The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

574 Words2 Pages

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” explores the restricted societal roles of both Jane and John. Gilman, a strong supporter of women’s rights, focuses on her account with depression through this story (Hill 150). Traditionally, the man must take care of the woman both financially and emotionally while the woman’s role remains at home. Society tends to trap man and woman and prevent them from developing emotionally and intellectually. Although Gilman focuses on the hardships of the woman, she also examines the role of the man in society. Repression generated by social gender roles hinders men and women from acquiring self-individuation.
The repression of Jane ties into her lack of exposure to emotional and intellectual stimulus. Jane’s feminine emotions towards her environment aid in her restraint. Representing the dominance of masculinity over the restrained female, Jane observes the female figure, who looks as if she is behind bars, in the pattern of the wallpaper (1156). The woman who unsuccessfully attempts to climb out of the pattern symbolizes Jane’s frivolity in trying to alter feminine societal roles (1158). Significantly, the maternal instincts of Jane remain enslaved due to her surroundings. The nursery, containing windows “barred for little children,” represents the suppression of Jane’s motherly duties (1150). Jane is unable to take care of her own baby. The garden which Jane can view through her barred windows, stands for her fertility which she is incapable of obtaining (1149). Intentionally, Jane’s intellectual prowess remains held back. Beginning to “write for a while” in a journal against the wishes of those around her, represents the suppression of Jane’s attempt at creative stimulus (1149). The yellow wallpaper hinders Jane’s recovery in that it confuses her whenever she attempts to decipher its’ meaning (1151).
John’s repression results from the absence of his feminine side. Spirituality, a part of the human psyche of which John lacks, accounts for his repression. Jane feels that John “has no patience with faith,” justifying his stubborn behavior and the detraction of his masculinity (1148). An ideal attribute for one attempting to obtain self-individuation is a concern for faith, which is not present in John (1148). John’s scarcity of feminine emotions accounts for his repression. John shows no understanding of Jane’s need for an intellectual stimulus, signifying his lack of intuition (1150). For John, everything must be “put down in figures” (1148) in order for him to make sense out of anything, illustrating his stronghold on the stereotypically obstinate man (1155).

