Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote the story in the Yellow Wallpaper in the year 1892. It is a semi-autobiographical story that describes how the women were treated during the rest cure that was prescribed for nervous disorders by the famous physician doctor Silas Weir Mitchell. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s work was only a fiction to achieve the minds of the people. In the course of the novel he identifies several roles of women and how they should serve to affirm male chauvinism in the society. It also describes the childlike submissive and obedience of women to male authority which was highly considered as typical in the start of the 20th Century. The narrator is a woman who is unnamed recently had a kid who is suffering from a depression known …show more content…
She attempts to tear down the yellow wallpaper to pieces to rescue the woman. As the summer comes to the end, the narrator locks herself in the room as she destroys the remaining wallpaper off the wall. Her husband quickly gets the key and storms into the room only to faint when he gets the woman creeping around the confined room. The woman (narrator) continues to creep around the perimeter floor stepping over her man not even recognizing his situation. The story has been written in the first person English. However the theme of insanity and feminism will be discussed. How insanity and feminism is manifested in The Yellow Wallpaper Insanity is a spectrum of behaviors symbolized by a certain abnormal and mental behaviors. This can be manifested as violation of someone’s right to do something or in other words denial of freedom. On the other hand, feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds either politically, socially or economically equality to men. The theme on insanity and feminism is clearly revealed and in real sense defines the story as a critical feminist in the 19th century. However, feminism right is violated in this …show more content…
It pinpoints out how women were taken as during the 1900’s. The story also highlights the extremes of repression and sexism by viewing the woman as mad by a rest cure. In the view of the Narrators role as a woman, lack of intellectual stimulation in her thought and unjust environment usually led her insane. This points out failure in the society in which sexism and oppression was carried out towards women. An aspect of feminism portrayed by the Narrator in the story is how she tries to dismiss John’s opinions. She repeatedly requests him to relocate her to another room downstairs. This is an aspect of feminism which should be encouraged among women to demand for their freedom. The Narrator takes part in not conquering with John. But as time goes she is less able to feel the usual relief. John rejects the request and replies to her that she must spend in the nursery room which is barred and rings similar to those of dungeon on the walls. She is denied the right to choose what pleases her. Later she comes to like the nursery room where other times she locks herself up to avoid husband’s disturbance upon the story. Also the act of Narrator’s wallpaper routine is a sense of imprisonment. She recognizes that the pattern is so ugly like a cage imprisoning women who are desperately trying to escape. The Narrator figuratively tears the bars and the wallpaper of the cage to clear her way to escape.
Quawas tells how there is a “sharp contrast between male and female nature.” Quawas reveals that Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s true purpose is to fight for women’s rights and equality, instead of being seen as just an object to nurture the children and do the chores at home. Quawas suggests that since Charlotte Perkins Gilman cares so deeply about presenting the deeply hurtful ways women can be treated like because she lived through the era of the women being the stay-at-home-smiling-trophy-wives and got to witness the incline of women’s rights movements and the empowerment of women. Quawas says that “The Yellow Wallpaper is a particularly interesting and rich example of her audacious and defiant writing.” she says this because The Yellow Wallpaper explores the feminine rebellion against the “rest cure”. Though the narrator’s doctor husband believes in the “rest cure”, the narrator steadily makes efforts to express herself in private, such as through her journal entries. Historically the author of the yellow wallpaper went through the oppression of women and the rise of empowerment of women. She got to witness both, which allows for the inference of women empowerment being hidden throughout the yellow
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is the story of a woman spiralling into madness whilst her physician husband refuses to acknowledge that she has a "real" problem. On the other hand The Black Cat by Edgar Alan Poe is about a man who is initially fond of cats however as the plot progresses he becomes an alcoholic making him moody and violent, which lead him to torture and kills the animals and eventually also his wife. In Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Black Cat," symbolism is used to show the narrator’s capacity for violence, madness, and guilt .The recurring theme present in both these stories is that the main protagonists claim that they suffer or have been taken over by a form of madness. In this essay I shall examine the various symbolism used by the writer's to represent madness.
