In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the wallpaper is a symbol which represents the narrator’s personality. Since the initial description of the rented mansion, eeriness is present throughout the story. “Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it. Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?” (paragraph 3). These questions, posed by the mentally ill narrator, imply a strangeness regarding the mansion. The narrator’s initial description of the wallpaper claims, “The paint and paper look as if a boys’ school had used it. It is stripped off—the paper—in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling, flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.” (paragraph 32). This is an unusual description for wallpaper in a mansion. The fact that it is stripped off in great patches suggests an uneven and unbalanced appearance or personality. The narrator continues, “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough constantly to 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.” (paragraph 33). Here, she describes herself through the eyes of John and her brother, both practical, logical physicians. The narrator believes that people see her as she sees the wallpaper, which, in turn, is how she sees herself. In paragraph 78 she states, “I can see a strange, provoking formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design.” This is initial evidence of the narrator beginning to use the wallpaper as a way to see herself. The wallpaper also serves as a distraction to the narrator, who often spends hours analyzing its distinct features. “It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we’ll say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion.” (paragraph 93). In addition to a visual description of the wallpaper, this information is the narrator’s means of analyzing her personality.
The pattern on the wallpaper represents to the narrator and to the reader the male-dominated society that is depriving the narrator of her freedom. For the narrator, on a personal level, the pattern on the wallpaper represents the actions of her husband, doctor and her husband's sister to keep her locked in the room and idle. While these people are ostensibly attempting to aid the narrator, they are in effect imprisoning her i...
All through the story the yellow wallpaper acts as an antagonist causing her to become very annoyed and disturbed. There is nothing to do in the secluded room but stare at the wallpaper. The narrator tells of the haphazard pattern having no organization or symmetrical plot. Her constant examination of and reflection o...
would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper
In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator weaves a tale of a woman with deep seeded feelings of depression. Her husband, a physician, takes her to a house for a span of three months where he puts her in a room to recuperate. That “recuperation” becomes her nemesis. She is so fixated on the “yellow wallpaper” that it seems to serve as the definition of her bondage. She gradually over time begins to realize what the wallpaper seems to represents and goes about plotting ways to overcome it. In a discussion concerning the wallpaper she states, “If only that top pattern could be gotten off from the under one! I mean to try it, little by little.” “There are only two more days to get this paper off, and I believe John is beginning to notice. I don’t like the look in his eyes.”
“There are things in that paper which 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. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit. I wonder—I begin to think—I wish John would take me away from here!” The late 19th century hosted a hardship for women in our society. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman expressed a form of patriarchy within the story. Gilman never addressed the woman in the “The Yellow Wallpaper” by a name, demonstrating her deficiency of individual identity. The author crafted for the narrator to hold an insignificant role in civilization and to live by the direction of man. Representing a hierarchy between men and women in the 19th century, the wallpaper submerged the concentration of the woman and began compelling her into a more profound insanity.
The “Yellow Wall Paper “ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a chilling study and experiment of mental disorder in nineteenth century. This is a story of a miserable wife, a young woman in anguish, stress surrounding her in the walls of her bedroom and under the control of her husband doctor, who had given her the treatment of isolation and rest. This short story vividly reflects both a woman in torment and oppression as well as a woman struggling for self expression.
Narration is one literary element of a story that controls the meaning and themes perceived by the reader. The author uses this as a way of putting themselves in their writing; they portray a personal reflection through the narrator. We see this in pieces of literature, such as Charlotte Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, an intense short story that critics believe to be an autobiography. Charlotte Gilman wrote this piece in 1892, around the time of her own personal mental depression, after the birth of her child. This story invites the readers into the mind of a well-educated writer who is mentally ill, and takes you through the recordings of her journal, as her mental health deteriorates so does the credibility of her writing. The author uses the element of the narrators’ mental health to create a story with different meanings and themes to her audience. Gilman uses the role of an unreliable narrator to persuade the audience’s perception of protagonists’ husband John and create a theme of entrapment.
