Preview

Yellow Wallpaper Conflict

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
540 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Yellow Wallpaper Conflict
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born July third, 1860, she published “the yellow wall paper” in may of 1892 and passed away on the seventeenth of august 1935.

“The yellow wallpaper” is a short story about a young middle-class woman who is suffering from what seems to be postpartum depression after giving birth, but with the time frame that the story is apart of she is diagnosed with “nervous depression…a slight hysterical tendency” by her husband/ doctor. Her illness is giving her insight into her condition in society, and marriage along with other females that are going through similar situations. As her treatment starts it beings robing her of her sanity.

Throughout the story a lot of events occurred, the main conflict in the story is the struggle that the narrator and her husband, who is additionally her doctor, over the course and treatment of her illness leads to conflict with in the narrators mind between her growing understanding of her own powerlessness and her desire to repress this awareness. The narrator chooses to keep a secret journal, in which she describes her forced passivity and expresses her displeasure for her bedroom wallpaper, a dislike that gradually develops into an obsession. …show more content…
At every point she is confronted with relationships, objects, and situations that appear harmless and natural but that are actually rather strange and even overbearing. In a sense, the plot of “the yellow wallpaper” is the narrators attempt to avoid acknowledging the extent to which her exterior condition stifles her inner
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Summary: The Yellow Wallpaper
    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Summary: The Yellow Wallpaper

    "The Yellow Wallpaper (original title: "The Yellow Wall-paper. A Story") is a 6,000-word short story by the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine.[2] It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the 19th century toward women's health, both physical and mental.…

    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Postpartum Depression In The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Postpartum Depression In The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

    Over time, the woman becomes mentally unstable and believes there is another woman living in the wallpaper. The short story is based off of Charlotte’s personal experience with postpartum depression, which gives the story a deeper meaning. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is written in first person point of view and is the narrator’s private journal. Knowing that the woman is writing down her true feelings creates an emotional tone in the story, especially since the author has experienced a similar situation…

    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The First Entry of the Yellow Wallpaper
    • 1291 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The First Entry of the Yellow Wallpaper

    At first, we can see the narrator repeats the name of her husband John often in phrases such as ‘Ordinary people like John and me’, ‘John laughs at me’ ‘John is practical in the extreme’ etc. This repetition shows the reader the narrator’s dependency on her husband – it seems as if her husband is all that controls her life and all that she thinks about. John seems to have such a powerful influence on her life that she almost can’t function without him mentally and physically; Physically because he is a ‘physician’ and is caring for her while she’s in her unstable state, and mentally because of both her unstable state and her submissive nature towards him. During the time in which The Yellow Wallpaper was written, males constantly had power and control over women and were seen as the more dominant of the two; the effect of her husband’s name repeated reflects this attitude and how unstable women are viewed without their husbands.…

    • 1291 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Jane's Illness In 'The Yellow Wallpaper'
    • 370 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Jane's Illness In 'The Yellow Wallpaper'

    “The Yellow Wallpaper”, is a journal written from a very imaginary, inventive character. Jane, the narrator, is avoiding all her actual problems throughout this journal. Her inner thoughts and motives triumph her external illness. In this story, the narrator is the paradox. She has illusions that will not let her understand the extent of her illness.…

    • 370 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Comparison between Novels: The Yellow Wallpaper and the Bluebeard
    • 1003 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Comparison between Novels: The Yellow Wallpaper and the Bluebeard

    Cited: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper, published 1899 by Small & Maynard, Boston, MA.…

    • 1003 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    The Most Sympathetic Character in The Yellow Wallpaper, The Red Convertible, and The Lottery
    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The Most Sympathetic Character in The Yellow Wallpaper, The Red Convertible, and The Lottery

