The Yellow Wallpaper Sympathetic
Throughout her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman draws her audience into a fascinating story of a woman who is locked away against her will and struggles to make sense of her situation and surroundings. Though the narrator exhibits clear signs of madness and irrationality, it is challenging to not feel remorse and sympathy for her as she describes her situation and draws on the reader's sense of compassion. Gilman makes the narrator a sympathetic character whose madness is understandable because of her controlling husband, isolation from society and what brings her joy, and how she loses touch with reality because of her treatment. From the very beginning of the story, the words and actions of the narrator’s husband, …show more content…
This is seen consistently throughout the short story, as the narrator’s insanity heightens as the story progresses. One way in which the narrator’s madness is displayed is through her experiences with the wallpaper that decorates her room. From the beginning she holds great contempt towards it, despising its color and design. She writes that “I have never seen a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.” (2). She goes on to discuss it in great detail and with passionate hatred. However, it is not until later in the story that it begins to wear her down and pave the way to further insanity. The narrator begins each new section of writing discussing normal daily life and what is happening, but always ends up bringing the topic around to the wallpaper, at first to speak about how much she despises it, and later to comment on how she does not hate it so much anymore, and finally speaking of how she is fascinated by it. A quote from further on in the short story that marks the narrator’s changing opinion of the wallpaper is when she writes “Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be…. John is so pleased to see me improve! He laughed a little the other day and said I seemed to be flourishing in spite of my wallpaper. I turned it off with a laugh. I had no intention of telling him it was because of my wallpaper– he would make fun of me.” (7). This line greatly contrasts the narrator’s opinion of the wallpaper at the beginning of the short story and further adds to her status as a deeply sympathetic
Isolation In The Yellow Wallpaper
1604 Words | 7 PagesJane's being kept under isolation treatment by her husband created a phenomenon of her being obsessed with the wallpaper that caught her interest. Truly revealing the flaws of her treatments while breaking down the wallpaper as a whole. "There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern, the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous.
Theme Of Self-Isolation In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper
483 Words | 2 PagesCharlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” narrates an ill and depressed wife slowly plummeting into insanity as she becomes obsessed with the wallpaper she hates. Gilman reveals the theme of self-isolation and its dire effects by displaying the narrator’s progressive unstable mental state throughout the story by developing the narrator’s obsession with the wallpaper, her inferiority to her husband, and how the wallpaper parallels the narrator. Gilman develops the narrator’s obsession with the wallpaper later in the story, contradicting the narrator’s distasteful attitude towards it early in the story. “I never saw a worse paper in my life.”
Feminist Hysteria In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper
505 Words | 3 PagesJane’s fascination with the ugly wallpaper begins as a minute annoyance, which builds up to an obsession. One of the strongest images is the paper’s pattern is its transformation to the different lighting. It develops from an eye to a woman shaking the bars. Gilman writes, “At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! […]
Gender Roles In The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
710 Words | 3 PagesShe increasingly becomes more fixated on the wallpaper the more she spends alone in the room. She first saw eyes in the wallpaper, then actual people in the wallpaper. She first describes the wallpaper as “One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” , and “The color is repellent, almost revolting” which shows her irritation and resentment towards this treatment at first. But the story goes on and she becomes more fixated and begins seeing a woman in the wallpaper representing her being trapped within the restrictions her husband has given her and the expectations of a patriarchal
The Yellow Wallpaper Diction
933 Words | 4 PagesWhen describing her surroundings and her negative perception of it, the protagonist says, "I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin" (Gilman 2). This description shows the protagonist's growing frustration and dissatisfaction with her surroundings and prolonged isolation, which reflects her deteriorating mental state. Gilman uses diction to show the characters deteriorating mental state by an extreme description of something that normally wouldn’t be bothersome. The affect the wallpaper has on the protagonist shows that a part of her illness is caused by the negative perception of her surroundings, and not somatic.
