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Character analysis and theme essay on the yellow wallpaper
Character analysis and theme essay on the yellow wallpaper
Character analysis and theme essay on the yellow wallpaper
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Review of a Critical Essay
About pp.120-122 in Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Optimist Reformer
The Yellow Wallpaper is discussed by scholars all the time, and Yvonne Gaudelius is one of them. In her Kitchenless Houses and Homes: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Reform of Architectural Space by Yvonne Gaudelius, she comments on the feminists’ attention to the separation of domestic spaces from public spaces and domestic economy from public economy. She uses The Yellow Wallpaper to further illustrate her ideas from page 120 to 122. In this article, I will summarize this extract and then discuss to what extent I agree or disagree with this extract.
In this extract, there are three layers of opinions. Yvonne first illustrates that the action that John prisons his wife in the nursery shows that John treats her like a child and that it is a presentation of
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At the end of the story, the woman says, ‘I don’t want to go outside. I won’t, even if Jennie asks me to’. The woman’s mind is restricted by this house and her husband’s support. Even if she gets a chance to escape, she won’t. Because comparing with the unknown and bleak reality out there, to be fed and took good care of sounds safer and more comfortable. Although she finds part of herself and her inferior position in the marriage during her discovery of the wallpaper, it is undeniable that she lacks the ability and courage to really leave the masculine family. That inability defines her partial sense of individuality and her tragic future life.
All in all, Yvonne gives me a new perspective to read the short story. She provides me a new way of thinking to inspect the architectural space, the furniture, the decorations in the house. I become really curious about what they represent and how they reflect the social reality of male superiority at that time. Also, her article reveals the positive effect and the restricted part of women’s protest and
It is clear that in their marriage, her husband makes her decisions on her behalf and she is expected to simply follow blindly. Their relationship parallels the roles that men and women play in marriage when the story was written. The narrator’s feelings of powerlessness and submissive attitudes toward her husband are revealing of the negative effects of gender roles. John’s decision to treat the narrator with rest cure leads to the narrator experiencing an intense feeling of isolation, and this isolation caused her mental decline. Her descent into madness is at its peak when she grows tears the wallpaper and is convinced that “[she’s] got out at last, in spite of [John] and Jennie… and [they] can’t put her back!”
The two works of literature nudging at the idea of women and their roles as domestic laborers were the works of Zora Neale Hurston in her short story “Sweat”, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Whatever the setting may be, whether it is the 1920’s with a woman putting her blood, sweat and tears into her job to provide for herself and her husband, or the 1890’s where a new mother is forced to stay at home and not express herself to her full potential, women have been forced into these boxes of what is and is not acceptable to do as a woman working or living at home. “Sweat” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” draw attention to suppressing a woman’s freedom to work along with suppressing a woman’s freedom to act upon her
The bars on windows, bedstead nailed down, and a gate at the top of the stairs suggest an unsafe place. The narrator’s preference for living in the downstairs room is undermined by John’s control over her. Furthermore, John puts his wife into an environment with no communication, making her socially isolated. The protagonist is home alone most of the time while John is at work. She is not allowed to raise her own baby, and Jennie, John's sister, is occupied with her job.
In the 19th century, women were not seen in society as being an equal to men. Men were responsible for providing and taking care of the family while their wives stayed at home not allowed leaving without their husbands. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman writes about a woman named Jane who is trapped by society’s cage and tries to find herself. Throughout the story, the theme of self-discovery is developed through the symbols of the nursery, the journal and the wallpaper.
To begin with, the narrator husband name is John, who shows male dominance early in the story as he picked the house they stayed in and the room he kept his wife in, even though his wife felt uneasy about the house. He is also her doctor and orders her to do nothing but rest; thinking she is just fine. John is the antagonist because he is trying to control her without letting her input in and endangers her psychological state. It is written in a formal style, while using feign words.
