Imagery and Insanity in The Yellow Wallpaper A major theme in "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is that solitary confinement and exclusion from the public results in insanity. The use of imagery and setting helps illustrate this theme throughout the story. The unnamed protagonist in this story suffers from a nervous disorder which is enhanced by her feeling of being trapped within a room. The setting of the vast colonial mansion and particularly the nursery room with barred windows provides an image of loneliness and seclusion experienced by the protagonist. Another significant setting is the mansion connected by a "shaded lane" (66) to the beautiful bay and private wharf. It is possible that in her mind, she sees a path which leads to the curing of her illness where happiness and good health awaits at the end. The reason the lane is "shaded" is because she is uncertain whether or not this path can be traveled. Upon moving into the mansion, she immediately becomes obsessed with the nursery room wallpaper with "sprawling, flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin" (64). Her days and nights are so uneventful that she finds relief in writing a journal which becomes more tiresome as her sickness progresses. In every few paragraphs in her journal, she analyzes the wallpaper. Through the imagery she evokes from the wallpaper, it can be seen that she is really analyzing herself and her illness subconsciously. For example, she begins to see "a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design" (67). She describes her illness (as seen in the wallpaper) as "not arranged on any laws of radiation, or alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, or anything else that I ever heard of" (68). In other words, she cannot make any sense of what is causing her illness. A pivotal moment in the story is when the woman protagonist is concerned only with the yellow wallpaper in her journal. In lieu of her obsession with the wallpaper, she becomes engaged in the actions of the women she sees in the wallpaper which, of course, is really her own actions. The women "is all the time trying to climb through [the wallpaper]" (72). At this moment, she is desperate to escape her illness but she is unable to because her confinement in the room has already affected her more so than she realizes. The imagery of this situation is described when "the pattern strangles [the women] off and turns them upside down, and makes their eyes white!" (72). In the end or in her last day at the mansion, the isolation intensifies her illness to the point where she is no longer curable and insanity takes over. The protagonist finally recognizes the fact that the women she witnesses is really her own frame of mind and proclaims "I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard!" (75). She believes that she has at last gained her freedom from the illness when in reality, the exact opposite has occurred. The incessant creeping is the final summation to her insanity.
From the time the first colonists arrived in the late Sixteen Hundreds Pennsylvania executions were carried out by public hanging (Cor.state.pa.us, 2014). In Eighteen Forty Three, Pennsylvania became the first state to abolish public hangings. From Eighteen Thirty Four until Nineteen Fifty Three each county was responsible for carrying out private hanging of criminal within the wall of the county jail.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a self-told story about a woman who approaches insanity. The story examines the change in the protagonist's character over three months of her seclusion in a room with yellow wallpaper and examines how she deals with her "disease." Since the story is written from a feminist perspective, it becomes evident that the story focuses on the effect of the society's structure on women and how society's values destruct women's individuality. In "Yellow Wallpaper," heroine's attempt to free her own individuality leads to mental breakdown.
Opponents of capital punishment are outspoken and vehement in their arguments. They believe the death penalty does not does not deter crime. They also hold the opinion that endin...
or hundreds of years people have considered capital punishment a deterrence of crime. Seven hundred and five individuals have died since 1976, by means of capital punishment; twenty-two of these executions have already occurred this year (Death Penalty Information Center). Many U.S. citizens who strongly support the death penalty believe that capital punishment remains the best way to protect society from convicted killers. I, however, disagree; I do not feel that execution best punishes criminals for their acts. Instead, in my opinion, the administration of the death penalty should end because it does not deter crime; it risks the death of an innocent person, it costs millions of dollars, it inflicts unreasonable pain; and most importantly it violates moral principles.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story about an anonymous female narrator and her husband John who is a physician who has rented a colonial manner in the summer. Living in that house, the narrator felt odd living there. Her husband, john who is a physician and also a doctor to his wife felt that the narrator is under nervous depression. He further mentions that when a person is under depression, every feeling is an odd feeling. Therefore, the narrator was not given permission by John to work but just to take medication and get well fast. This made the narrator to become so fixated with the yellow wallpaper in the former nursery in which she located. She was depressed for a long time and became even more depressed. This ha...
In the story, Yellow Wallpaper written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a man by the name of John moves into a colonial state mansion with his baby and his wife, whose name remained unknown. This was not just an ordinary family happily moving in together, although that is very much what it sounds like. In fact, John is a physician who, therefore, takes care of his loving wife which just so happens to suffer from a nervous condition that soon turns into a depression. Moving into this new house did not seem to help the woman's condition either, it indeed seemed to have worsened it. Johns wife mentions to him that this house was “a haunted house” and it was creepy. Little did she know her room was much more intense. Almost immediately after settling into the room, she notices the disgustingly yellow wallpaper stuck onto all of the walls, which gave her an uneasy feeling. This was the start of a very tragic turning point in her life. Physically and mentally, the main character's sanity and entrapment are now symboled by this yellow wallpaper.
Since the 13 colonies were first established in America, the death penalty has been the main form of capital punishment as a firmly deep-rooted institution in the United States. Today, one of the most debated issues in the criminal justice system is the issue of capital punishment. While receiving disapproving viewpoints as those who oppose the death penalty find moral fault in capital punishment, the death penalty has taken a very different course in America while continuing to further advancements in the justice system since the start of the new millennium. While eliminating overcrowding in state jails, the death penalty has managed to save tax payers dollars as well as deteriorate crime and apprehend criminals.
One issue that continues to divide America is the death penalty. In the United States today, 32 states allow the death penalty as the maximum form of punishment and 18 states have since abolished it and have replaced it with Life without parole. As of July 1, 2013 there are a total of 3,095 inmates currently incarcerated on Death Row. Since 1976, 1,370 death row inmates have been executed (“Facts on the Death Penalty”). Overall, it is a very controversial topic with many different views. Many supporters of the death penalty believe that it is more ethical to carry out capital punishment since those who are receiving it have committed the most heinous and unforgivable crimes. The evidence and research shows that capital punishment is not morally permissible. Many studies show that the death penalty costs much more than life without parole for the max punishment (Dieter 6). There is also a lack of evidence on the deterrent effect that retribution and the death penalty has on would-be murderers. The criminal justice system is not perfect and is bound to make mistakes. Innocent beings have been placed on death row later being exonerated, some even after execution. States should abolish capital punishment and replace it with a life sentence without the possibility for parole and include restitution.
The death penalty has been used in the United States since the beginning. America was greatly influenced by Great Britain. They used the death penalty there and when the British colonized America, they continued the practice here.
Almost all nations in the world either have the death sentence or have had it at one time. It was used in most cases to punish those who broke the laws or standards that were expected of them. Since the death penalty wastes tax money, is inhumane, and is largely unnecessary it should be abolished in every state across the United States. The use of the death penalty puts the United States in the same category as countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia which are two of the world’s worst human rights violators (Friedman 34). Lauri Friedman quotes, “Executions simply inject more violence into an already hostile American society.”
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.
Should the death penalty be legal throughout the United States? Is it humane or inhumane? The death penalty is only legal in thirty eight of the fifty states in the United States. Lethal injection is also the main procedure that is used. It is the most common form of capital punishment in America. Death penalty by lethal injection should be legal in the United States; the process of lethal injection is better than the electric chair and is more humane.
Death Penalty is what they call capital punishment. It is a topic that hasn’t been resolved yet. There is a book on Death Penalty and it is called “The Gender Gap in Death Penalty Support. It’s an article on how we deal with the capital punishment issue. In the past years men have supported capital punishment more than women. The main key factors of which influence such a decision bases on five of these beliefs: Values differences and traditional gender socialization practices, traditional norms and roles, status differentials and gender inequalities. First, the authors look at two of the five basics such as values differences and traditional gender socialization practices. Second, they scan the traditional gender norms and roles. But on the other side murder is wrong, ungrateful to us, and we have been taught the indisputable truth. Ask yourself what is capital punishment. Look here is a brief definition on capital. Capital punishment means: one is taking another ones life. See there are 36 states with the Death Penalty Law and must use it. This must end before the new generations g...
The death penalty has always been and continues to be a very controversial issue. People on both sides of the issue argue endlessly to gain further support for their movements. While opponents of capital punishment are quick to point out that the United States remains one of the few Western countries that continue to support the death penalty, Americans are also more likely to encounter violent crime than citizens of other countries (Brownlee 31). Justice mandates that criminals receive what they deserve. The punishment must fit the crime. If a burglar deserves imprisonment, then a murderer deserves death (Winters 168). The death penalty is necessary and the only punishment suitable for those convicted of capital offenses. Seventy-five percent of Americans support the death penalty, according to Turner, because it provides a deterrent to some would-be murderers and it also provides for moral and legal justice (83). "Deterrence is a theory: It asks what the effects are of a punishment (does it reduce the crime rate?) and makes testable predictions (punishment reduces the crime rate compared to what it would be without the credible threat of punishment)", (Van Den Haag 29). The deterrent effect of any punishment depends on how quickly the punishment is applied (Workshop 16). Executions are so rare and delayed for so long in comparison th the number of capitol offenses committed that statistical correlations cannot be expected (Winters 104). The number of potential murders that are deterred by the threat of a death penalty may never be known, just as it may never be known how many lives are saved with it. However, it is known that the death penalty does definitely deter those who are executed. Life in prison without the possibility of parole is the alternative to execution presented by those that consider words to be equal to reality. Nothing prevents the people sentenced in this way from being paroled under later laws or later court rulings. Furthermore, nothing prevents them from escaping or killing again while in prison. After all, if they have already received the maximum sentence available, they have nothing to lose. For example, in 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court banished the death penalty. Like other states, Texas commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment. After being r...
The death penalty has been an ongoing debate for many years. Each side of the issue presents valid arguments to explain why someone should be either for or against the subject. One side of the argument says deterrence, the other side says there’s a likelihood of putting to death an innocent man; one says justice, retribution, and punishment; the other side says execution is murder itself. Crime is an unmistakable part of our society, and it is safe to say that everyone would concur that something must be done about it. The majority of people know the risk of crime to their lives, but the subject lies in the techniques and actions in which it should be dealt with. As the past tells us, capital punishment, whose meaning is “the use of death as a legally sanctioned punishment,” is a suitable and proficient means of deterring crime. Today, the death penalty resides as an effective method of punishment for murder and other atrocious crimes.