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," a nervous wife, an overprotective husband, and a large, dank room covered in musty wallpaper all play important parts in driving the wife insane. The husband's smothering attention, combined with the isolated environment, incites the nervous nature of the wife, causing her to plunge into insanity to the point she sees herself in the wallpaper. The author's masterful use of not only the setting (of both time and place), but also of first person point of view, allows the reader to participate in the woman's growing insanity.
In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, through expressive word choice and descriptions, allows the reader to grasp the concepts she portrays and understand the way her unnamed narrator feels as the character draws herself nearer and nearer to insanity. “The Yellow Wallpaper” begins with the narrator writing in a journal about the summer home she and her husband have rented while their home is being remodeled. In the second entry, she mentions their bedroom which contains the horrendous yellow wallpaper. After this, not one day goes by when she doesn’t write about the wallpaper. She talks about the twisting, never-ending pattern; the heads she can see hanging upside-down as if strangled by it; and most importantly the
The short story titled, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is given its name for no other reason than the disturbing yellow wallpaper that the narrator comes to hate so much; it also plays as a significant symbol in the story. The wallpaper itself can represent many various ideas and circumstances, and among them, the sense of feeling trapped, the impulse of creativity gone awry, and what was supposed to be a simple distraction transfigures into an unhealthy obsession. By examining the continuous references to the yellow wallpaper itself, one can begin to notice how their frequency develops the plot throughout the course of the story. As well as giving the reader an understanding as to why the wallpaper is a more adequate and appropriate symbol to represent the lady’s confinement and the deterioration of her mental and emotional health. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the color of the wallpaper symbolizes the internal and external conflicts of the narrator that reflect the expectations and treatment of the narrator, as well as represent the sense of being controlled in addition to the feeling of being trapped.
While the Narrator is denied contact and forced to remain in the bedroom due to her husband’s insistence she begins to create a world within the hideous yellow wallpaper that covers the walls. She sees patterns and shapes, such as trapped creeping women, in the wallpaper. In the beginning of the short story, it is clear that the narrator desires social interaction and even believes that it would improve her mental condition.
The narrator's detailed description of the wallpaper makes the reader understand the woman is well educated and has a keen eye for detail. The wallpaper evokes an emotional response from her, such as her statement, "It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study . . . " (793).
...she sees in the wallpaper is trapped behind the pattern, just like the narrator is trapped in the room. The woman’s mental status gets so deteriorated that she has a breaking point when she “escapes” her imprisonment. The author writes, “Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor” (320). Taking down the wallpaper symbolizes her finally freeing herself.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper in 1890 about her experience in a psychiatric hospital. The doctor she had prescribed her “the rest cure” to get over her condition (Beekman). Gilman included the name of the sanitarium she stayed at in the piece as well which was named after the doctor that “treated” her. The short story was a more exaggerated version of her month long stay at Weir Mitchell and is about a woman whose name is never revealed and she slowly goes insane under the watch of her doctor husband and his sister (The Yellow Wallpaper 745). Many elements of fiction were utilized by Gilman in this piece to emphasize the theme freedom and confinement. Three of the most important elements are symbolism, setting and character.
Upon moving in to her home she is captivated, enthralled with the luscious garden, stunning greenhouse and well crafted colonial estate. This was a place she fantasized about, qualifying it as a home in which she seemed comfortable and free. These thoughts don’t last for long, however, when she is prescribed bed rest. She begins to think that the wallpaper, or someone in the wallpaper is watching her making her feel crazy. She finally abandons her positivity towards what now can be considered her husband’s home, and only labels negative features of the home. For example, the narrator rants about the wallpaper being, “the strangest yellow…wallpaper! It makes me think of… foul, bad yellow things” (Gilman). One can only imagine the mental torture that the narrator is experiencing, staring at the lifeless, repulsive yellow hue of ripping