    In the yellow wallpaper, the narrator is the character that the readers feel sad for the most. The narrator is a young wife and mother whose physician husband, john claims that she is suffering from depression. He takes her to a rest cure treatment and locks her in a nursery with 'rings and things in the walls' to ensure a good rest for her. Yet, she loses her sanity under the circumstances of John's excess suppression and the distracting yellow wallpaper in the room. John completely holds the authority over the narrator and takes care of her so careful as if she is a little girl with the nickname ‘blessed little goose’ named by him. He asks her to control herself over her imaginative and storytelling power. The narrator wants to satisfy her husband and obeys him although she 'disagrees with' his idea and has 'heavy opposition’, and she ‘takes pain to control herself’, which ‘makes me (the narrator) very tired’. Not wanting to disappoint her husband and her desire of being an ideal mother and wife, she tries hard to be lenient and thus, she suppresses her creative fantasy even with pain. The narrator becomes completely detached from the outer world when john turns down her request of living in the room ‘downstairs that opened onto the piazza and had roses all over the window’. The suppression is so unbearable that the narrator starts to write her journal in order to express her stress secretively without anybody knowing. She finds relief in writing the journal as she mentions ‘it’s such a relief!’ It proves that the suppression by john makes the narrator afraid of telling him her inner thoughts, which makes their relationship distant. In the meanwhile, the narrator knows that john loves her very much but she doesn’t like the way he loves her. As the narrator loses touch with the outer world, she stays in the room and the weird yellow wallpaper distracts her attention. By using contrast, the change in the narrator’s attitude towards the wallpaper is shown clearly.…

    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Yellow Wallpaper Response
    • 686 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Yellow Wallpaper Response

    We can assume that she is writing in a journal or diary because at the end of the first scene she says “There comes John, and I must put this away, -- he hates to have me write a word” (Gilman). She believes that she is very sick, and John continuously tries to convince her that everything is okay. The reader now feels somewhat constrained because that is how the narrator feels. This is the direct cause of 1st person point of view. We can see that John, who is treating her, also has a hold over her because she cannot write in his presence and he doesn’t believe her when she tries to tell him that she is sick. In the vacation home, they choose a bedroom that is has particular yellow wallpaper that the narrator despises. She goes on and on about how ugly the wallpaper is; “the color is repellent, almost revolting” (Gilman). As her depression carries on, so does her obsession with yellow wallpaper; however, the reader of the story can see the reasons why she is feeling the way she does. 1st person point of view allows the reader to understand one character’s outlook, and hear their voice. If the focus was on the husband’s point of view, the entire story’s meaning would change because the husband only sees the “outside” of his wife, and cannot explain or understand what she is going through. During…

    • 686 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Relationship Between Jane And John In The Yellow Wallpaper
    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Relationship Between Jane And John In The Yellow Wallpaper

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman, author of The Yellow Wallpaper, was determined to highlight the rights of women in the 1800s, or lack thereof. Gilman utilizes the relationship between Jane and John, along with Jane and the wallpaper to prove the independence and the determination and fortitude women in this century possessed.…

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Conflicts of the Narrator- the Yellow Wallpaper
    • 1469 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Conflicts of the Narrator- the Yellow Wallpaper

    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.…

    • 1469 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The gender theory of the Yellow Wallpaper
    • 1018 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The gender theory of the Yellow Wallpaper

    Although the story is attentively placed on the descriptions of the yellow wallpaper and her psychosis, many subliminal messages are plausible as well. Lori Voth, also states “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”. One could conclude that gender stereotypes are permeated within this short story as well. I was remarkably intrigued by the feminist theories illustrated in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. William Ames describes feminism, “based on the assumption that women have the same human, political and social rights as men, furthermore, that women should have the same opportunities as men in their personal choices regarding careers, politics and expression”. The suppressing of women’s liberation by male figures is the more common stereotype inside the story. The idea of dependency for man, due to the self-indulgent mindset of woman really stood out to me in this story as well. The narrator is merely viewed as hysterical because of her thoughts, and she relies on her husband’s knowledge to treat her although she doesn’t progress with his knowledge.…

    • 1018 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper Literary Analysis
    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Yellow Wallpaper Literary Analysis

