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The yellow wallpaper analysis essay essay
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Comparison of the characterization in "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
In the two short stories, "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates, the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Connie from "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" both deal with some eerie situations. In "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator suffers from nervous depression which causes her to stay locked in this room doing nothing active until she actually goes hopelessly insane. The short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" written by Joyce Carol Oates, Connie deals with a stranger named Arnold Friend and he sees Connie outside of the movie theatre and he actually ends up going to her house and he knows everything about her and her family. Due to the characterization of the two stories, Connie and the Narrator both end up making these two different stories very similar because of how creepy each person makes their life seem.
One way that, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", is a perculiar story is how at Connies house, Connie tells him again to leave and then she fear strikes her as she grows a little dizzy when Arnold Friend begins to tell Connie where they are and what they are doing at that exact and precise moment. She gets very nervous when he tells her that he knows that they are at the barbeque at their neighbors house. Hearing this information and everything that this man knows, Connie grows extremely horrified, but also very fascinated by his precise description of what was happening. Connie wants to go into the house because Arnold Friend moves closer towards the porch ...
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...Also in, "The Yellow Wallpaper", the narrator gets so loneley and so freaked out about what is happening in the wallpaper in her room that she actually goes insane. She tears everything down and she even bites it. She thinks that there are other people that have smudged the wallpaper when in reality it was her and now she is actually the trapped woman. This is how these two stories relate by the characteization of the authors by them both making their stories disturbing in different ways.
Work Cited:
Oates, Joyce Carol. “University of San Francisco (USF) -”Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” University of San Francisco (USF). Web. 14 Dec. 2011. .
"The Yellow Wallpaper" StudyMode.com. 02 2002. 2002. 02 2002 .
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story about a woman’s gradual descent into insanity, after the birth of her child. The story was written in 1892 after the author herself suffered from a nervous breakdown, soon after the birth of her daughter in 1885. Gilman did spend a month in a sanitarium with the urging of her physician husband. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a story about herself, during the timeframe of when Gilman was in the asylum.
"Connie, don't fool around with me. I mean—I mean, don't fool around," he said, shaking his head. He laughed incredulously. He placed his sunglasses on top of his head, carefully, as if he were indeed wearing a wig…” (Oates 6). Joyce Carol Oates’ short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” highlights an altercation, meeting, conflict and dispute between a teenage girl, named Connie, and a psychotic rapist named Arnold Friend. Throughout their altercation, Arnold Friend tempts and encourages Connie to get in the car with him and lead her to a variety of possible dangerous situations, one of which includes her getting raped . There is no doubt that Joyce Carol Oates’ uses Arnold Friend in her short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” to symbolize the Devil and embody all of the evil and sinister forces that are present in our world. This becomes apparent when the reader focuses on how deranged Arnold Friend is and begins to
Both stories were written different years, but both are written about women in the same era. When women went against the norm during the era the stories were written in they were often looked down on. Especially, Emily, who never married and because she was never married she was constantly judged by the women and men in her city. During that time it was odd for women not to be married. Emily eventually found someone, but it was known that he was a homosexual. The narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper was told what not to do by her husband and his sister. She was forced to write in secret, for
He’s coming to get me” (8). In her vulnerability, Connie even seeks her parents despite previous efforts to distance herself, revealing her childish nature. This demonstrates a loss of innocence and a desire to return to the safety of childhood, as Connie realizes the danger of Arnold Friend. Despite her efforts, Connie is not ready for adulthood. In her pursuit of independence, Connie becomes entangled with a dangerously mature situation she is unprepared to handle. This parallels the loss of innocence many adolescents suffer as they venture into adulthood: many teens quickly lose their idealized vision of adulthood as they realize the challenges of adulthood. Connie’s confrontation with Arnold Friend is a metaphor for the loss of innocence all teens are confronted with as they seek maturity. Although the story encompasses a teenage girl's dangerous romantic rendezvous, it is more of an encounter with the expectations and reality of adulthood, through Connie's infatuation and later fear of Friend. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" is a metaphor for the loss of innocence teenagers face, as their idealized perception of adulthood
All through the story, the yellow wallpaper acts as an antagonist, causing her to become very annoyed and disturbed. There is nothing to do in the secluded room but stare at the wallpaper. The narrator tells of the haphazard pattern having no organization or symmetrical plot. Her constant examination of and reflection on the wallpaper caused her much distress.... ...
Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" is about a young girl's struggle to escape reality while defying authority and portraying herself as a beauty queen; ultimately, she is forced back to reality when confronted by a man who symbolizes her demise. The young girl, Connie, is hell- bent on not becoming like her mother or sister. She feels she is above them because she is prettier. She wants to live in a "dream world" where she listens to music all day and lives with Prince Charming. She does not encounter Prince Charming but is visited by someone, Arnold Friend, who embodies the soul of something evil. Arnold Friend symbolizes "Death" in that he is going to take Connie away from the world she once knew. Even if she is not dead, she will never be the same person again, and will be dead in spirit. With the incorporation of irony, Oates illustrates how Connie's self-infatuation, her sole reason for living, is the reason she is faced with such a terrible situation possibly ending her life.
In conclusion, these stories have similarities in terms of the victimizations and subordination of women. Black and yellow color was used to symbolize the overall surroundings of the situation. However, both of these stories had difference. As mentioned, “The Lottery” was a very violent and cruel event and “The Yellow Wallpaper” was towards self-expression. Thus the difference and similarities in both of these stories can be compared and contrasted.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is the story of a woman descending into psychosis in a creepy tale which depicts the harm of an old therapy called “rest cure.” This therapy was used to treat women who had “slight hysterical tendencies” and depression, and basically it consisted of the inhibition of the mental processes. The label “slight hysterical tendency” indicates that it is not seen as a very important issue, and it is taken rather lightly. It is also ironic because her illness is obviously not “slight” by any means, especially towards the end when the images painted of her are reminiscent of a psychotic, maniacal person, while she aggressively tears off wallpaper and confuses the real world with her alternative world she has fabricated that includes a woman trapped in the wallpaper. The narrator of this story grows obsessed with the wallpaper in her room because her husband minimizes her exposure to the outside world and maximizes her rest.
The wallpaper symbolizes the trapped narrator and the structure of the tradition. Also, Elisa’s chrysanthemums are discarded and the narrator’s feelings are disowned which portrays the rejection of women. Elisa ends up “crying weakly like an old woman” and settles for wine (233). The narrator’s actions lead to her husband fainting “but he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time” (447). The narrator is insane and causes faintness in her husband, hoping that she now has an escape. To conclude, John Steinbecks “The Chrysanthemums” and Charloette Perkins “The Yellow Wallpaper” show two different outcomes mainly arisen due to being trapped inside an isolated house or a garden and having a limited life under a husband's control.
...he wall, he thinks about his rejected opportunities and his unbearable regret. As he sobers with terror, the final blow will come from the realization that his life is ending in his catacombs dying with his finest wine. The catacombs, in which he dies, set the theme, and relate well with the story. Without the yellow wallpaper in the short story, the significance of the wallpaper would not mater, nor would it set the theme or plot. At night the wallpaper becomes bars, and the wallpaper lets her see herself as a women and her desire to free herself. She needs to free herself from the difficulties of her husband, and from her sickness. The settings in both, set up the elements of the stories and ads to the effect in both of the short stories.
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 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 lack of knowing her true self lets Arnold Friend overpower her in the end. The words and letters on Arnold’s car symbolize warnings that Connie should have picked up on. Because Arnold symbolizes the devil, the evil inside of him gives him advantages to manipulate Connie into leaving her house, despite everything inside of Connie screaming at her not to go. The symbolisms in these objects or people are all deeply rooted to the theme of this short story, “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”.
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 both stories, the protagonists become different people behind closed doors choosing to keep their disappoint hidden from their husbands. However, the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” gives in to insanity and becomes the character her imagination created while Susan in “To Room Nineteen” gives in to her addiction of isolation, letting it take her life. The individuals in these two stories show how easily depression is misunderstood and how easily it is to become