A Critical Analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 'The Yellow Wallpaper' written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a riveting story of a dejected woman locked away as if she were insane. Her passion is to write and by doing so we are able to follow her on a journey in which she is victimized by those closest to her. The significance of the story is tremendous as it delves into the underlying issues of 'a woman's place' and feminism in the 19th century. The story not only gave an insight into the public perception of mental illness but it later caused a famous psychiatrist, Silas Weir Mitchell to alter his treatment of neurasthema. As the story begins, the woman-whose name we never learn-tells of her depression and how it is dismissed by her husband and brother who are both medical practitioners. "You see, he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do?" We are able to see that the narrator has maintained the traditional patriarchal feelings, as many women and men did in 19th century, where women are discouraged from venturing out of their 'given sphere', due to the political makeup of the era. It becomes apparent that her mind was alluding to this point by the way she speaks about her husband, "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that." The structure of this sentence highlights the male laughing and the woman acquiescing, showed by the short sentence and the full stop - silencing any of her thoughts and opinions. An example of the dominant submissive relationship between them. He treats her as if she was a child and he was the controlling, domineering, yet loving parent. "What is it, little girl?' h... ... middle of paper ... ...d self-analysis, and was symptomatic of the degeneration rife in society. This illustrates the protagonists warped head state as although yellow is associated with negativity, she craves it. This is portrayed when the protagonist claims that everything outside is 'green instead of yellow'. Her mind is so twisted that she feels everything outside of her 'sphere' is evil. The ending of the story is open to a variety of different interpretations. She feels victorious for escaping from her husbands grasp however in reality she is now trapped within herself. We feel that she may commit suicide due to her frustration, however the situation was reversed, and I was given the impression that she may have tried to murder her husband, in an attempt to free herself. However what ultimately happens we are never able to learn.
When studying patterns and trends in society, some sociologists refer to the unequal distribution of property, power, and prestige around the world as social stratification. This stratification forms the basis of the divisions of society and categorizations of people. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path,” Gilman and Welty both explore the implications of a stratified society divided on gender and race, respectively, on their protagonist’s psyches.
The story "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story about control. In the late 1800's, women were looked upon as having no effect on society other than bearing children and keeping house. It was difficult for women to express themselves in a world dominated by males. The men held the jobs, the men held the knowledge, the men held the key to the lock known as society . . . or so they thought. The narrator in "The Wallpaper" is under this kind of control from her husband, John. Although most readers believe this story is about a woman who goes insane, it is actually about a woman’s quest for control of her life.
a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal-" (p801) It
It didn't allow the reader in this case. the audience to decide for themselves. When we make clips of the movie we do indeed imprison the woman because you have no way of knowing what has happened before or what is to come. We imprison her more because we make judgments of a thirty second clip that could possibly affect our bias for the movie or the story itself before we have a chance as an individual to read the story or watch the movie. As a female in 1995 reading this story, I had this overwhelming experience.
The Yellow Wallpaper, Written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is comprised as an assortment of journal entries written in first person, by a woman who has been confined to a room by her physician husband who he believes suffers a temporary nervous depression, when she is actually suffering from postpartum depression. 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. Gilman’s story depicts women’s struggle of independence and individuality at the rise of feminism, as well as a reflection of her own life and experiences.
Madness is one of the key themes in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It is presented in a way that makes the work of literature a very diverse short story. Although madness isn’t the only theme, it helps the reader better understand many of the other themes in the story. For example, gender inequality, freedom, and confinement. All of these topics can be analyzed through the idea of madness in the story. When I first read this short story I was looking at it through a narrow view of madness and insanity. However, when I read the story again in another course, it allowed me to look at the other themes in this story and analyze them. Because of this I was able to notice things about the story that I had not encountered before. This is why “The Yellow Wallpaper” became one of the most interesting works I have read this semester.
The "Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Gilman is a great story about the repression of women in the late 1800's but is still representative of issues faced by women today. She writes from her own personal experiences and conveys a message that sometimes in a male dominated society women suffer from the relentless power that some men implement over women.
Can a story contain more than one antagonist? In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman there is an overwhelming amount of conflict the unnamed narrator must endure. The protagonist of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is the narrator who is suffering from depression and is taken to a house for the summer to rest. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the wallpaper is the antagonist because it causes the narrator to have a breakdown at the end of the short story; John, the narrator’s husband, cannot be the antagonist because he is doing what he believes is best for her, and the narrator cannot be the antagonist because she wants to improve her mental state.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman can be perceived in a few different ways. Greg Johnson wrote an article describing his own perception of what he believed the short story meant. In doing so, it can be noticed that his writing aligns well with what can be perceived from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story. The narrator Jane, experiences many things throughout Gilman’s story, which Johnson describes thoroughly. It is because of these descriptive points that allow Johnsons article to be a convincing argument. The main ideas that Johnson depicts that are supported and I agree with from the story include Janes developing imaginative insight, her husband and sister-in-law’s belief on domestic control, and her gained power through unconsciousness.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the story of a woman who is trapped in a room covered in yellow wallpaper. The story is one that is perplexing in that the narrator is arguably both the protagonist as well as the antagonist. In the story, the woman, who is the main character, struggles with herself indirectly which results in her descent into madness. The main conflicts transpires between the narrator and her husband John who uses his power as a highly recognize male physician to control his wife by placing limitations on her, forcing her to behave as a sick woman. Hence he forced himself as the superior in their marriage and relationship being the sole decision make. Therefore it can be said what occurred externally resulted in the central conflict of” “The Yellow Wallpaper being internal. The narrator uses the wallpaper as a symbol of authenticy. Hence she internalizes her frustrations rather then openly discussing them.
"If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression -- a slight hysterical tendency -- what is one to do?" (Gilman 1). Many women in the 1800's and 1900's faced hardship when it came to standing up for themselves to their fathers, brothers and then husbands. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator of the story, "The Yellow Wallpaper", is married to a physician, who rented a colonial house for the summer to nurse her back to health after her husband thinks she has neurasthenia, but actually suffers from postpartum depression. He suggested the 'rest cure'. She should not be doing any sort of mental or major physical activity, her only job was to relax and not worry about anything. Charlotte was a writer and missed writing. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is significant to literature in the sense that, the author addresses the issues of the rest cure that Dr. S. Weir Mitchell prescribed for his patients, especially to women with neurasthenia, is ineffective and leads to severe depression. This paper includes the life of Charlotte Perkins Gilman in relation to women rights and her contribution to literature as one of her best short story writings.
Feminist literary criticism is a type of literary criticism that “is concerned with ‘…the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women” (Purdue OWL: Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism). This criticism goes into our culture and looks at how certain aspects are male dominated. It is also concerned with the marginalization in our culture. Most theorists believe that there were waves of feminist criticism. The Yellow Wallpaper was originally written during the first wave. This wave includes works from the late 1700’s to the early 1900’s. It focused on the inequalities between women and men as well as contributions made during the suffrage movement.
Traditionally, men have held the power in society. Women have been treated as a second class of citizens with neither the legal rights nor the respect of their male counterparts. Culture has contributed to these gender roles by conditioning women to accept their subordinate status while encouraging young men to lead and control. Feminist criticism contends that literature either supports society’s patriarchal structure or provides social criticism in order to change this hierarchy. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts one women’s struggle against the traditional female role into which society attempts to force her and the societal reaction to this act.
The woman behind this work of literature portrays the role of women in the society during that period of time. "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a well written story describing a woman who suffers from insanity and how she struggles to express her own thoughts and feelings. The author uses her own experience to criticize male domination of women during the nineteenth century. Although the story was written fifty years ago, "The Yellow Wallpaper" still brings a clear message how powerless women were during that time.
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.