Susan S. Lanser's The Yellow Wallpaper

In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, author Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses many literary techniques to allow the reader to understand the universal truth that a woman’s class is seen as lower than that of a man’s, due to their sex. We see this truth throughout the literary work, when the main character who is a woman, is put in confinement and later becomesdistraught and mentally unstablebecause her husband and brother who are both Physicians diagnoses her as “nervously depressed”. Two techniques author Gilman uses is tone and diction to illustrate how the narrator, among most women in that time period is treated as below men in class, with little say in their own mental or physical issues.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892 at the height of the Victorian era is often mistaken as a feminist short story. She tries to tell its readers how women have been confined in this “domestic role” since the beginning of time. The narrator uses the wallpaper to represent the society she lives in. Not only does the wallpaper affect the narrator, but also it influences everyone that meets it. And how these roles ultimately will drive any woman insane. Men dominated the workplace and was head of his household that was just what life was back then. In earlier centuries, it was unusual for a woman to work alongside men.

Madness can drive any seemingly rational person to perform completely irrational and potentially deadly actions. Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Susan Glaspell both observe the effects of madness in their respective fictional short stories. Gilman’s work, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is a first person short story in which madness is the central theme throughout. The narrator, who is also the protagonist, is driven into insanity after being prescribed the “rest cure” from her husband; her descent into madness is apparent as the story goes on. Glaspell’s work, “Jury of Her Peers,” is a third person short story in which madness acts as a secluded theme. In this story, Minnie Wright, the protagonist who is never present, murders her husband. Her drastic

Gilman, in this particular passage of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” explores the theme of female oppression through imagery and symbolism of the wall-paper. These elements of literature make the wall-paper come to life for both the narrator and the audience. “The front pattern does move”(55) personifies the wall-paper to be so animate and physically restraining that the woman behind it must shake it to attempt to escape. The italicization of “does” serves to further affirm that the wallpaper exhibits restrictive human-like behaviors - particularly those of dominant men in society. The narrator states that there are “a great many woman behind”(55), extending the metaphor to all Victorian women in the United States and others around the world who are oppressed. Many women were in fact belittled by the ideal of true womanhood and exhibited characteristics such as submissiveness or piety. Gilman also employs somber diction throughout the story, such as “crawl”(55) and “creep”(58) to suggest that covert agency is the only way for women to improve their situations at

“The Yellow Wallpaper” a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and published in 1892, is both a psychological and feminist piece of literature. It demonstrates oppression, defined as “the feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or physically by troubles, adverse conditions, anxiety, etc.” The story, written in a form of a journal, is seen through the eyes of a nameless female narrator, who moves with her husband, John, to an estate during the summer to cope with her “hysteria”, eventually leading her to a state of oppression and insanity. The story reflects the confinement and restraint most women during the 1900s felt in marriages and the inferiority women had too men.

Throughout the generation, women have always been trapped in some way or another. In the short story, ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’ and the novel ‘The Awakening’ highlights the struggle of women in the late 1800’s and the early 1900s in society. The Yellow wallpaper is a short story about women giving birth and being imprisoned in a room with a weird view of the yellow wall-paper. This resulted in her hallucination lead to the development of mental illness. By the end of the story, she rips off the yellow wallpaper and kills her husband. Similar to this is the story of Edna in the novel ‘The Awakening’ by Kate Chopin. This story highlights the life of a woman who is trying to gain independence in a trapped society where it is impossible for women in that type of culture to be free. Society plays a major role in her story as the society oppresses her in such a way that results in a tragic ending.

The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story full of imaginative symbolism and descriptive settings. However, without the narrator’s unique point of view and how it affects her perception of her environment, the story would fail to inform the reader of the narrator’s emotional plummet. The gothic function of the short story is to allow the reader to be with the narrator as she gradually loses her sanity and the point of view of the narrator is key in ensuring the reader has an understanding of the narrator’s emotional and mental state throughout the story.

Just as the yellow wallpaper symbolizes gender inequality, escaping from the this cage of discrimination and oppression on women springs the rising of feminism. At the end of another story, the narrator is able to grasp an understanding of Sonny’s values and struggles, along with a salvation of his own. For all this time a seemingly rebellious and depressive figure of Sonny is illustrated, a soul of freedom and his values are conveyed in the music. Contrastingly, despite of a stable life of being a middle-class high school teacher, the narrator is trapped in Harlem both physically and mentally. Unlike Sonny, escaping from the neighbourhood of “boiling sea” that’s filled with people of rage and depression rarely seems an idea that occurs to the narrator ’s mind.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, it is demonstrated that the oppression on women is a very real and hazardous thing. She depicts this through an experience of a crazy married woman who is trapped by her husband and contained in the mental prison that is her home. Using the aspects of gender criticism, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is in conjunction with these societal way to oppress women through the male dialogue and perspective.

In Charlotte Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” she tells a horrific ghost story about symptoms of the rest cure. The “rest cure” was a treatment developed by Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell who restricted women of intellectual stimuli and condemned them to a domestic life to help their postpartum recovery. After being a victim of this treatment, Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Careful attention to the use of Gilman’s symbols in her short story allows the reader to analyze some of the themes concerning feminism and societal misogyny. Foreshadowing throughout, Gilman uses the house, the writing, and the wallpaper as symbols to show how man’s use of the “rest cure” limit women in society and offers that the solution to this issue is to persistently tear away at man’s injustice.

In the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman represents how wretchedness is overlooked and changed into blended sentiments that eventually result in a significantly more profound enduring incongruity. The Yellow Wallpaper utilizes striking mental and psychoanalytical symbolism and an effective women's activist message to present a topic of women' have to escape from detainment by their male centric culture.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins is an intriguing story that set my mind of to wonder. Told by the first person narrator point of view and the way the story is describe puts me in the narrators shoes, in a way that I can feel what she experienced. As the story takes place around the Victorian era, the protagonist gets lost and asphyxiated in her own prison within the walls of a nursery scheme that created a creepy and dreadful feeling.

During the period of modernism, unexpected breaks in tradition occurred with viewing the world differently. The authors used literature during the modernism time to show the decay and the growing alienation of individuals. A portrayal of a restricted role in society stands reflected in Charlotte Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The protagonist knows she is limited in her role in society as she agonizes what her husband will think of her actions. By visualizing the woman behind bars she pictures herself self-consciously. To capture the reader’s attention Charlotte Gilman uses a short story demonstration fear and insanity. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Gilman uses imagery to illustrate how a limited role of a female in society can drive her insane.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was not just an author but a great feminist. Gillam inspired countless women to seek indecency with her work like "The Yellow Wallpaper." The story is a fictionalized short story of a woman who is descending into madness while dealing with her mental illness and cannot heal due to her husband 's lack of belief. At the same time, the woman also known as the narrator feels imprisoned in her marriage. The story takes place during a time were women and had no independence and were not able to voice their own opinion. "The Yellow Wallpaper" can be analyzed with the feminist criticism through the dialogue that the woman and men portray and the symbolism in the wallpaper itself.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman captures the lives of women in a society based on societal expectations during the late nineteenth century. She focuses on the issue of gender inequality where women were often discriminated against and expected to fulfill the role of a perfect wife and mother. The narrator is based on on Gilman’s personal experience of suffering from her treatment for postpartum depression due to the social restrictions on women which represents a reflection on women's social status in society. The narrator, who remains anonymous, is depicted as a depressed and isolated prisoner who is oppressed under her husband’s control and struggles to break free. Gilman presents the toxic effect of gender inequality particularly through the relationship between a husband and wife.