Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” follows an unnamed woman as she struggles with an unspecified mental illness. The narrator and her husband, John, temporarily move to a colonial mansion. While there, the narrator becomes increasingly more obsessed with the yellow wallpaper that covers her bedroom. This obsession increasingly grows until she eventually breaks down at the end of the story. However, while the narrator is struggling with her mental illness, John brushes it off, continually saying that nothing is wrong with the narrator.
In her book, "The yellow wallpaper", Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents a protagonist that finds her mental illness voluminously increasing as they are unable to cope with their isolated surroundings as well as the oppression forced upon women stereotypical of 19th century American society. Throughout the book, Gilman utilizes the protagonist 's diary as a lens of consciousness, accounting the events within the story as its reliability becomes unstable and the protagonist, seeps deeper into a delusional state of being. It is through these accounts that the wallpaper evolves in its symbolism, becoming a menacing pattern of confinement, a reflection of her society 's oppression of women that is exemplified by the narrator 's decline in mental
At the beginning of the story, the narrator has a hope of getting better one day and is willing to do whatever is best to return to society. By the middle of the story, the narrator loses all of the responsibility in her life, leaving her to do nothing but dwell during the day. By the end, the narrator becomes overpowered by the thoughts and allusions in her head causing her to descend into a state of madness. Thus, in the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman depicts the potential effects of postpartum depression and emphasizes the need for proper
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story that was written in first person during 1892. This story depicts society’s attitude towards women with a mental illness at that time. Ultimately, the story shows how women were treated in the 19th century. “And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman transfers insanity to existence in the short story, “The Yellow Paper”. The main character goes through a “cure” in order for her low spirits to go away following the birth of her daughter. She goes insane after given the treatment of rest cure to relieve her symptoms. The author writes about the process of the main characters mentality getting to a level in which isn’t recognizable. It captures the attention deeply probably because Gilman has gone through the ordeal of insanity as well.
The narrator describes it in detail that it seems like she is talking about herself going through all this emotionally and physically. The narrator is dissociated from herself and from the world. She lives with her husband but has not been feeling herself. Her husband gets concerned and she is put in the rest cure. But now she
The realistic oppressions drive women to the verge of despair and madness. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the nameless narrator image there is also a woman who is bind in the yellow wallpaper and she has a responsibility to help this woman. Therefore, she peels off the yellow wallpaper to struggle injustice. In the end, she continues to creep over her fainted husband. The narrator feels her become the strong female hero and she do liberate herself from oppression and regain her freedom, but her strange behaviors also become a complete crazy and will be sent to the mental
The house is in a super-isolated place. The house represents the narrator 's personal emotions; restricted and isolation. In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the symbolism of the the wallpaper and the diary demonstrate the psychological difficulties, that were caused by being disrespected and thought less of, during the 19th century for women across the United States. In the “Yellow Wallpaper”, the woman 's husband John neglects her symptoms of postpartum and says she has a slight hysterical tendency. As this progresses, the woman starts to go mad from ignorance and starts to believe there is someone behind the Wallpaper.
In other words, Jane imagines the yellow wallpaper as a cage. Her confinement is stressing her and we can see that it is taking a toll on her. She describes the yellow wallpaper as if it was becoming a cage, in which she was trapped in with the girl who in a way is her. Gilman uses imagery by using many descriptive words to enhance the reader 's perception of the setting, making them understand the setting or plot better. The womimagean in the wallpaper is representing the situation that Jane is in, trapped.
Mental Illness and the Oppression of Women in "The Yellow Wall-paper" “The Yellow Wall-paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a feminist literary work about mental illness and the oppression of women. This oppression is evident throughout the story not only by the husband’s treatment of the narrator, but also through her non-questioning submission to him. Her concerns for her health and well-being fall on deaf ears, as her husband maintains a misogynistic view of her gender and the roles in which it entails. She is suggested to be overreacting or even unknowing of what is truly bothering her, which leads to her eventual descent into madness. “The Yellow Wall-paper” is not just a story of insanity, it is a story of mistreatment due to the sexist ideas placed upon women which facilitate the lack of necessary and proper treatment for mental illness.