The Bedroom in The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
1109 Words | 3 Pages
The bedroom is an overvalued fetish object that nevertheless threatens to reveal what it covers over. John's time is spent formulating the bedroom in a way that conceals his associations of anxiety and desire with the female body, but also re-introduces them. The bedroom's exterior, its surface, and its outer system of locks, mask a hidden interior that presumably contains a mystery--and a dangerous one. The bedroom in "The Yellow Wallpaper" generates this tension between the desire to know and the fear of knowing: on one hand, the enigma of the bedroom invites curiosity and beckons us towards discovery; on the other hand, its over- determined organization is seated within a firm resolution to build up the bedroom, so that what it hides remains unrealized. Mulvey writes, "Out of this series of turning away, of covering over, not the eyes but understanding, of looking fixidly at any object that holds the gaze, female sexuality is bound to remain a mystery" ("Pandora" 70).
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The Bedroom inThe Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
451 Words | 1 Pages
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1488 Words | 3 Pages
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1794 Words | 4 Pages
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1394 Words | 3 Pages
The narrator finally achieves an authoritative position in her marriage, with John unconscious and her creative imagination finally free of all restraints. Her continual “creeping” over his prone body serves as a repeated emphasis of this liberation, almost as if the narrator chooses to climb over him to highlight his inferiority over and over again” (Harrison). John was a weak person, Jane suffered from a nervous disorder which was made way worse by the feelings of being trapped in a room. The setting of the nursery room with barred windows in a colonial mansion provides an image of the loneliness and seclusion she experienced. Periods of time can lead to insanity. Maybe her illness wasn’t that bad but he made it worse on her part because he was a sick husband. Some critics have argued “Is the narrator really liberated? We’re inclined towards saying “no”, given that she’s still creeping around the room and that her psyche is broken”
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457 Words | 1 Pages
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944 Words | 2 Pages
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1140 Words | 3 Pages
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1189 Words | 3 Pages
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749 Words | 2 Pages
The author of the story, "The Yellow Wall-Paper", is Charlotte Perkins Steston. Steston was a feminist that encourged women to gain independence during the late 1890s and early 1900s with her writings. Steston was a writer and social reformer during her lifetime. The story, "The Yellow Wall-Paper" was published in 1892 and is a great literary piece. The way the author, Charolette Perkins Steston, uses many examples of causes and effects to give the reader an insight to her story, "The Yellow Wall-Paper", such as examples as John, the woman's husband, the house and the wall paper.
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1080 Words | 3 Pages
As a result, women were stuck at home, usually alone, until their husbands got home. In the story, Jane is at home staring at the wallpaper in her room. The wallpaper’s color is described by Jane as being “repellent, almost revolting” (3) and the pattern is “torturing” and “like a bad dream” (10). The description of the wallpaper represents Jane’s and all women’s thoughts about the ideologies and rules upheld by men prior to the First World War. It is made evident that this wallpaper represents the screen made up of men’s ideologies at the time caging in women. Jane is subconsciously repelled by this screen and represents her discovering continuously figuring out what she wants. Metaphorically, Jane is trapped in that room by a culture established by men. Furthermore, Jane compares the wallpaper’s pattern to bars putting further emphasis on her feelings of being trapped and helpless. Later in the narrative, she catches Jennie staring at the wallpaper’s pattern and then decides to study the pattern and determine what it means herself. Her study of the pattern is representative of her trying to analyze the situation in which she’s in. By studying the pattern, she progressively discovers herself, especially when she sees the woman behind the
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1013 Words | 3 Pages
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712 Words | 2 Pages
From the beginning of the story, the theme of male dominance is seen. Although equally distressing to realize that this still is going on in the 21st century, giving this works a timeless quality, which is both unfortunate and insightful. The transparent level of disrespect John shows the narrator about her metal level is horrendous and frustrating to the point where John seems absolutely underserving of marriage, much less any kind of relationship with a woman. The following line opens the eyes to the reality of the narrator’s environment and also her own belief that she is not on an equal level as her husband. The narrator narrates “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage”(9). “Even the name John itself is male dominating”(Ford 5). The name owes it popularity form two New Testament character, both highly reserved saints. The name John also has been born to 21 popes and eight Byzantine emperors, giving it a very superior meaning. The fact that he is a physician and a primary source of her illness because ...
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1083 Words | 3 Pages
Advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men, Charlotte Perkins Gilman speaks to the “female condition” in her 1892 short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by writing about the life of a woman and what caused her to lose her sanity. The narrator goes crazy due partially to her prescribed role as a woman in 1892 being severely limited. One example is her being forbidden by her husband to “work” which includes working and writing. This restricts her from begin able to express how she truly feels. While she is forbidden to work her husband on the other hand is still able to do his job as a physician. This makes the narrator inferior to her husband and males in general. The narrator is unable to be who she wants, do what she wants, and say what she wants without her husband’s permission. This causes the narrator to feel trapped and have no way out, except through the yellow wallpaper in the bedroom.
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The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
1150 Words | 3 Pages
Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper in 1890 about her experience in a psychiatric hospital. The doctor she had prescribed her “the rest cure” to get over her condition (Beekman). Gilman included the name of the sanitarium she stayed at in the piece as well which was named after the doctor that “treated” her. The short story was a more exaggerated version of her month long stay at Weir Mitchell and is about a woman whose name is never revealed and she slowly goes insane under the watch of her doctor husband and his sister (The Yellow Wallpaper 745). Many elements of fiction were utilized by Gilman in this piece to emphasize the theme freedom and confinement. Three of the most important elements are symbolism, setting and character.
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The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Bedroom in The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Bedroom inThe Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman