Preview

The Yellow Wallpaper: An Overview

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
400 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Yellow Wallpaper: An Overview
The Yellow Wallpaper

I think The Yellow Wallpaper is a perfect example of how women feel in their roles as women. I think it’s interesting that the narrator remains anonymous throughout the story, which I think is symbolic for her role in society. From day one women have always disagreed with how they are treated by society, men, and just in general. I think the wallpaper is significant for many things including the structure of medication, family, marriage, and traditional roles women play. The narrator feels trapped in the “wallpaper.” I think Gilman used the wallpaper to symbolize women feeling trapped in the “traditional” views, and many other things in life.
I think the woman in the wallpaper is a symbol of the narrator because she sees the woman as a prisoner in the wallpaper, which is equivalent to how the narrator feels herself. She’s not able to fully live her own life without hearing about it from the men in her life and her family. This is relatable to the woman behind the wallpaper, who is unable to escape the wallpaper and live with freedom. Therefore, I think they are connected because of the lack of freedom.
I think this goes right along with the theme of the story, the toll it takes on women. Gilman uses the paper to show the theme by the actions of the men, the way society treats women, and by the narrator going crazy by the way society feels women should be. I think the theme would be the disrespect in families, marriage, medicine, and life that women face. This story is relatable by many women who are prisoners in their marriage or by their family.
“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? So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again. Personally, I

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman portrays the ill effects of marital gender roles through the characterization of the narrator and her husband, John. The narrator suffers from mental illness and is trying to recuperate with the guidance of her physician husband. John’s roles as her husband and her physician create an unbalanced distribution of power in their relationship, allowing him to assert a tremendous amount of dominance over her as two strong authority figures. This is apparent when the narrator complains about…

    • 905 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Cameron Jones Final Essay

    • 1914 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Carol Davidson wrote a wonderful analysis on what she refers to as the “female gothic” in “The Yellow Wallpaper” which she defines as text that “centers its lens on a young woman’s rite of passage into womanhood and her ambivalent relationship to contemporary domestic ideology.” (Davidson 48) I interpreted that as her referencing the hardships women had to deal with at the time Gilman wrote this story. Gilman lived in a time where men still called the shots. This is a time when feminism was in its infancy and nowhere near as mainstream as it is today. In fact when this story was written, some publishers (who were men) refused to publish it due to the feminist message it held. (Peritz 113). Men at that time weren’t too keen on the idea of women breaking free from the chains that were holding them.…

    • 1914 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” was published in 1892 after Gilman suffered from “a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia” (Gilman, “Why I wrote”) and was placed under the care of Silas Weir Mitchell. Mitchell’s cure for women with Gilman’s affliction were told to “live as domestic life as far as possible, have but two hours’ intellectual life a day and to never touch a pen, brush, or pencil again” (Gilman, “Why I wrote”). While following Mitchell’s advice, Gilman’s condition slowly worsened and only after she returned to working did her health improve. Using the knowledge she gained from the experience, Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The short story features a woman by the name of Jane, who is…

    • 1417 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The narrator in Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" is infatuated with the wallpaper in her "colonial mansion" (531). The protagonist sees what she is "quite sure it is a woman" (538) trapped behind the wallpaper. The woman changes by day and night. "By daylight she is subdued, quiet" (539), however, "at night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it [the wallpaper] becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be." (538). The protagonist sees a woman who represents…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Short story paper outline Introduction (Feminist literature) Topic Sentence – Gilman’s main purpose for writing the yellow wallpaper is to convey the relationship between a husband/wife in the 19th century. General Exposition – Throughout the story we shift back and forth through the narrator’s consciousness and real life situations. Narrow the Focus – My main focus is the wallpaper in “The yellow wallpaper” which basically represent the narrator’s growing repression. I also tend to focus on the Imagery, and characteristics of the story.…

    • 328 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman is known by readers of literature and students across the globe for her most famous piece “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The famous story follows a woman who suffers from mental illness and her growing infatuation with the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom. It touches on the responsibility of women in the late 1800’s and the narrator’s inability to fulfill the duties of a housewife. At the end of the short story, the narrator’s illness takes over her mind and body as she believes she has seen a woman in the wallpaper, eventually putting herself in the wallpaper as well. When readers look deeper into the text, it is apparent…

    • 1424 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Much of this story is centered on eerie descriptions of the yellow wallpaper and the woman's obsessive interactions with it. It is important, though, to understand that although the plot is primarily based around her neurosis, the objective of the story is to deliver a completely unrelated message. Many critics of "The Yellow Wallpaper" claim that the story might drive someone mad simply by reading it, but this, in my opinion, is beside the point. Gilman seeks instead to evoke a message of individual expression and successfully does so by recording the progression of the illness, through the state of the wallpaper.…

