The first person point of the view the author artfully uses and the symbolism present with the wallpaper cleverly depicts the inner conflict of the narrator, losing her own sanity due to the constraints of her current life. However, while it seems that the narrator in “ The Yellow Wallpaper” succumbed to her own insanity, the endless conflict within herself and her downward spiral to insanity is seen through a different light, as an inevitable path rather than a choice taken as the story is more closely analyzed. The recurring conflict in the short story, leading to the narrator losing her insanity, can be seen in the very beginning of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, with the narrator’s point of view illustrating her restricted, mundane life and the misunderstanding of her condition that causes her mental health to deteriorate. The narrator clearly depicts the heavy constraints limiting her from expressing herself through her very first diary entry, in which she says “John is a physician, and perhaps--(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)--perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do? Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do?” Through the first person narration, information about the narrator’s innermost thoughts are revealed, showing how greatly the narrator is restricted. Her entire thoughts and emotions are spilled over to the “dead paper [which is] a great relief to [her] mind”, yet that happens to be her own outlet and the narrator does not even have enough prominence in the relationship w... ... middle of paper ... ...f her hardships and is free, seen through her first person narration. By helping free the woman by destroying the wallpaper, the narrator, herself, is freed from constricting herself to the pages of her diary, seen when she said “I’ve got out at last…in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve oulle doff most the paper so you cant put me back.” By saying this, the narrator is recognizing how the wallpaper had helped her become free at the price of her sanity. The narrator allowed her true colors to shine and established her own prominence and individuality, seen through her “creeping over [John] every time” she went around the room, expressing herself in a twisted way, yet still establishing herself. While the narrator did-indeed- lose her sanity, it can be seen that this was the only viable option for her to be able to achieve her own freedom at the end of the short story.
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 on the wallpaper caused her much distress.... ...
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.”
Her mental state is again revealed a few pages later when she states, "It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight" (Gilman 430). Related to thought disorder is obsession, which the protagonist displays in her relentless thoughts about the yellow wallpaper which covers her bedroom walls. The narrator begins her obsession with the yellow wallpaper at the very beginning of the story. "I never saw a worse paper in my life," she says. "It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study" (Gilman 427)....
“The Yellow Wallpaper” demonstrates the issue of John’s control; over his wife as both husband and doctor by the inability to separate the doctor role from a husband role. In the beginning of the story the narrator says she “believes with congenial work, with excitement and change would do me good” (419). Gillman illustrates John as a person who does not realize his wife‘s health was based on the need to occupy her with something that is work relative and not forbid her to work .John shows that he does not care about her feelings as the role of husband role should be but rather takes his wife as his patient who is not physically we’’ to do work around the house. The narrator tells John that she wants the room repapered which at first he says yes, but later he says no because it would be worse for her as a “nervous patient” (421).John first demonstrates his husband role as a husband who is willing to please his wife but then plays back the role of her doctor by not letting her repaper the wall because it worsens her health. This shows that the i...
They are written during a time period when women were not viewed as important as men. The narrator from the yellow wallpaper is suffering from post-natal depression and has been recommended the rest of her cure by her husband and her brother, both physicians. Instead of curing her, it worsened her condition. The protagonist did try to convince her husband about what she would prefer, but she could not overcome the powerful authority figure. The narrator is restricted from working, writing, which leads to her obsession with the yellow wallpaper and suffocates her into madness.
An important theme throughout this story is the importance of self-expression. John’s wife is forced to hide her anxieties and fears in order to portray that her illness is improving. “But John says if I feel so I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself – before him, at least, and that makes me very tired” (239). Taking in the fact that her husband is a physician, the physician’s wife should not have mental problems or cry. Finally, Gilman uses the yellow wallpaper as a symbol. John’s wife describes it: “The color is repellent, almost revolting: a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly Sulphur tint in others” (240). Gilman uses the wallpaper to symbolize the great amount of women out there who feel trapped by medicine and family. At the end of the story, Gilman describes how John’s wife started to rip the paper off the wall. She locked herself in the room and threw the key so nobody could get in there. Once John retrieved the key, he unlocked the door to find his wife tearing apart the
It is written in a formal style, while using feign words. Although, the climax of the story happens when she peels the wallpaper from the wall, therefore releasing her from imprisonment; the problem isn’t resolved because she is insane now and didn’t get better. The external conflict is man versus society, the internal conflict is man versus himself, and the central conflict is man versus man. The external conflict is man versus society because of how society viewed women at that time as they were seen to be beneath man, and it showed in how they were treated. The internal conflict is man versus himself because the narrator ad to deal with depression and the treatment, which made it worse for her. The central conflict is man versus man because the narrator has to deal with the way her husband is treating her as a human and as a patient. The themes of the story are inferiority of women in marriage, expressing yourself, and effects of treatment and they are universal. The main theme is the importance of expressing yourself because if you don’t express yourself, you will lose yourself and then you won’t be who you truly are. An important symbol is the yellow wallpaper, which is in the room the narrator spends all her time in and is forced to stay in. She has nothing to do but stare at the intriguing wallpaper that has a woman trapped behind a pattern like she in trapped in her room. She also refers to the wallpaper as paper; therefore she was reading the wallpaper like a text decoding the images like
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is the story of a woman descending into psychosis in a creepy tale which depicts the harm of an old therapy called “rest cure.” This therapy was used to treat women who had “slight hysterical tendencies” and depression, and basically it consisted of the inhibition of the mental processes. The label “slight hysterical tendency” indicates that it is not seen as a very important issue, and it is taken rather lightly. It is also ironic because her illness is obviously not “slight” by any means, especially towards the end when the images painted of her are reminiscent of a psychotic, maniacal person, while she aggressively tears off wallpaper and confuses the real world with her alternative world she has fabricated that includes a woman trapped in the wallpaper. The narrator of this story grows obsessed with the wallpaper in her room because her husband minimizes her exposure to the outside world and maximizes her rest.
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.
The wallpaper, the narrator's obsession, destroyed the peace of mind for all parties concerned. The imagery, used in the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", paints a vivid picture and the reader becomes a front row spectator to the mental deterioration of the narrator to utter insanity.
Although both protagonists in the stories go through a psychological disorder that turns their lives upside down, they find ways to feel content once again. In Charlotte Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," a nervous wife, an overprotective husband, and a large, damp room covered in musty wallpaper all play important roles in driving the wife insane. Gilman's masterful use of not only the setting, both time and place, but also of first person point of view, allows the reader to process the woman's growing insanity. The narrator develops a very intimate relationship with the yellow wallpaper throughout the story, as it is her constant companion. Her initial reaction to it is a feeling of hatred; she dislikes the color and despises the pattern, but does not attribute anything peculiar to it. Two weeks into their stay she begins to project a sort of personality onto the paper, so she studies the pattern more closely, noticing for the first time “a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design” (Gilman). At this point, her madness is vague, but becoming more defined, because although the figure that she sees behind the pattern has no solid shape, she dwells on it and
“The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the story of a woman who is trapped in a room covered in yellow wallpaper. The story is one that is perplexing in that the narrator is arguably both the protagonist as well as the antagonist. In the story, the woman, who is the main character, struggles with herself indirectly which results in her descent into madness. The main conflicts transpires between the narrator and her husband John who uses his power as a highly recognize male physician to control his wife by placing limitations on her, forcing her to behave as a sick woman. Hence he forced himself as the superior in their marriage and relationship being the sole decision make. Therefore it can be said what occurred externally resulted in the central conflict of” “The Yellow Wallpaper being internal. The narrator uses the wallpaper as a symbol of authenticy. Hence she internalizes her frustrations rather then openly discussing them.
“The Yellow Wall Paper” is the story about a journey of a woman who is suffering from a nervous breakdown, descending into madness through her “rest cure” treatment. Basically, the woman is not allowed to read, write or to see her new-born baby. Charlotte Perkins Gilman captures the essence of this journey into madness by using the first person narration. The story plot’s is by taking the reader through the horrors of one woman’s neurosis to make strong statements about the oppression faced by women in their marriage roles. The narrator’s mental condition is characterized by her meeting with the wallpaper in her room. In addition to the story’s plot, the use of symbolism and irony throughout her story also show how males dominate during her time.