Golden, Catherine, ed. The Captive Imagination: A Casebook on "The Yellow Wallpaper." New York: Feminist Press, 1992
The narrator was forced by her husband, John, to stay in a room all day and rest, he thought that he was doing her good by restricting her activities. In reality he was only doing more harm to his wife and making her go more insane. The narrator told John about the wallpaper and even though John knew that the wallpaper was bothering her he didn’t do anything about it. At the end of the story the narrator locks herself in the nursery and starts stripping the wallpaper off to free the woman, she even tries to capture the woman in the yellow wallpaper. “I want to astonish him. I've got a rope up here that even Jennie did not find. If that woman does get out, and tries to get away, I can tie her!”(Gilman Pg. 9) this quote shows that the narrator is trying to capture the woman in the yellow wallpaper to prove to her husband that the women is indeed real. The narrator’s husband comes in and sees what she’s doing and then he faints, the narrator creeps
The book became a great source of information for me, which explained the difficulties faced by women of the mentioned period. The author succeeded to convince me that today it is important to remember the ones who managed to change the course of history. Contemporary women should be thankful to the processes, which took place starting from the nineteenth century. Personally, I am the one believing that society should live in terms of equality. It is not fair and inhuman to create barriers to any of the social members.
Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. “A Feminist Reading of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.” The Story and Its Writer. Ann Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. Print.
Women have traditionally been known as the less dominant sex. Through history women have fought for equal rights and freedom. They have been stereotyped as being housewives, and bearers and nurturers of the children. Only recently with the push of the Equal Rights Amendment have women had a strong hold on the workplace alongside men. Many interesting characters in literature are conceived from the tension women have faced with men. This tension is derived from men; society, in general; and within a woman herself. Two interesting short stories, “The Yellow Wall-paper and “The Story of an Hour, “ focus on a woman’s plight near the turn of the 19th century. This era is especially interesting because it is a time in modern society when women were still treated as second class citizens. The two main characters in these stories show similarities, but they are also remarkably different in the ways they deal with their problems and life in general. These two characters will be examined to note the commonalities and differences. Although the two characters are similar in some ways, it will be shown that the woman in the “The Story of an Hour” is a stronger character based on the two important criteria of rationality and freedom.
Golden, Catherine, ed. The Captive Imagination: A Casebook on "The Yellow Wallpaper." New York: Feminist Press, 1992.
Women have been mistreated, enchained and dominated by men for most part of the human history. Until the second half of the twentieth century, there was great inequality between the social and economic conditions of men and women (Pearson Education). The battle for women's emancipation, however, had started in 1848 by the first women's rights convention, which was led by some remarkable and brave women (Pearson Education). One of the most notable feminists of that period was the writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. She was also one of the most influential feminists who felt strongly about and spoke frequently on the nineteenth-century lives for women. Her short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper" characterizes the condition of women of the nineteenth century through the main character’s life and actions in the text. It is considered to be one of the most influential pieces because of its realism and prime examples of treatment of women in that time. This essay analyzes issues the protagonist goes through while she is trying to break the element of barter from her marriage and love with her husband. This relationship status was very common between nineteenth-century women and their husbands.
The Yellow Wallpaper, Written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is comprised as an assortment of journal entries written in first person, by a woman who has been confined to a room by her physician husband who he believes suffers a temporary nervous depression, when she is actually suffering from postpartum depression. He prescribes her a “rest cure”. The woman remains anonymous throughout the story. She becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper that surrounds her in the room, and engages in some outrageous imaginations towards the wallpaper. Gilman’s story depicts women’s struggle of independence and individuality at the rise of feminism, as well as a reflection of her own life and experiences.
Also, the paper will discuss how ignoring oneself and one’s desires is self-destructive, as seen throughout the story as the woman’s condition worsens while she is in isolation, in the room with the yellow wallpaper, and at the same time as her thoughts are being oppressed by her husband and brother. In the story, the narrator is forced to tell her story through a secret correspondence with the reader since her husband forbids her to write and would “meet [her] with heavy opposition” should he find her doing so (390). The woman’s secret correspondence with the reader is yet another example of the limited viewpoint, for no one else is ever around to comment or give their thoughts on what is occurring. The limited perspective the reader sees through her narration plays an essential role in helping the reader understand the theme by showing the woman’s place in the world. At the time the story was written, women were looked down upon as being subservient beings compared to men....
In conclusion, this story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, provided a great social and psychological criticism. It shows the reader how women have progressed so far in the recent years. This woman was the start of many, which finally led to making men and woman more equal, and this is the society that this woman wanted.