She begins to see strangles heads in the wallpaper, which can be a symbolic representation of the patriarchal order that stifled women. The bars on the wallpaper that cage the imaginary women are a reflection of her own situation where she is confined in the old mansion. Even the smell of the wallpaper, which she describes as being ‘yellow’ and present throughout the house, is a reflection of the mental repression that is always present in her life. She is so consumed by the smell that she thinks about burning the old mansion just to cover it
Both Conversion and the Crucible’s themes center around the downfall of a community due to misinformation spread throughout the group. By spreading rumors and accusing other members of the community, the characters of each novel begin a hysteria of allegations and convictions. Colleen and her friends who attend St. Joan’s The girls at St. Joan’s begin to witness a series of strange events happening to the girls at their school. Beginning with popular and wealthy Clara Rutherford, many of the girls contract an odd stress disease called conversion disorder. The disease turns into a frenzy when girls randomly begin developing the same symptoms such as hair loss and mental outbreaks.
As the story progresses she stares at the paper for hours and sees a sub-pattern behind the main pattern, visible only in certain light. She hen sees a desperate woman trying to leave the wallpaper which shows how the women feel trapped. The author uses the yellow wallpaper as a symbol of the oppressive life that many women have today and back then. In conclusion, With oppression women back then and now are being denied their human right to be equal and that should not be the case. Oppression is an unjust treatment and women should not have to go through it.
The narrator in the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” clearly changes throughout. The case can be made that the narrator has changed for the better in a certain way. During the initial description of herself, the narrator points out a few things that give the reader a feeling of oppression and depression. She portrays the feelings of oppression and oppression by stating that her husband does not believe she is sick. “If a Physician of high standing, and one's’ own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression- a slight hysterical tendency- what is one to do?..and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again.
The wallpaper is very much personified, “Those two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down.” The wallpaper is watching the narrator and changes; she sees women behind the paper, but only in the moonlight. “The yellow wallpaper has some kind of sub pattern, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights.” There are women trapped behind the wallpaper. “There are so many of those creeping women, I wonder if they all came out of the wallpaper as I did.” The narrator thinks she is one of those women and wants to get out. The narrator being trapped in the room has slowly made her insane and wants to step out to freedom. “I am really quite fond of this room, but all of this horrid paper.” This quote shows that the narrator wants to be free, just like the other women in this time period.
In chapter 2 of Moral Psychology, Feminist Ethics and Social Theory, Sandra Lee Bartky writes about intimidation and she specifically focuses on its effects on battered women. She then leaves the reader with an interesting question. She asks “After exhausting all remedies, if a battered woman decides to kill her batterer- a woman who fears for her life and safety, a woman who may be suffering from serious internal injuries as a result of prolonged beatings, a woman whose children may have suffered physical violence, certainly grave psychological violence, in short, a woman whose life has been made a living hell- if such a woman kills her abuser, it seems reasonable to ask whether or not it is fair to subject to the same legal system that so
Based on an Edgar Allen Poe story, Stonehearst Asylum is about a woman, Eliza Graves, committed to an insane asylum by her father’s wish. Throughout the story she is a pawn in the doctor’s game. Eliza is a great example of gender criticism because of how she came to be admitted, and how the other women in the asylum are oppressed by the superior acting men. Gender criticism is an extended version of feminist literary criticism, focusing not just on women but on the construction of gender and sexuality. In Stonehearst Asylum, the women in the asylum are controlled by the men.
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, a woman is seen descending into severe post-partum depression, and eventually madness. While this story and the woman herself can be analyzed through many different lenses of perspective, one lens which may not be seen often is how the woman is a hero, but a failed one at that. The narrator and main character of “The Yellow Wallpaper” can be determined as a kind of failed hero through an archetypal lens of analysis, which identifies her initiation, her quest, and the sacrificial scapegoat of the situation. Every hero needs some sort of start, with harrowing conditions, which metamorphoses them into an actual hero. Any hero’s initiation can be broken down into three parts consisting of the disconnection which sets them apart as someone whose storyline is worthy to be followed, their evolution as an individual, and their homecoming as a hero.
Because of the compassion she so desperately wanted to be rid of, she could not commit murder. When Macbeth begins to reveal his hallucinations to his wife, she calls him weak. This reflects how people viewed the mentally ill. Even though Macbeth had fallen into insanity, Lady Macbeth would soon fall even further into it. In the final act of Macbeth, a considerable amount of time has passed since the first signs of her descent into mental illness.
The main character of The Yellow Wallpaper is an unnamed woman from the upper-middle class. A dignified wife and mother, she experiences a nervous breakdown, and her husband decided to rent a distant country manor to create appropriate conditions for the woman’s recovery. The closer analysis made his benevolent intentions look more like an attempt to incarcerate the lady and limit her of activities she needed for improvement of her physical and mental state. The man believed he made effective decisions in his fight with a typical female hysteria. But, as a result, the character started to hallucinate and see a woman, imprisoned in the pattern of the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom.