty actually made her ugly, and the author used both verbal and situational irony to show this. Maupassant makes use different types of irony in “The Necklace” to amplify the vain and dreadful mood of story, along with putting empathies on the main theme.
In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, through expressive word choice and descriptions, allows the reader to grasp the concepts she portrays and understand the way her unnamed narrator feels as the character draws herself nearer and nearer to insanity. “The Yellow Wallpaper” begins with the narrator writing in a journal about the summer home she and her husband have rented while their home is being remodeled. In the second entry, she mentions their bedroom which contains the horrendous yellow wallpaper. After this, not one day goes by when she doesn’t write about the wallpaper. She talks about the twisting, never-ending pattern; the heads she can see hanging upside-down as if strangled by it; and most importantly the
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
On my first reading of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper", I found the short story extremely well done and the author, successful at getting her idea across. Gilman's use of imagery and symbolism only adds to the reality of the nameless main character's sheltered life and slow progression into insanity or some might say, out of insanity.
Although both protagonists in the stories go through a psychological disorder that turns their lives upside down, they find ways to feel content once again. In Charlotte Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," a nervous wife, an overprotective husband, and a large, damp room covered in musty wallpaper all play important roles in driving the wife insane. Gilman's masterful use of not only the setting, both time and place, but also of first person point of view, allows the reader to process the woman's growing insanity. The narrator develops a very intimate relationship with the yellow wallpaper throughout the story, as it is her constant companion. Her initial reaction to it is a feeling of hatred; she dislikes the color and despises the pattern, but does not attribute anything peculiar to it. Two weeks into their stay she begins to project a sort of personality onto the paper, so she studies the pattern more closely, noticing for the first time “a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design” (Gilman). At this point, her madness is vague, but becoming more defined, because although the figure that she sees behind the pattern has no solid shape, she dwells on it and
In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman we have an opportunity to see what was happening in the character’s subconscious and how the wallpaper highlights the chaos within the main character. In the beginning the wallpaper is not liked but merely an annoyance, by the end the narrators interactions with the wallpaper are a symbol of what is going on in her mind. The house is described as an older home, that looks as if it could be haunted and the couple, she describes as ordinary. By the end of the story the couple shows clear subconscious problems, the wallpaper that could be described as gaudy and yellow is a clear symbol of the chaos happening within the narrator.
To begin, the short story by Charlotte Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” uses the deteriorating wallpaper to represent the narrator’s failing mind. The narrator is suffering and is confined in an uncomfortable house in a room she did not choose; she becomes obsessed with the wallpaper of the room. As the yellow wallpaper represents the narrator’s mind, the statement made by the narrator, “The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others” refers to the condition of her mind by suggesting her condition is revolting and unclean. She is fading away in the su...
Evidence of Gilman's life experiences can be seen all throughout the story. The main character in the story, a slightly neurotic woman, is married to a prominent physician. This husband refuses to believe anything is wrong with his wife's health simply because her physical health is intact. Thus, he prescribes for his wife nothing more than relaxation and cessation of her writings. This character clearly correlates to the doctor who "treated" Gilman for her nervous breakdown. The description of the room and the wallpaper is clearly crucial to the story as a whole. The room itself is described as large and airy, with windows facing towards a "delicious garden." The wallpaper does not fit the room at all. It is a repulsive, pale yellow color. The description of the wallpaper seems to function metaphorically. The wallpaper becomes much more detailed and much more of a fixture in the main characters life as the story progresses. The wallpaper essentially takes on a life of its own. This progression seems to represent mental illness itself. As mental illness progresses, it becomes much more whole and enveloping. Gilman attempts to represent the depth of mental illness through the wallpaper. For example, the woman in the story comes to the conclusion that there is a woman in the wallpaper behind the pattern.
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.
The yellow wallpaper itself is one of the largest symbols in the story. It can be interpreted to symbolize many things about the narrator. The wallpaper symbolizes the mental block mean attempted to place on women during the 1800s. The color yellow is often associated with sickness or weakness, and the narrator’s mysterious illness is an example of the male oppression on the narrator. The wallpaper in fact makes the narrator more “sick” as the story progresses. The yellow wallpaper, of which the writer declares, “I never saw a worse paper in my life,” is a symbol of the mental screen that men attempted to enforce upon women. Gilman writes, “The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing” this is a symbolic metaphor for restrictions placed on women. The author is saying subliminally that the denial of equality for women by men is a “hideous” act, and that when men do seem to grant women some measure of that equality, it is often “unreliable.” The use of the words “infuriating” and “torturing” are also descriptions of the feelings of women in 19th century society.
The short story titled, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is given its name for no other reason than the disturbing yellow wallpaper that the narrator comes to hate so much; it also plays as a significant symbol in the story. The wallpaper itself can represent many various ideas and circumstances, and among them, the sense of feeling trapped, the impulse of creativity gone awry, and what was supposed to be a simple distraction transfigures into an unhealthy obsession. By examining the continuous references to the yellow wallpaper itself, one can begin to notice how their frequency develops the plot throughout the course of the story. As well as giving the reader an understanding as to why the wallpaper is a more adequate and appropriate symbol to represent the lady’s confinement and the deterioration of her mental and emotional health. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the color of the wallpaper symbolizes the internal and external conflicts of the narrator that reflect the expectations and treatment of the narrator, as well as represent the sense of being controlled in addition to the feeling of being trapped.
The main symbol in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, obviously, is the yellow wallpaper in the narrator’s bedroom. At the beginning of the story she, the narrator, is distraught and disgusted by the pattern and color of the wallpaper. She asks her husband, John, to leave the house, or at least change rooms, multiple times. As the story progresses, however, her disgust changes to infatuation with the wallpaper. The change seems evident when she begins to think about her child living in the room. She states, “What a fortunate escape! Why, I wouldn’t have a child of mine, an impressionable little thing, live in such a room for worlds” (Gilman 245). It seems at first that the wallpaper is a symbol for her mental distress, but after this particular incident with her making an excuse to stay in the room, the symbolism changes. Later on in the story, the narrator personifies the wallpaper’s outer pattern as bars and the inner pattern as a woman, or sometimes women, trying to break out. Thi...
The Yellow Wallpaper is overflowed with symbolism. Symbols are images that have a meaning beyond them selves in a short story, a symbol is a detail, a character, or an incident that has a meaning beyond its literal role in the narrative. Gilman uses symbols to tell her story of a woman's mental state of being diminishes throughout the story. The following paragraphs tell just some of the symbols and how I interpreted them, they could be read in many different ways.
The author of “The Necklace,” Guy de Maupassant, uses irony to teach a lesson on greed and materialism. For example, on page three, it states, “Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin case, a superb diamond necklace…” At the moment, Madame Loisel was ecstatic with joy when she found the perfect diamond necklace. However, in the last scene on page 6, Madame Loisel encounters Madame Forestier and finds out that the magnificent necklace, was, in fact, a fake. The ironic situation in which the necklace that shaved off Madame Loisel’s ten years of youth, was less than half the price of what she expected it to be. Maupassant crafts her greed into the story as of when she was greedy, she had to pay off more than she needed if she had told the truth.
The Yellow Wallpaper is not just a short story. It was written from Gilman’s perspective with the purpose of telling people that being confined will only make a person more insane. But there’s got to be someone to blame, right? Well, seeing as Gilman was a feminist, it is only logical to blame the person that put her in the sanitarium, right? There’s a deeper meaning to The Yellow Wallpaper and she used symbolism, setting, and character to help the reader better understand this short piece.