Physical Entrapment In The Yellow Wallpaper, By John Gilman

After analyzing the pattern for awhile, the narrator witnesses a woman trapped behind bars. Eventually, we realize that the woman in the wallpaper is the narrator. Throughout the story, the narrator 's mental state continues to deteriorate. Being both the narrator 's husband and physician, John assumes that he knows what’s best for his wife. However, in this essay, I will argue that Gilman portrays John as an antagonist or “villain” in her story because, through his actions, he is the main reason for his wife 's descent into insanity which proves that he didn’t know what was best for his wife after all.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the female narrator is greatly troubled by the suppression of her imagination by her husband and her ultimate isolation due to this subordination. These feelings are reflected through the author’s use of setting as the narrator’s dreary and malicious descriptions of the house and the wallpaper mirrors her emotional position. Throughout the reading, the reader is exposed to the narrator’s in-depth loss of touch with reality as she sinks further and further into her own reality. As she becomes more isolated, her descriptions of the house become more abstract as she begins to focus on the wallpaper and starts to see herself as being hidden behind it. In the beginning of the story, she describes

In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” the protagonist, Miss Emily Grierson, is faced with challenges that leave her no choice but to find a way to escape the internal struggle of loneliness created by her own actions, leading to self-inflicted destruction. Looking in on the surface, the female character is imprisoned by the repressiveness of her father. While he played a huge role in causing Emily’s mental state to deteriorate, it was ultimately the consequences of her own self-control that confined her mind. Because of her poor choices, Emily lives in misery instead of rescuing herself from such damaging chains of sorrow. Throughout the text, it is evident that the overall conflict in “A Rose for Emily” was driven by self-deprecation

“They staggered from the studio, Missus leaning heavily on Josephine’s shoulder, her feet dragging behind.” (Conklin 188). Josephine lies, possibly to reassure Missus or to avoid the consequences that she as a slave may receive talking back to their masters. Conklin has created an air of frustration and hurt feelings in this scene as Missus confesses that she knows about Josephine’s thoughts of escaping, which seem to push Josephine further and further away from her. “A pure rage gripped Josephine,” and “darkness spilled forth into the room.” (189) With this you can see the author is really putting emphasis on these thoughts Josephine is having. It seems so out of character for Josephine its as if the darkness really has filled her.

Just like in his earlier life, Paul D feels humiliated by his fundamental lack of power or control, and he is unable to appear strong or masculine even to the woman he loves. Paul D also recognizes that it is not Beloved’s sexual allure in itself that is so devastating, but the oppressive institution of her power as a whole. Furthermore, he brings up the idea that her superficial image of a “sweet young girl” is deceptive, and that it hides something more sinister (149). At the climax of her novel, Morrison employs similar imagery to emphasize this captivating, disturbing energy that Beloved conceals through her appearance. The

In Ethan Frome, it is present between Ethan and his wife Zeena; Zeena attempts to get rid of the housekeeper Mattie because she sees what Ethan wants/ sees in her. There is large amounts of mistrust in the Frome household due to much isolation, sickness, and also unequal work load also “when the sense of a partnership is lacking-when your partner is oblivious to or inconsiderate of your needs, this weakens the ties that hold you together” (text 2, lines 26-27). In The Scarlett Letter, Hester Prynne has deep seated mistrust due to the ‘brand’ on the chest, the ‘A’. Hester is full of mistrust because the one she committed adultery with, was also the one that helped with her sentence. Another factor is that her old husband was healing Dimmsdale, her ‘illegitimate’ lover.

The physical state of Starkfield corresponds with her personality in the sense that both are cold and unwanted. In the novel, the narrator discusses Zeena and her physical appearance, but he leaves out her thoughts and reasons for her actions. She says and does mean things because she wants attention. For example she says, “No. I just felt so mean I couldn’t sleep.” which most likely means that she was so mad at something that she could not sleep.

Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, portrays the story of young woman named Janie struggling with relationships that become crucial to the way she chooses to identify herself. Janie goes through the constant struggle of being controlled by others and allowing others to dominate her identity rather than her owning herself. When she marries her second husband, Jody, he forces her to wear a handkerchief around her head in public because he declares her to be his property and is scared that her beauty will attract other men. However, when Jody gets ill and dies, Janie is placed into a predicament and finds herself face to face with the pain caused by her relationship. Hurston describes the transition Janie makes from being identified by others to recognizing her self worth.

In Ross’ work, both Ann and Vickers share the common attributes of isolation; which creates deaths in their lives. Specifically, in “The Painted Door” Ann’s isolation leads to an adultery and a death of a loved one. When Steven comes to keep Ann company, her unsatisfied feelings for John, cause her to show interest in Steven, leading to an affair. While John is not present in Ann’s life, she turns to Steven when left alone: “She [is] John’s wife -she [knows]- but also she [knows] that Steven standing here was different from John” (Ross 297). Evidently, isolation causes Ann to make wrong decisions.

By the narrator describing the windows as barred, it gives off the feeling of being trapped. Furthermore, the bars give off the impression of being in jail, which depicts confinement and even solitary. The fact that she describes the room as big and airy shows how lonely she is because she is alone there. Lastly,

However, unable to go back to her habitual life, and unwilling to leave the house, she finds herself in state of madness and unreliability. Gilman portrays this insanity through the use of exclamatory sentences and anacoluthon where there are frequent discontinuities in thought. As a result, this emphasizes the

She first dislikes the color and despises the pattern, but after closely studying the pattern “a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design” and after obsessing over the painting she finds bars hidden. The heavy bedstead, which was nailed to the ground, was another feature that represents the room as a jail cell. Therefore, the room that she is prisoned shows how the madness benefited her to gain control and achieve a way to escape her confinement. In conclusion, the diverse literature 's do share a common theme that shows women fighting to overcome societal expectations due to the female gender not valued as thinkers capable of being their equals and mental illness can be caused by society’s stereotypical

She loses herself, as I would imagine Sophie to do after a life time of oppression. Jane saw a woman in the wall, and then became her. She took on that identity, and in her mind, then became free of ruling and imprisonment. All of my sympathy for any of the other characters in this work went solely to Jane. Her obvious mental instability made the story difficult for me to read- not because it’s what’s wrong with her, but what’s wrong with professional medical abuse, which especially back then was an ongoing problem in addition to today.

Not being able to live up to what the North had in mind for white womanhood, meant that she was deemed unworthy of happiness just for the fact she tried to free herself by giving up her virtue. Linda Brent was also prevented from the high expectations of preserving her purity due to Dr. Flint pressuring her countless times. As stated by Brent, “When I found that my master had actually begun to build the lonely cottage, other feelings mixed with those I have described” (Brent, A Perilous Passage in The Slave Girl’s Life). She was hinting at an occurrence between Dr. Flint and herself, where it seems that he was pressuring her into giving him her purity. It was hard for anyone to stay pure if they were always coerced or even forced to engage in any sexual

Furthermore, Nora’s ambiguous nature drives the conflicts in the play, acting as the source of tension between her and her husband, Dr. Rank, and Krogstad as her decision to overlook the laws in an effort to save her husband prove a perilous decision in regards to her way of life. The reader is left unable to properly define or side with Nora, the cumulative result therein being a work the reader has little choice but to watch the tragedy unfold in a similar manner to a child’s wild imagination taking control as they interact with A Doll