The Yellow Wallpaper Figurative Language Analysis

Intellectual Relief in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” The Yellow Wallpaper presents the story of a woman’s descent into madness. The narrator’s declining mental health is reflected through the characteristics of the house she is dwells in and her husband, while trying to protect her, is actually damaging her. The narrator of the story goes with her husband to stay in a colonial mansion for the summer.

Charlotte Gilman’s short story, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, (1899) is a text that describes how suppression of women and their confinement in domestic sphere leads to descend into insanity for escape. The story is written as diary entries of the protagonist, who is living with her husband in an old mansion for the summer. The protagonist, who remains unnamed, is suffering from post-partum depression after the birth of her child and is on ‘rest’ cure by her physician husband. In this paper, I will try to prove that ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ acts as a subversive text by portraying the protagonist’s “descent into madness” as a result of the suppression that women faced in Victorian period.

Written in the late 1800s by one of the most outstanding feminine authors of the century the yellow wallpaper is a utterly complex and layered text. Within this piece the author gives us a look into the the complexity of maternal female bodies and the many parallels that women see in the text and houses confinements. "The Yellow Wallpaper" effectively evokes the question of subjectivity itself. The story suggests that Janes mental condition is the true subjectivity of the text. Although she is prescribed rest for her supposed hysteria, It seems to be the worst treatment for her as it merely leaves her with extended time to drown in her questionable thoughts and she begins to hallucinate.

Ironically, writing about the walls keeps her grounded, yet leads to her madness. The shadows from a window above Jane’s bed, fueled by her imagination, fashion themselves to look like tiny women. The wind and normal flow of nature cause these images to seem animate. As the summer ends, she becomes obsessed with figuring the wallpaper out.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" is about a lady made crazy by post pregnancy anxiety and a hazardous treatment. However,, an examination of the protagonist’s portrayal shows that the story is generally about character. The protagonist’s projection of a fanciful lady, which at first is just her shadow, against the bars of the wallpaper shows her personality, disguising the contention she is dealing with and in the end prompting the entire breakdown of the limits of her character and that of her shadow. Continually alone and not allowed to abandon her room, the absence of something to involve her time makes the protagonist very confused. With blocked windows, the room is very similar to a jail.

Mental health, especially in women, was ignored and regarded to as a temporary “nervousness” that can easily be cured with rest. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a young woman suffering from depression and anxiety when she visited a specialist and was told that her nervousness could be easily solved with a “rest cure”. This misguided advice inspired her to write “The Yellow Wallpaper” which follows the story of a young woman whose husband disregards her anxiety and depression as “nervousness” and leaves her for several weeks alone in a room to “rest”. His ignorance demonstrates the gender dominance in their relationship, as well as the class structure which is presented because of John’s education and career. The narrator eventually has an extreme

Paula A. Treichler from the University of Illinois analyzes “The Yellow Wallpaper” and its effects of the diagnosis given to the main character effectively in her article “Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’”. In her article, Treichler emphasizes the reasons why the main character was lead to believe her diagnosis from her husband and the other contributing factors that played a role in her hysteria, such as lack of social interaction and confinement. In the introduction to her article, Treichler gives the background of the story and hits on every area of importance. The diagnosis made by the narrator 's husband is highlighted by Treichler in her opening paragraph to illustrate the significance and informality of the diagnosis and its unreliability.

Throughout the story the narrator begins to form an odd infatuation with the yellow wallpaper that decorates the room she lives in. A first, the fixation is innocent, then eventually metaphors into an unhealthy obsession with what she believes is a reflection of her own feelings and situation. Just after the narrator resolves that no one but she can figure out the wallpaper, she states “Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be” (Gilman, 441). This captures one of the exceptional qualities of The Yellow Wall-Paper: Mrs. Gilman’s imagination and creative writing ability.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ironic short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, describes how a depressed woman, who lives in an aristocratic society, is indirectly effected by a wallpaper that reflects her lifestyle. The point of view of the short story is first person. This is essential to know because readers are able to read the narrators thoughts and why the character take necessary actions toward certain situations. In the beginning of the story, the woman describes her condition.

At first the woman believes her husband has taken her to a quiet country home to recover. Left alone in her room, she takes particular notice of the dingy yellow wallpaper. As time goes on it becomes obvious to the reader that the wallpaper is a metaphor for her restrictions and becomes symbolic of her isolation and mental deterioration. She begins to see herself trapped in the wallpaper as "a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design. "

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.

In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the setting symbolizes much more than what appears to the reader in plain view. The story starts off with what seems to be a normal woman writing journal entries as she recovers from her post-mortem depression. As the story goes on, the reader soon realizes that the narrator is not as normal as once thought. She soon turns into a maniac with obsessive thoughts on the brink of insanity. As the narrator became manic, the setting becomes with manic along with her.

In The Yellow Wallpaper, the woman trapped in the wallpaper often reflects the narrator’s thoughts and actions. Both the narrator and the woman are trapped in their surroundings. The only person in The Yellow Wallpaper that sees the woman is the narrator herself. John, the narrator’s husband, wishes that she becomes better and does not want to change the room she is staying in. Finally, the narrator wishes to be free.

To begin with, “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, also went through postpartum depression. This story, is about a woman who has gone insane by post-partum depression and a dangerous treatment. On the other hand, an analysis of the mother’s character discloses that this story is basically about

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman often discussed for its biographical critic on the way women, but especially those suffering from mental illnesses profiled by 19th century physicians as "women's diseases", have been treated in society at the end of the 19th century (Teichler 1984: 61, Oakley 1997: 29). In order to cure the female main character of her hysterical tendencies--a status she was diagnosed with after the birth of her son--she has been confined to the former nursery in the family's house, and undergoes a treatment in which she is forced to avoid all forms of stimuli, excitement, or activity (Gilman 1997: 1-15.). One of the main objects she interacts with during her isolation period, besides the nailed down bed and her hidden journal, is the yellow wallpaper with which the former nursery is papered (Gilman 1997: 1-15.).