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A Review Of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

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In this article I will discuss Gilman’s work “The Yellow Wallpaper” from a feminist point of view. Firstly, I will introduce the writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I will give an insight about her background and its relevance to “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Then I will talk about the society in the story and how it affected women with mental illnesses. I will also discuss the circumstances of the isolation as empowering element in the narrator’s case. Finally I will present how the writer considered the narrator as a free independent mind even when put in isolation and her ability to get her readers to respond with both horror and also sympathy. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an outspoken renowned feminist writer in the 19th century. Her works reflected women state in male dominant community. The background of the writer was similar to that of the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper. She suffered from post-delivery depression and had been through isolation for the same rest cure method by Dr. Mitchell. This isolation affected her sanity. She intended to criticize men and how they considered women as inferior and less intelligent. The male character in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is powerful and dominant over …show more content…

The wallpaper in the narrator’s room may have resembled her situation. The color of the wallpaper was unclean faded yellow. Some authors think that Gilman may have used the wallpaper to resemble the society and other authors thought that The Yellow Wallpaper is a symbol of freedom in mind. The writer intended to convince her readers to acknowledge the female narrator’s intelligence and creativity as a woman. After reading “The Yellow Wallpaper” I believe that the work is an outstanding example of feminism. Gilman wanted to emphasize on the situation of women on that time. Her story was an attempt to solve the problem of isolation and to attract attention to the

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