Preview

The Yellow Wallpaper Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1239 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Yellow Wallpaper Essay
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 …show more content…
It is a bit ironic that the author chose a color so bright and usually defined as being a happy and joyful color. However, this story is not at all joyful, but is instead is very depressing and sad. The wallpaper is described in such great detail that it is very easy for the reader to picture exactly what the author is trying to say. “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough constantly to irritate and provoke study…” within this description of the the wallpaper it is obvious that the narrator is unhappy with the wallpaper and as the story goes on the wallpaper begins to play a vital role in her psychological deterioration (156). The wallpaper appears to be a border that keeps the women trapped within the shadows of the men. As the narrator begins to rip the paper off this is the symbol of freedom and the struggle to be release from the constant stereotypes and gender differences. It is interesting to see that even though the wallpaper was what was causing the narrator to deteriorate at the end of the story, the wallpaper is what finally frees

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    She studies the wallpaper so much that she loses her grasp on reality and lets the wallpaper overtake her. She says, “Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see I have something more to expect, look forward to, to watch” (Pg.493). Her constant studying of the wallpaper leads her to the discovery of her doppelganger or herself in the wallpaper. Barbara Hochman, who wrote “The Reading Habit and The Yellow Wallpaper” said, “Critics of the last twenty years have devoted a great deal of attention to the writing on the wall and have suggested that the wallpaper tells the tale of nineteenth century women, rendered querulous, infantile, and passive by the restriction imposed upon them” (Pg. 91). The hope for all of those who read “The Yellow Wallpaper” is that they can understand the narrator becomes her own individual by finding herself in the wallpaper. The narrator desires to write and instead of writing on a piece of paper, she transcribes herself on the wallpaper. The wallpaper turns into her journal but it isn’t what the narrator writes or reads, but it is what she…

    • 3424 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The yellow wallpaper takes the readers on a journey that captures the mind through the powerful and vivid imagination of the narrator written diary showing imagery through her words and thoughts. Suppressed by her dominant husband, the creative narrator finds escape through her writing, which she uses to tell her story. The story begins when a socially accepted husband, a physician, tries to “fix” his wife to fit the standard of society; nevertheless, it only leads to her destruction. Forced to be normal, “so I take pains to control myself”, she puts on a façade to retain her marriage and social standing by acting as though her depression has not won the struggle. (Gilman)…

    • 1344 Words
    • 6 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

    In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses symbolism to make the story more interesting, There are many examples of symbolism in the story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Gilman uses objects in the story that have a meaning to what the reader should understand.…

    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    All good stories convey a message. Gilman’s main message seemed eager to bring to light gender role issues and stereotypes of her time period. An average relationship of her time generally included a working middleclass husband and a house keeping wife. The wife normally did as she was told by her husband and took care of any family needs. Being a famous writer, Gilman did not exactly have an average role in society in her time as a female. From an oppressed perspective, having experienced firsthand gender expectations that Gilman mocks stereotypical gender roles within the Yellow Wallpaper.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The recurrent imagery of the women in the wallpaper is a strong statement about the unjust treatment of women in the late nineteenth century. The narrator realizes that she is not alone in her suffering as she doesn’t like to look out of the windows because “there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast” (Gilman 518). Normally, windows are a symbol of opportunities, but in this case the window is a symbol of reality that the narrator does not want to face. She is distressed at the thought of other women suffering as she has, and so prefers to stay creeping inside the room, away from the cruel reality of society. As the narrator tears down the wallpaper in an effort to free herself and the trapped women, she realizes that she cannot “reach far without something to stand on” (Gilman 517). This demonstrates how she cannot do much to help herself alone. Without any support from others in…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Yellow Wallpaper” a woman is trapped in a colonial mansion where she cannot do anything on her own. She is forced to sit and do nothing. She is not allowed to interact with the outside world or even write, because it is considered to be too much for her and the cause of her nervousness. As this so called resting treatment continues she slowly begins to lose her mind.…

    • 646 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    1. Consider the writer's decision regarding narrative point of view. Why do you think she chose this point of view over other possibilities? Comment on the problem her choice creates for the realism of the story's end.…

    • 656 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Yellow Wallpaper Symbols

    • 1818 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Gender roles play a significant part in The Yellow Wallpaper, represented heavily by the physical yellow wallpaper in the bedroom of the summer mansion. This story, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, even begins on the first page and throughout the entire story, the narrator portrays women in the common air of being dominated by men. Especially during this time, women were oppressed not only by their husbands but also by any male figure. For example, on page 28 she says, "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage…personally, I disagree with their ideas…but what is one supposed to do?" The results of what happens in The Yellow Wallpaper…

    • 1818 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper was written in 1892 and is from the vantage point of a woman. This story was written in a time when women were not supposed to have individual thoughts or personalities. At this point in history, the social roles of women were very well defined: mothers and…

    • 1512 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman skillfully uses a simple wallpaper to display as a symbolic reference to the domestic lifestyle many women live on an everyday basis. The main character Jane is depicted as a sickly housewife who has been ordered to bed rest by her husband John and is slowly loses grips with reality in the fantasy of her “Yellow Wallpaper”. During the story Gilman allows Jane to share with the audience through a journal her everyday life, which consist of her being confined to a nursery painted yellow. Throughout the story Gilman displays the wallpaper through a variety of analytical symbolic ties to the struggle of subordinate domestic housewives.…

    • 853 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper written by Charlotte Perkins Stetson was set in the 19th century,USA.It was mainly about a hysterical woman took the rest cure in an ancestral hall,and was finally driven mad by a piece of yellow wallpaper in her room. In The Yellow Wallpaper,the author demonstrates the idea that in the 19th century US,women were suffered from male hegemony.They were in an inferior position,and their position needed to be improved.…

    • 385 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I thought I knew how The Yellow Wallpaper was going to end. I thought there would really be a woman or ghost of a woman in the walls, perhaps a victim of a murder. I thought that the husband had taken his wife to this huge house to kill her and make it look like a suicide. Like one of those Lifetime movies where the husband pretends to love his wife and care for her although he secretly wants to bump her off. So the husband isolates the wife and slowly attempts to convince his wife and others that the wife is crazy. That way, when she’s found dead, a suicide seems plausible, even to others close to her. I was surprised this didn’t happen. The wife is isolated by the husband, true. However, he isolates her out of genuine concern for her physical and mental well-being. He truly means well and thinks he’s doing right by his wife. It is out of genuine concern for his wife’s health that he denies her visitors and tries to get her to stop working. He also feels that she is not strong enough to handle caring for their child without doing harm to herself. This guy is under the impression women are weak little dolls that must be handled fragilely and he must be the big, strong man and look out for his little wife. I guess if you’re going to be married to a chauvinist, one who wants to take care of you is the way to go. Although, in the story, perhaps if he had made his wife exercise and allowed her the company she wished rather than keeping her hid until she was “better” then his wife would not have descended into madness as she did. He thought he was doing good but really he was doing more harm than he could have thought possible. I thought that it was strange that neither husband nor wife seems to spend much time with their baby, especially as it is their first and most new parents nowadays seem to never get enough of their children. I know that I hate it whenever one of my friends has a baby because I know that for the rest of the week my Facebook feed is going to be…

    • 754 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In "The Yellow Wallpaper," Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents the narrator, being the main character, as an ill woman. However, she is not ill physically. She is ill in her mind. More than any chemical imbalance that may be present; the narrator's environment is what causes her to go mad.…

    • 1537 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Yellow Wallpaper

    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a writer, lecturer and social activist during the 19th century. Gilman was recognized for her feminist ideals, and argued for equal treatment of women. Gilman spoke out during a time where women were not encouraged to have outside interests beyond the home, and spoke on numerous issues, including women’s physical and mental health. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, Gilman’s short stories, poetry, essays, plays, and critiques deal with women topics that are still relevant to contemporary issues.…

    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays