The short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a brilliant piece of fictional literature. The tale involves a mentally ill woman who is kept in a hideous, yellow room under the orders of her husband, John, who is a physician. The ill woman is conflicted due to the fact that the horrifying yellow wallpaper in the room is trapping a woman who she must help escape, but the sick woman is aware that she must get better in order to leave the terrifying, yellow room. The setting and personification applied in the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, allows readers to develop an understanding of the sickness of the main character faces.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an advocate, author, and poet. Gilman’s writings expressed concerns of a dysfunctional family. In 1892 Gilman wrote her first story called “The Yellow Wall Paper” (484). In this story she expresses her observations, surroundings, and feelings. Gilman doesn’t feel her husband supports her writings, she states “he hates to have me write a word” (487).
In Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Jane, the narrator, is isolated from society as part of her “rest cure” treatment for her postpartum
Rest cure was administered to women with intense nervous signs and symptoms. The rest cure was introduced by S. Weir Mitchell who sought to find the cause of varying appearance of nervousness which was known as nervous exhaustion in the nineteenth century. He found out nervous exhaustion was caused by anemia and an irritating environment either in the workplace or at home. The solution to nervous exhaustion according to Weir was the rest cure which kept the patient away from their stressful environment and placed them in an intense regimen of six to eight weeks of total bed rest, massage, mild exercise and controlled diet. The patient was not allowed any form of activity except only cleaning the teeth (Bassuk 251).
In the short story “the Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator, Jane who has just given birth becomes progressively more ill and depressed. Her husband John, who is a physician prescribes that she get lots of rest and fresh air so Jane and John rent a colonial mansion for the summer. Throughout the story John is one of the main causes for Jane’s deepening depression.
The difference in the concept of marriage is very apparent, hence the wives in the stories were subdued domestic caretakers, while their husbands were repressive breadwinners, each in their separate spheres. Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, revolves around the life of a housewife that is unable to fulfill her wifely duties because of her nervous condition. To the readers it seems as if the story itself is the narrator’s secret journal, where she relieves her mind. She began the story as a
Gilman wrote an article explaining why she wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” saying that it was “intended to convince Mitchell to change his treatment of nervous disorders” (Silcox 1). It’s crazy to look back at the short story now knowing that Gilman was actually telling an extremely dark twist to her own
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story told through diary entries of a woman who suffers from postpartum depression. The narrator, whose name is never mentioned, becomes obsessed with the ugly yellow wallpaper in the summer home her husband rented for them. While at the home the Narrator studies the wallpaper and starts to believe there is a woman in the wallpaper. Her obsession with the wallpaper slowly makes her mental state deteriorate. Throughout The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses many literary devices such as symbolism, personification and imagery to help convey her message and get it across to the reader.
How she describes her surroundings and her interactions with her family evolves as her condition worsens. By the end, the reader can truly see just how far gone the narrator has gone. The narrator’s fixation on the yellow wallpaper had gone from a slight obsession to full mental breakdown. As it is with most good stories, the presence of strong symbolism and detailed settings is a very important aspect of the story that helps to draw the reader into the story.
The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892 shows mental illness through the narrator first hand. The theme in this story is going insane verses loneliness as well as being trapped. These themes are shown through the main character (the narrator of the story) as she works through her own mind, life, and surroundings. First, the theme of the woman’s state of mind is the main focus in this story.
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is suffering from postpartum depression. The narrator 's husband John, who also happens to be her physician, prescribes the rest cure to help lift his wife of her depressive state and ultimately heal her depression. However, the rest cure does not allow the narrator to experience any mental stimulation. Therefore, to manage her boredom the narrator begins obsessing over the pattern of the yellow wallpaper. After analyzing the pattern for awhile, the narrator witnesses a woman trapped behind bars.
The narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the main character in the short novel. She is a young newly married mother in the upper middle class who is very imaginative. The narrator is going through a stage of depression and believes the house they have temporarily moved into is haunted. What the narrator is actually experiencing is called Postpartum depression, depression suffered by a mother following childbirth. This illness can arise from the combination of hormonal changes, psychological adjustment to motherhood, and fatigue.
She wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” in an effort to open the public’s eyes to the unfairness of this treatment. By infusing Jane’s narrative with childish language and actions without ever actually calling “Jane” by her name, Gilman creates a universal experience any woman of the time could insert herself into. This allowed women to fully realize the injustice they faced. John’s belittlement of Jane also serves to create both a universal and eye opening experience for the women reading it. Additionally, for those who were willing to read into the symbolism, the nursery and the meaning underlying it added to the injustice Gilman conveys.
In 1935, Gilman wrote her autobiography; the autobiography contained a section titled “Undergoing the Cure For Nervous Prostration”. Gilman explains her horrible personal experience with undergoing the postpartum depression. Every tragic event that she had suffered through, was also symbolized in The Yellow Wallpaper. For example,
When the doctor tell us that we are not suffering from a serious illness and prescribe medicine for us, and convinces us that in a few days we will heal, mostly these words may improve our mood, raises morale and make us believe that we heal soon. Faith in the doctor words and medicine makes us think that we will feel better. But what would happen if the doctor gave us pills or vitamins that does not belong to the disease and said that these pills will make you feel better, will it affect us and makes us feel better? When the individual believes that he will feel better after he take his medication, that may possibly happen, sometimes the doctor describes for patient medication does not belong to his illness, and tells him or her that he will feel better, this is called a placebo.
