“The Yellow Wallpaper” follows a series of diary entries written by a woman who is suffering from postpartum depression. The women’s husband, John, is “a physician of high standing,” misdiagnoses her with hysteria and treats her with rest. This treatment “confines her to a room in an isolated country estate,” that John rented for the purpose of her treatment. John “expressly forbids her to do any work in the form of writing, her chosen occupation,” even…
The narrator in, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” suffers from depression, although her husband, who is a doctor, does not consider it an illness. Therefore, he keeps her on a strict rest cure. She is not allowed to do work of any form, not even care for her baby. All she allowed to do is rest in her room and breath in the air as prescribed by her husband. Because she spends most of her time in her room, she becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in the room and it drives her to insanity. The lack of creative stimulation and relationships with others causes the narrator’s obsession with the yellow wallpaper which leads her to believe she is trapped behind bars in this yellow wallpaper.…
Within the room that Jane spends most of her time, one of the first things she describes in detail is the wallpaper. Jane believes the “wall and paint look as if a boys’ school had used it” and she continues, “I never saw a worse paper in my life” (Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper, 610). As the weeks pass, Jane spends more and more time in the room, where she is locked away from society and social interaction. Gilman writes that Jane sees that the wallpaper has, “a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down” (“The Yellow Wallpaper” 611). Jane begins to see patterns and images within the wallpaper because she is confined by her husband’s treatment. When John stripped her of the opportunity to write, Jane was forced to find a new way to engage her mind and express herself. Jane wants to keep this new found way of expressing herself out of the hands of her husband and his sister, Jennie. Gilman writes, “I have watched John when he did not know I was looking, and come into the room suddenly o the most innocent excuses and I’ve caught him several times looking at the wallpaper! And Jennie too. […] I am determined that nobody shall find it out but myself!” (“The Yellow Wallpaper” 615). Jane slowly comes to the realization that there is not only a pattern within the wallpaper, but also a woman trapped behind it. Rula comments on the woman within the wallpaper and how it affects…
The short story 'The Yellow Wallpaper' is written in the perspective of the narrator as her journal where she reveals her deepest most personal thoughts about herself and her life, yet she still remains a very mysterious character. Her name is never revealed, and the reason the author does not reveal her name is so the story of her struggle could represent the struggles of many other going through the same situation. It is clear from the beginning of the story that she is an unreliable narrator because it is mentioned that her husband who is a doctor has diagnosed her with temporary nervous depression with slight hysterical tendencies. She seems to be a very creative and sensitive person who is a writer, but she is forbidden from writing in her journal by her husband who thinks that too much mental stimulation will only make her condition worse.…
On the surface, the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper simply shows an insane woman who began suffering from depression after the birth of her child. The narrator was placed into a house, which was in the middle of nowhere, where she received dangerous treatment and often gets belittled by her husband, who is also her doctor. Her treatment required her not to do anything active, especially writing. Although some would conclude that the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper is just about an insane woman struggling with post-partum depression and isolation, it shows the protagonists struggle with trying to break out of the mental constraints she has been placed under and her need for self-expression through her journal.…
Thesis Statement – The narrator in “The yellow wallpaper” portrays an emptiness of life away from society which force her to initiate mental imagery and loses control of her mental state. Body A. Symbolism…
“ The Lottery”, written by Shirley Jackson, shows the corruption in a village whose people treat life with insignificance. Through the use of literary devices, Jackson portrays how practices in traditions can be barbaric;ultimately, resulting in persecution.…
The relationship between the narrator and her husband would be disagreeable to a modern woman's relationship. Today, most women crave equality with their partner. The reader never learns the name of the narrator, perhaps to give the illusion that she could be any woman. On the very fist page of The Yellow Wall-Paper, Gilman illustrates the male dominated society and relationship. It was customary for men to assume that their gender knew what, when, how, and why to do things. John, the narrator's husband, is a prominent doctor and both his and his wife's words and actions reflect the aforementioned stereotype: "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage," (9). This statement illustrates the blatant sexism of society at the time. John does not believe that his wife is sick, while she is really suffering from post-partum depression. He neglects to listen to his wife in regard to her thoughts, feelings, and health through this thought pattern. According to him, there is not anything wrong with his wife except for temporary nerve issues, which should not be serious. By closing her off from the rest of the world, he is taking her away from things that important to her mental state; such as her ability to read and write, her need for human interaction, her need to make her own decisions. All of these are important to all people. This idea of forced rest and relaxation to cure temporary nervous problems was…
The narrator is suffering from an illness and her husband who is a physician takes her away to a vacation house to get better. While there he forbids her to do any mental or physical activity. While her husband is away she secretly writes in a diary telling the readers about her experience with the horrid yellow wallpaper. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s character, the…
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator must deal with several different conflicts. She is diagnosed with “temporary nervous depression and a slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 221). Most of her conflicts, such as, differentiating from creativity and reality, her sense of entrapment by her husband, and not fitting in with the stereotypical role of women in her time, are centered around her mental illness and she has to deal with them.…
"The Yellow Wallpaper" begins with the arrival of narrator, her husband John, their new born baby, and her sister-in-law to summer house which John have rented. The narrator is suffering from post-partum depression, and the summer house will serve, according to her husband, as a place for her to get better.…
The Yellow Wallpaper is a story which is told in the first individual by the Narrator, a young lady. The Narrator and her husband, John, have leased a substantial, empty colonial estate for the midyear. The Narrator portrays the home as haunted, or possibly feeling extremely odd, and relates that her husband John, a refined physician laughs at her notions. The Narrator, on the other hand, furtively wants to stimulate the thought that the house is haunted. The Narrator is experiencing anxious misery and furtively accepts that on the off chance that her husband was not a doctor she may recoup all the more rapidly. Notwithstanding, both John and the Narrator's sibling, additionally an expert physician, have advised her that she is fit as a fiddle…
II. The narrator and protagonist of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” reveals parts of her own life in this story.…
The narrator describes her illness and her husband’s take on her treatment. Her thoughts give detailed insight into her mind as the narrator enters the state of a psychotic breakdown. The narrator’s thoughts describe her reasoning for not getting well faster. “John is a physician, and perhaps-(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) –perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.”(224) The narrator expresses her concerns on paper and wonders if this has any effect on her wellbeing. John has confined her to a room in which she initially dislikes the yellow wallpaper. “I’m really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper.”(226) The narrator’s initial thoughts on the yellow wallpaper are that it is horrid. She is confined in a room, picked by her husband, and for some reason she is unable to figure out the pattern to the yellow wallpaper. “It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw-not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things”.(226) She continues to look into the pattern, without actually figuring it out. The narrator is becoming used to the yellow wallpaper and its qualities. She smells the wallpaper everywhere in the house and even so, when she is out of the house. Unbeknownst to her, the smell of the wallpaper begins to creep around her the more…
More often then not we find ourselves holding back our true feelings, like the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The narrator has a vast imagination but struggles with depression. Her husband John’s solution as her doctor is to forbid her from expressing her-self, leading her to insanity. A mind that is kept in a state of forced inactivity is doomed to self-destruction.…