    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    yellow wallpaper

    • 422 Words
    • 1 Page

    Throughout "The Yellow Wall-Paper," Charlotte Gilman uses various symbols to show the oppression of women by men, and the continuing struggle to escape that oppression. The three main symbols that run throughout the story lend the most support to this. The yellow wall-paper is an indication of the mental restrictions that were placed upon women by men during the 1800s. As yellow is oft considered the color of sickness or weakness, the sickness that the writer suffers from is the continuing oppression and struggle that continues to this very day by women. Gilman shows that the possibilities of women are as vast as those of man, and that during the 19th century those possibilities were severely restricted. This is shown through the descriptions of the two windows and the view from each. The writer sees other doing acts she could do herself, just as women saw acts of man that they could do with the same level of competency. Entirely, "The Yellow Wall-Paper" is a statement of the oppression of the female sex by mankind.On page 835 the description of the two windows and the view from them by the writer is a representation of the possibilities of the female sex, and how those possibilities were limited and restricted by men during the 19th and into the 20th century. The first view is described as "I can see the garden, those mysterious deep-shaded arbor, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees." The "garden" is a clear symbol of the earth, or society, and the use of "mysterious" shows that the possibilities that women have are undiscovered to them. In the next view the writer describes seeing a "lovely view of the bay" and a "private wharf belonging to the estate." The bay is a reference to the uncharted territory of womankind's abilities and the private estate is clearly indicating the sections of society forbidden to women. The description of seeing "people walking in the numerous paths and arbors" is the idea of women seeing the acts of men, and…

    • 422 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Best Essays

    In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman defies gender roles in the nineteenth century, by using the main character to show women need a creative outlet, to work, and not conform to the idealistic type of woman in the nineteenth century. She also shows this story is not specifically about one family by using generic names such as John and Mary (Ford 309). The use of these unspecific names suggests that Gilman is using the story to encompass all women and not just the main character of the story that is undergoing these persecutions (Ford 309). Throughout the story, the main character is trapped in a room with horrid yellow wallpaper. that her husband said he would change it out when they first rented the house, but now has no intention to. He believes that living with something she isn’t fond of will do her some good in recovery (Gilman “Yellow” 794). At first the yellow wallpaper has little meaning other than the fact that the main character hates it and almost refuses to…

    • 1964 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Griffin. Amy A. “Tearing Down Walls: The Message Behind Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.” Notes on Contemporary Literature. Ed. William S. Doxey. Vol.1 Carrollton, Georgia: the State University of West Georgia, 2000. 10-11.…

    • 1469 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper Essay

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Yellow Wallpaper written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman explores the oppression of women in the nineteenth century and how this led to the limitation of freedom, leading to confinement of many women during this time. It illustrates the male superiority over the female and the elimination of a voice and a say for these women regarding their own lives. The short story is structured to appear a bit creepy and horrific, but within this method the author created a strong female character who, even though is slowly deteriorating psychologically, is trying to fight the pressure that society in the nineteenth century is placing on her and also the pressure of her own husband. The style that the author was trying to create is clear through her use…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lives for women in 1892 were heavily controlled by men. Women were treated as if they were inferior to men. Charlotte Perkins Gilman brings light to this problem in a interesting way. Gilman herself, was in fact driven to near madness and later claimed to have written “The Yellow Wallpaper” to protest this treatment of women like herself, and specifically to address her physician. Although they never replied to Gilman personally, they are said to have confessed to a friend that they had changed their treatment of hysterics after reading the story. While real life aspects are apparent it’s the symbolism and subliminal feminist in her story to show how a woman’s role in society is limited with no control or creative outlet.…

    • 951 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper

    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Charlotte Perkin Gilman is internationally known for her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Gilman was born on July 3, 1860. After marriage, she endured depressions several times shortly after her first daughter was born. Gilman suffered from mental breakdowns which soon lead to melancholia. Her personal experiences, dealing with post-partum depression, are what inspired Gilman to write the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”. This story revolves around the main character, Jane, and how she copes with her illness. Jane suffers from post-partum depression, and to “cure” this illness, she is kept isolated from the world. In this short story there are many influences that impact the conflict of the story. Social influences are present in the story as Jane is kept isolated from the world. Also, cultural events in the story, related to the Victorian era, when women were treated unequally, built up the storyline. Finally, several personal events in Gilman’s past are shown throughout the story and add to the story’s conflict. Therefore, Charlotte Perkin Gilman incorporates several aspects of her own life into her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” that becomes evident through the explanation of the Gilman’s universal truth that treating women inhumanely will only result in negative outcomes; it is the reverse cure for an illness.…

    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper describes a traditional 19th century marriage where the woman in the relationship often just did what her husband told her to do. They were, in a sense, trapped, ignored, and hid their marriage from society. In other words, the husband was ruled the relationship and the wife was very much so a follower. Personally, I think that has a big effect on the story. Gilman makes a strong statement about how men in this day in age treated women, more so, like children and less like individuals.…

    • 1039 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman engages the audience into the inner self of a young mother and wife throughout the story. The story has grown from a remedy to depression to a female defiance to a male society. Gilman’s purpose in writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” shows the courage a woman had to demonstrate a positive change in her self-identity and free her from the social, domestic, and psychological confinement that were placed on women in the 1800’s. By writing the story from a first-person feministic point of view the narrator shows the struggle of women’s independence and individuality in a male dominated society through gender stereotype that exist between the society and the protagonist in “The Yellow Wallpaper.”…

    • 3424 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Better Essays