Gilman herself suffered from post-partum hysteria and was treated by a famous doctor of the era, one who prescribed his famous "rest cure", the same cure the female narrator cannot tolerate and defies in The Yellow Wallpaper. In this story the narrator remains nameless and there is good reason for it. She feels as if she has no identity or control over obtaining fulfillment and unity and satisfaction in life. Her husband is a doctor who also prescribes complete rest for her and is opposed to her doing the one thing that seems to give her a unique voice, writing. Thus, the narrator defies her...
The narrator in the story essentially breaks free from these constraints. When she tears at the wallpaper freeing the trapped women and finds herself mimicking the trapped women’s actions. The narrator is skulking around the room searching for her own escape from her own yellow wallpapered prison. While the story does not tell what happens after the family leaves the house it does describe how the narrator reacts to her husband passing out, falling into her path as she is skulking around the room. She steps around or over him. This symbolizes what would eventually happen in society. Women would become free; they would receive equal rights and opportunities. They would figuratively and literally step over or around the men who had been holding them back.
As a result, women were stuck at home, usually alone, until their husbands got home. In the story, Jane is at home staring at the wallpaper in her room. The wallpaper’s color is described by Jane as being “repellent, almost revolting” (3) and the pattern is “torturing” and “like a bad dream” (10). The description of the wallpaper represents Jane’s and all women’s thoughts about the ideologies and rules upheld by men prior to the First World War. It is made evident that this wallpaper represents the screen made up of men’s ideologies at the time caging in women. Jane is subconsciously repelled by this screen and represents her discovering continuously figuring out what she wants. Metaphorically, Jane is trapped in that room by a culture established by men. Furthermore, Jane compares the wallpaper’s pattern to bars putting further emphasis on her feelings of being trapped and helpless. Later in the narrative, she catches Jennie staring at the wallpaper’s pattern and then decides to study the pattern and determine what it means herself. Her study of the pattern is representative of her trying to analyze the situation in which she’s in. By studying the pattern, she progressively discovers herself, especially when she sees the woman behind the
Throughout the story, her practitioner and husband neglects and isolates her constantly. Throughout the story, many other characters go to great lengths to make sure that she is kept isolated, prolonging her psychosis. The final destruction of the dreaded yellow wallpaper is a clear indicator of her true self peeking through during her time of need. Through many different instances of symbolism and analysis, one can procure that through being isolated, this woman had spiraled into a psychosis that helped to identify with her true, more radical personality, thus ridding herself of the pain that is the yellow wallpaper. The Yellow Wallpaper uses the idea of isolation from family and society to help create a sense of true identity that the narrator wants to desperately to be
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is the disheartening tale of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Set during the late 1890s, the story shows the mental and emotional results of the typical "rest cure" prescribed during that era and the narrator’s reaction to this course of treatment. It would appear that Gilman was writing about her own anguish as she herself underwent such a treatment with Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell in 1887, just two years after the birth of her daughter Katherine. The rest cure that the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" describes is very close to what Gilman herself experienced; therefore, the story can be read as reflecting the feelings of women like herself who suffered through such treatments. Because of her experience with the rest cure, it can even be said that Gilman based the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" loosely on herself. But I believe that expressing her negative feelings about the popular rest cure is only half of the message that Gilman wanted to send. Within the subtext of this story lies the theme of oppression: the oppression of the rights of women especially inside of marriage. Gilman was using the woman/women behind the wallpaper to express her personal views on this issue.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s tantalizing short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” tells the horrifying tale of a nineteenth century woman whose husband condemns her to a rest cure, a popular approach during the era to treat post-partum depression. Although John, the unnamed narrator’s husband, does not truly believe his wife is ill, he ultimately condemns her to mental insanity through his treatment. The story somewhat resembles Gilman’s shocking personal biography, namely the rest cure she underwent under the watchful eye of Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell in 1887, two years after the birth of her daughter, Katherine. Superficially, the rest cure the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" endures loosely replicates Gilman’s personal anguish as she underwent such a treatment. More complexly, however, the story both accentuates and indirectly criticizes the oppression women faced in both marriage and motherhood.
The Yellow Wallpaper as a Guide To Insanity "There comes John, and I must put this away- he hates to have me write a word" (p659). As evident by the above quote, Gilman places the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" as secluded as she could be; she is placed in a large house, surrounded only by her husband and by little help (Jennie), when it is unfortunately clear that her relationship with her husband is based on distance and misunderstanding: "It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so"(p 663). Gilman further confines her narrator as it becomes clear that the poor soul has absolutely no one to talk to; that is, no one who can understand her. The narrator is cornered by her loved ones, she is isolated from the world under her husband-doctor orders, she is thus physically confined to her shaky mental realm. The next aspect of the narrator that zooms us into her state is her tone: "I really have discovered something at last..
In literature, women are often depicted as weak, compliant, and inferior to men. The nineteenth century was a time period where women were repressed and controlled by their husband and other male figures. Charlotte Gilman, wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper," showing her disagreement with the limitations that society placed on women during the nineteenth century. According to Edsitement, the story is based on an event in Gilman’s life. Gilman suffered from depression, and she went to see a physician name, Silas Weir Mitchell. He prescribed the rest cure, which then drove her into insanity. She then rebelled against his advice, and moved to California to continue writing. She then wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which is inflated version of her experience. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the main character is going through depression and she is being oppressed by her husband and she represents the oppression that many women in society face. Gilman illustrates this effect through the use of symbols such as the yellow wallpaper, the nursery room, and the barred windows.
The narrator makes comments and observations that demonstrate her will to overcome the oppression of the male dominant society. The conflict between her views and those of the society can be seen in the way she interacts physically, mentally, and emotionally with the three most prominent aspects of her life: her husband, John, the yellow wallpaper in her room, and her illness, "temporary nervous depression. " In the end, her illness becomes a method of coping with the injustices forced upon her as a woman. As the reader delves into the narrative, a progression can be seen from the normality the narrator displays early in the passage, to the insanity she demonstrates near the conclusion.
The narrator is trying to get better from her illness but her husband “He laughs at me so about this wallpaper” (515). He puts her down and her insecurities do not make it any better. She is treated like a child. John says to his wife “What is it little girl” (518)? Since he is taking care of her she must obey him “There comes John, and I must put this away, he hates to have me write a word”. The narrator thinks John is the reason why she cannot get better because he wants her to stay in a room instead of communicating with the world and working outside the house.
Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells her readers the story of a woman desperate to be free. Gilman’s use of symbolism is nothing short of brilliant in telling the story of a new mother suffering from postpartum depression and fighting her way through societies ideas of what a woman should be. When her husband, John, also known as her physician, tells her nothing is wrong with her mind, at first she believes him because she knows that society tells her she should. However, with her husband’s misdiagnosis, or attempt to keep his wife sane for the sake of their reputation, comes a short journey into madness for his wife, Jane. Jane’s downward spiral, as one may call it, turns out to be not so downward when the reader
"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?" (Gilman 1). Many women in the 1800's and 1900's faced hardship when it came to standing up for themselves to their fathers, brothers and then husbands. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator of the story, "The Yellow Wallpaper", is married to a physician, who rented a colonial house for the summer to nurse her back to health after her husband thinks she has neurasthenia, but actually suffers from postpartum depression. He suggested the 'rest cure'. She should not be doing any sort of mental or major physical activity, her only job was to relax and not worry about anything. Charlotte was a writer and missed writing. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is significant to literature in the sense that, the author addresses the issues of the rest cure that Dr. S. Weir Mitchell prescribed for his patients, especially to women with neurasthenia, is ineffective and leads to severe depression. This paper includes the life of Charlotte Perkins Gilman in relation to women rights and her contribution to literature as one of her best short story writings.
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.