Happiness In The Yellow Wallpaper

Every time she thinks about writing in the journal, she relates how tired it makes her. Throughout the story, John speaks out against her writing, because he feels that it contributes to her depression but she writes anyway, feeling that she is getting away with something. John treats her as if she were ill not depressed. John being a physician, not a psychologist, prescribes her medication that is for someone who is physically ill, not experiencing psychological distress. The journal becomes an outlet for her true feelings that she believes would get her incarcerated if anyone else heard them.

Because her husband, John, does not take her illness seriously and neglects to get her out of the house, her mind cannot take it and she loses her sanity. It should be clear to the reader, since she thinks she and the imaginary woman has worked together to pull the wallpaper down that she believes the women in the yellow wallpaper and she are both trapped and are both working together to escape. (200) Likewise, when she tells John, “I got out at last”, and, “in spite of you and jane! And I pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back”, By her saying this to John tells you she thinks she is free, because she has torn down the yellow wallpaper. She is no longer saying anything about a woman being in the wallpaper, because in her mind, she is now the

The woman she imagines causes her to be more and more interested in the wall-paper. The last night they were at the house, she was alone in the room and “As soon as it was moonlight and the poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her” (655). The woman’s obsession with the paper got so bad over time, that combined with the other negative factors in her life she became completely crazy. Her

The narrator knows that she is not too well and that John - her husband does not realize the intensity of her sickness, he ignores her continuous efforts to make him aware of the real situation and her suffering. To make the situation worse he imposes his opinions on her even when it comes to her health. This story shows us the life and the thoughts of the narrator which lead her to be free, but go out of her mind in the sense of the real world. This story is written as if the narrator is writing it. The narrator is sick and her husband has made her a study project, She is continuously watched and thus she has no privacy.

The narrator confides in “dead language” (Treichler) as a source to freely express herself from the captivity placed upon her from her husband in an attempt to cure her condition of temporary nervous depression. The dead language represents writing in the journal for the narrator of the story. It is considered dead as she must be secretive about it for the fear of her husband John finding her writing as “he hates to have [her] write a single word” (Gilman). The woman is forbidden to work as a result of her husband’s treatment for her condition. He does not want her practicing discourse as he believes she is sick and her treatment is to be alienated from work, life, and writing to cure her condition.

During the story he’s trying to cure her depression and doesn’t act much like her husband as he does her doctor. The struggle with social expectations and personal goals I would say is that the narrator doesn’t want to be social she wants to be free. I feel she’s trying to get out of the marriage with John. The temporary home John chooses to stay at is quite shocking. The room for his wife could be portrayed as a prison cell.

In her writings, she explains that the more she became insane, the more the wall paper became a big issue to her that is why she smudged ultimately. Her attitude towards the wallpaper grew from bitterness to hate and she even feels that it smells. This symbolizes the hatred she had for the wallpaper because it highly contributed to her insanity.... ... middle of paper ... ...per suffered from psychological health problems and was to cope with it and also with the husband who has placed her in a solitary environment with the thoughts that it will facilitate her rehabilitation. In the end, instead of being cured, the narrator her mental state deteriorated and she became totally insane. Works Cited Hedges, Elaine R. “Afterward” to “The Yellow Wallpaper” Old Westbury, NY.

The short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman focuses on a young woman’s psychological downfall and her fascination with the wallpaper within the house she and her husband are living in. The woman begins to believe that the wallpaper is coming alive, which leads her to become confused with reality and fantasy. Gilman selects the crazed woman as the narrator of the story. Furthermore, Gilman uses first person point of view to effectively convey the woman’s emotions and feelings during her mental decline. Gilman begins the story with the narrator describing her and her husband’s vacation home and then her illness.

Jennie, John’s sister is the housekeeper, but her most important job is to keep an eye on her sister-in-law making sure she follows John’s strict daily regimen of doing nothing. Several weeks later, the narrator’s condition worsens and she feels nervous, depressed, fatigued, and lacks energy to write in her secret journal. The narrator’s only stimulation is spending hours studying the perplexing pattern of the wallpaper. She becomes obsessed with the repulsive wallpaper, as the image of the figures creeping around behind the wallpaper becomes clearer each day. Late one night the moonlight reveals the figures of women trapped behind the bars.

In Charlotte Bronte’s’, The Yellow Wallpaper the narrator is healthy until her husband, John moves her into a new house where she is confined and is in solitude. The Yellow Wallpaper makes Charlotte Bronte go mad, mentally and physically. Charlotte’s husband, John believes since she is sickly he should confine her in an attic with a cure called The Rest Cure which means the patient can not do anything but sit around their room all day. I chose this story because of the intense amount of detail in the room as well as with Bronte’s rapidly changing personality. When Charlotte first arrives at the house she says “A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house” (Stetson, 647).