Symbolism In The Yellow Wallpaper
475 Words | 2 PagesShe hates it. “I never saw a worse paper in my life”. As time went on the narrator started to lose her mind. Being confined in the room the narrator started to analyze the wallpaper. She felt that there was more to it than just hideous torn wallpaper.
Women In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper
955 Words | 4 PagesHer obsession with the paper begins subtly and then completely consumes the narrator’s mind. Since she is stuck in the dark room and the only form of escapism is the bright yellow wallpaper, she becomes absorbed in the pattern of the paper and tries to follow them to an end. She fantasizes her replica behind the paper and projects the reflection of inward herself, as the characteristics of the wallpaper are very similar to those of
The Yellow Wallpaper Mental Illness
731 Words | 3 PagesShe also believes a woman is hiding behind the exterior pattern of the wallpaper. The meaningless repetitions of angles, curves, convolvulus, and the eternal multiplications of the wallpaper’s design became the source of infinite torment, which could compound the hysterical symptoms. (Shaalan 2) In addition, the yellow color can lead to negative feelings such as restlessness, irritation, sickness, vigilance, egotism, and anxiety. (Van Braam)
Symbolism In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper
779 Words | 4 Pages“The Yellow Wallpaper” is drive by the narrator’s sense that the wallpaper is a text she must interpret, that it symbolizes something that affects her directly. Realistically, the wallpaper is simply an ugly pattern. Unpleasing to the eye, with no coherence. It catches attention with its seemingly random lines, and according to Jane the composition doesn’t follow any type of artistic rule. Blank white eyes that never change their viewpoint.
The Yellow Wallpaper Symbolism Essay
2188 Words | 9 PagesTrying to distract herself from the loneliness of isolation, she begins to fixate on her physical environment, which marks the beginning of her mental deterioration. She projects her unhappiness onto her limited surroundings, especially the yellow wallpaper she deems repulsive at first glance, which slowly becomes a symbolic image of her "nervous condition. " The entire course of the story is driven by the narrator's assumption that the wallpaper is a puzzle that she must interpret, a challenge to be overcome, and partially a malevolent force that keeps her from successfully adhering to the rest cure. The symbolism of the wallpaper then develops and shifts its significance
The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
738 Words | 3 PagesThe narrator's obsession with the yellow wallpaper can also be seen as a metaphor for the way women were trapped in their domestic roles. The wallpaper represents the societal expectations and constraints that women were forced to live with, and the narrator's growing madness reflects the frustration and despair that many women felt as a result. The narrator discovers her secret self and, eventually, her independence within the wallpaper. Her fascination with the paper starts slowly and gradually absorbs both the narrator and the story. When the narrator arrives at the long-empty "ancestral estate," a classic gothic location, she is disappointed to realize that her husband has picked the top-floor nursery room for her.
The Yellow Wallpaper Point Of View Analysis
814 Words | 4 PagesThe vast majority of people wouldn’t give the wallpaper much thought, however the narrator becomes obsessed with it. To the narrator, the wallpaper is alive and becomes the focus of all her time. Her overwhelming lure to the wallpaper becomes obvious when she first provides a very vivid description stating “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions” (217-218). As she begins to lose her grip on reality, the narrator beings to see faces and eventually a woman within the wallpaper. At first, her description of seeing faces in the wallpaper seems like it could be her mind making since of the varying patterns or just part of her imagination.
Charlotte Gilman And Gertrude Stein Comparative Essay
2178 Words | 9 PagesNonetheless, her husband insists that she not change the wallpaper lest doing so gives way to other “fancies” (Gilman 195). Repeatedly any concerns conveyed by the narrator are dismissed by her husband and
Literary Criticism Of The Yellow Wallpaper
802 Words | 4 PagesAt first the narrator just see the wallpaper as a unpleasant addition to the room as it’s a “repellent, almost revolting… unclean yellow” (Gilman 801), and the
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492 Words | 2 PagesThese show that she is not only creeped out by the wallpaper but also trying to figure it out. This causes the narrator to feel as if she will never be free from the yellow wallpaper and that she is always being watched. The feeling of always being watched as well as not being
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