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literary analysis for the yellow wallpaper
use of symbolism in the yellow wallpaper
symbolism in the yellow wallpaper
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Freedom is not Her Victory Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote a short story about a woman with mental health problems called “The Yellow Wallpaper” in 1899. There are a few themes in this story such as how women had to do what their husbands told them to do and oppressed self-expression. These themes are shown through only a few characters such as the narrator and her husband. We should view the end of “The Yellow Wallpaper” as negative even though she achieves some freedom by ripping the wallpaper down. The narrator follows what her husband tells her to do. She doesn’t think that his judgement is the best regarding what she should to fix her mental condition despite the fact that he is a physician. “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...what is one to do?... So I take phosphates… and tonics and journeys and air and exercise, and am forbidden to “work” until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.” (p.1) Here she knows what is best for her, but she goes …show more content…
By following only what her doctors say, she isn’t able to express herself and feel better. “There comes John, and I must put this away, -- he hates to have me write a word.” (p. 2) This shows that she is not being listened to even though she knows what is best for her mental health. She is not allowed to express herself which causes her to keep secrets about how bad things are really getting for her. “I have found out another funny thing, but I shan’t tell it this time! It does not do to trust people too much.” (p. 8) She has learned not to tell anyone anything or else it could ruin her so-called plans. The more secrets she keeps, the crazier she becomes which ultimately means she takes a turn for the worse and starts to go
The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” knows she is sick, but the men in her life do not think she is seriously ill. Her husband, John, and her brother are both physicians of high standing, so she does not know what to do when they diagnose her as being perfectly healthy. Even though she does not agree with their remedies, she has no say over them. She admits with discomfort, “So I take phosphates or phosphites-whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and airs, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again”(Gilman 956). Although she would know if she was sick and what would make her feel better than anyone else, she is forced to go along with her husband’s elaborate plan for her path to recovery.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman writes “The Yellow Wallpaper,” to show how women’s mental illness is addressed in the time. Women were treated as the lesser or weaker sex. Women’s mental illness was highly misunderstood and misdiagnosed. “The Yellow Wallpaper,” illustrates a feminist approach to mental disease. Gilman uses this work to reach out to others to help them understand a woman’s treacherous descent into depression and psychosis. There are many contributing factors to the narrator’s illness and it is easy to see the effect the men have on her. Women were treated very differently and often outcast if they did not meet a certain norm. Mental illness is one of the main factors men believe
Gilman has stated in multiple papers that the main reason for her writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” was to shed light on her awful experience with this ‘rest cure’. However, she also managed to inject her own feminist agenda into the piece. Charlotte Perkins Gilman chose to include certain subtle, but alarming details regarding the narrator’s life as a representation of how women were treated at the time. She wants us to understand why the narrator ends up being driven to madness, or in her case, freedom. There are untold layers to this truly simple, short story just like there were many layers to Gilman
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.
The very popular short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a compelling story of a woman with a mental illness. Every aspect of this story contributes to its success, including the characters and their interactions, the plot, setting, the most apparent symbols, the point of view used, and the overall message of the story. This story is a great representation of mental illness in the time when it was written – misunderstood, and feared.
Written in 1892, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story that explores the mind of a woman who is driven to insanity by her surrounding environment. This woman, who narrates her experiences in a journal, begins by marveling at the grandeur of the estate her husband has taken for their summer vacation. Her feeling that there is “something queer” (307) about the situation leads her into a discussion of her illness. The narrator describes that she is suffering from “nervous depression” (308) and of her marriage. She confesses that her husband John, who is additionally her doctor, belittles both her illness and her overall concerns. John contrasts the narrator’s creative, thoughtfulness with his pragmatic and analytical
The initial factor that leads to the narrator’s following slip into the madness is John, her physician and husband. John’s definite dominant and highly respected figure generates a controlling relationship with her, taking away the narrator’s freedom even in the slightest aspect of her life. For instance, as simple as to write a journal, she is not able to do so because “John would thinks it’s absurd”(79). Her husband’s therapeutic process and opinions on how to handle and treat her mental sickness makes her not to trust her own thoughts doubting them instead, and restricts her to do anything in her will. At one point when the narrator tries to talk to John and said that she ”really was not gaining here” (80) and she “wished he would take [her] away”(80), he calms her by suggesting that she should not be having such worries and he replies “My darling, … There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours… Can you trust me as a physician when I tell you so?”(80). This demonstrates how John’s manipulative authority causes her to feel unfaithful and irrational. John does not notice that every instance that he refuses and shuts her out, her need to express her thoughts
The narrator makes time to write each day in the form of journal entries where she explains her situation and her husband’s claims. Many of her entries include sentences that begin with “But John…” (Gilman 1) which suggests her submissiveness to him and to what he tells her to do. The narrator’s husband’s constant notions on how the narrator is to get better are interpreted as efforts with her best interests in mind to the narrator. She tells us, “He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get” (Gilman 2). Although she makes this statement regarding her husband’s intentions for coming to the mansion, she admits later on in one of her journal entries, “I must take care of myself for his
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the reader journeys into the complex, deteriorating mind of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Through symbolism, Gilman issues a profound statement against the accepted subjugation of women during the 19th century. The narrator's internal dialogue sets the tone of the story and allows the reader to experience her horrifying delusions. Additionally, the use of irony illustrates the repressive nature of her marital relationship. In the end, both freedom and insanity lie behind the yellow wallpaper of the narrator’s world.
The narrator is portrayed, from the beginning of the story, as a women so numbed to societies diminished view of her that she, in fact, believes it herself. She notes that her husband, John, “laughs at [her]”, but this does not seem to bother the narrator and she even justifies it saying that “one [is to] expect that in marriage”. It is at this point in the story that it becomes clear to the readers that the marriage between the narrator and John is not one of equals, but one of a dominant and a submissive, a doctor and a patient, a caretaker and a “sick” woman. This patronizing attitude that John displays with his “blessed little goose” was not uncommon in the time this story was written, which lends an explanation as to why the narrator doesn't seem entirely upset with her treatment. The narrator has been conditioned throughout her life to act a certain way, the way that society wants her to act. While both her husband and her brother have come to “same diagnosis” of the narrator, she “personally disagree[s] with their ideas” but doesn’t feel she has a right to voice her own opinion in her treatment. Instead she inwardly suppresses her true emotions and maintains the facade that she believes she is meant to display, something she has probably been doing her whole life. Trapped in her husband’s diagnosis, the narrator is confined to
In the story the narrator expresses numerous times the way she feels during her condition and the only response that we get from John is, “There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so?”(652). John simply refuses to put himself in her wife’s shoes and share at least a small portion of what she is feeling. Also, we see in the story how the narrator feels to this lack of empathy coming from her own husband. In page 649 she says, “John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.” John’s lack of empathy does not let him analyze and access what is going on in the mind of her wife. Instead, the narrator is suffering while John is walking around with the idea that there is no reason for her to suffer. Lastly, the narrator shares how she feels to the idea of wanting to tell John about the haunting wallpaper when she says, “I had no intention of telling him it was because of the wall-paper- he would make fun of me. He might even want to take me away”(653). When the narrator gets to the point of not wanting to share something with her husband because he will make fun of her, that just shows no empathy whatsoever. Empathy is the understanding and the exchange of feelings with someone else. At
Moreover, the depressed mind can constantly fill with evil thoughts anything that hurts. As in Gilman, “ Yellow Wallpaper , the narrator, to make herself comfortable, she begins to get comfort and peace by watching the mysterious yellow wallpaper. She used to look at the wallpaper most of the times. Her mental problem makes her lonely and parted away from the family. “My darling, “said he, ‘I beg of you, for my sake and for our child’s sake, as well as for own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind! There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so?”. The narrator loves her husband, she knows her family is getting disturbed because of their illness. John, the narrator’s husband is trying to help her wife to cure the disease but she is getting more ill . Likewise, the problem is John wants her wife to be in his control. He is maintaining the relation his wife as a doctor and husband. He is unable to understand his wife and request her to take care of herself for their family, she needs to rid of their problem and stop doing this stupid thing. She needs to trust her husband but the narrator feels John wants to keep her in restrictions. On the other side, in Oats,” Landfill, Hector Jr, shows as a hopeless who
...asonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive” says the wife. “He is very careful and loving and hardly lets me stir without special direction” ( ). She is always aware of the wonderful things her husband does for her yet she continues to complain due to her nervous condition. Just like a child she has someone to help her when help is needed and regardless of the common sense she should have she continues to do ignorant things and have ignorant thoughts.
This wave includes works from the late 1700’s to the early 1900’s. It focused on the inequalities between women and men as well as contributions made during the suffrage movement. When the author of The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, wrote this story, she brought out the feminism, individuality, and the symbolism that allowed the readers to see and experience what it was like to go through a mental breakdown and how the rest of the world reacts to the person going through it. The story is told as a first-person narrative, the protagonist being an upper-middle-class female, whose husband was a well-respected doctor, as well as her own doctor.
Prison is supposed to be depressing, and she is pretty close to being a prisoner. Perhaps if she had been allowed to come and go and do as she pleased her depression might have lifted. "I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me." It seems that just being able to tell someone how she really felt would have eased her depression, but John won't hear of it. The lack of an outlet caused the depression to worsen. Meanwhile, her reaction is to seek to prove him wrong on his "prescription". It seems to me that while putting on an appearance of submission she was frequently rebelling against her husband's orders. She writes when there is nobody around to see her, she tries to move her bed, but always keeps an eye open for someone coming. The tension between what she considers as her work and what her husband says is her work is clear in her mixed feelings. It is the enforcement of her husband's opinion, which deprive her of her freedom and pressure her into seeking it in the only way left to her. Even in her madness, she can identify the fact that the circumstances that trapped her and drove her to seek freedom in insanity are not