    Elfriede Jelinek once said, “I only enjoy what I can see, because I don’t feel anything. The Yellow Wallpaper is about a married woman who suffers from post-partum depression and her husband, John, thinks it is best she stays confined in a room. She began to go crazy thinking about the yellow wallpaper that covered the bedroom walls. The Yellow Wallpaper uses literary devices such as foreshadowing, situational irony, and symbolism. Those literary devices lure the reader into the consciousness of the protagonist as she begins as descent into insanity, which applies to the overall theme. Confinement is not always the best option for an insane person.…

    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Hamlet and the Yellow Wallpaper
    • 987 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Hamlet and the Yellow Wallpaper

    In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, a woman suffers from a nervous condition and is taken to a summer home to recover. Her husband, who is also a doctor, is very overprotective and believes that she is not capable of making decisions or taking care of herself. Her husband has practically locker her up inside of this house and is forcing her to depend on him for her survival. He refuses to let her see her friends and tries to keep her away from anyone outside of this house. He convinces her that she is too sick to work, entertain, and take care of her child, and due to her loyalty and trust in her husband, she obeys him. He puts her in a room that has a bed nailed to the floor and unique wallpaper that becomes the focus of her attention.…

    • 987 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper
    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Yellow Wallpaper

    In Paula A. Treichler’s analysis “Escaping the Sentence: Diagnoses and Discourse in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’” Treichler focuses on analyzing the connection between women and writing found in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”. She discusses the symbolic nature of the wallpaper and shows how it can be interpreted as a symbol for “discourse” (Treichler 1). The authors writing cycle is very unique to the story. The narrator desires to write, to express herself, but is forbidden to by her husband. She writes in a secret journal directly to the readers, which gives the story the feeling of a secret being told directly to us. The readers can see the narrator’s infatuation with the wallpaper progressing as her journal entries become solely about the wallpaper and are written in a short and furious manner. As the narrator becomes more secluded from the outside world, she becomes less able to express herself and eventually turns to the wallpaper as a form of expression. The woman in the wallpaper represents “the representation of women that becomes possible only after women obtain the right to speak” (Treichler 2). As the narrator begins to slowly lose her speaking privileges due to the oppression and dominance of her husband, she becomes more and more obsessed with the woman in the wallpaper. Eventually the narrator frees and becomes the woman in the wallpaper, which allows her the privilege of expressing herself through discourse when she finally openly defies her husband with the words “I 've got out at last,” she tells him triumphantly, “And I 've pulled off most of the paper, so you can 't put me back” (Gilman 36). “Her husband faints, and she is obliged to step over him each time she circles the room” (Treichler 2) symbolizing her finally overcoming his oppression.…

    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    How the Setting Affected the Narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper"
    • 849 Words
    • 4 Pages

    How the Setting Affected the Narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper"

    The "Yellow Wall Paper "by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a chilling study and experiment of mental disorder in nineteenth century. This is a story of a miserable wife, a young woman in anguish, stress surrounding her in the walls of her bedroom and under the control of her husband doctor, who had given her the treatment of isolation and rest. This short story vividly reflects both a woman in torment and oppression as well as a woman struggling for self expression. The setting of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the driving force in the story because it is the main factor that caused the narrator to go insane.…

    • 849 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Literary Analysis Of Candid Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper
    • 752 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Literary Analysis Of Candid Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

    The Yellow Wallpaper, is included as a combination of diary passages written in first individual, by a lady who has been bound to a room by her doctor spouse who he trusts endures a transitory anxious despondency, when she is really experiencing post pregnancy anxiety. He endorses her a rest cure" The lady stays mysterious all through the story. She winds up plainly fixated on the yellow backdrop that encompasses her in the room, and participates in some over the top creative energies towards the backdrop. Gilman's story portrays ladies' battle of autonomy and singularity at the ascent of woman's rights, and also her very own impression life and encounters. Amid that time, Mental disease and melancholy was not for the most part caught on. Candid…

    • 752 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More