Importance of Symbolism and Setting in The Yellow Wallpaper
In the disturbing novel, The Yellow Wallpaper, the setting in which the action takes place is extremely important. The author uses setting to focus the reader’s attention into the story in a gradual manner. Also, the manipulation of setting allows the author to subtly introduce symbols in the text. These symbols represent Gilman’s view on the status of women in the patriarchal society of the nineteenth century.
The story takes the form of a journal of the main character. Therefore, the reader’s view is limited to the impressions of a single character, Jane. Considering some background information on Gilman, one can easily draw the conclusion that the story is actually a reflection of personal experience. Gilman has suffered an extreme mental depression as the result of psychiatric treatments, prior to writing this short story. The author identifies herself with this character. Due to her poor health, Jane listens to the doctor’s advice and redirects the energy she formerly spent on worries to "air and exercise, and journeys"(Gilman 946). She continuously focuses her attention on the surrounding environment and she pays much attention to detail in her journal descriptions, accompanying these descriptions with personal impressions, most of the time; because of the subjective view, the reader assimilates these impressions as if they were his own. Setting is important for the character - she has come to this place in the hope that the surrounding environment will have a positive influence in her state of health. However, it is at least as important for the reader as well, because the reader is very closely bound to the character’s thoughts and impressions and a...
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During this time period women did not encompass the same rights as their male counterparts, nor where they encouraged to participate in the same activities as they. Gillman describes the yellow wallpaper to the readers as a rationalization of what it means to be a woman during this time period. Women were expected to be child-like and fragile as noted, within the text, “What is it child(Gilman, 1998)?” The color yellow is often associated with sickness; in Gilman’s case her sudden illness refers to oppression. She notes as the story, progresses the wallpaper makes her feel sick. Gilman notes, “I never saw a worse paper in my life,” as a symbol in which refers to the restrictions and norms society places on women. Within her literature she addresses restrictions placed on women. Gilman states, “The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.” Meaning, she believed men denying women the right to equality was absurd, and when they did grant women’s freedom it was not equivalent rather a “slap in the face [it knocks] you down and tramples you (Gilman, 1998).” Through her essay she consistently refers to a figure behind the wallpaper. “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out (Gilman, 1998).” Meaning, women during this time period seek to feel free from oppression. The women behind the wallpaper represents the need to speak out, “you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow (Gilman,1998).” Creeping placed significance on the experience of being a woman in regards to, how they should think, feel, act, dress, and express themselves. Gilman notes, “And I 've pulled off most of the paper, so you can 't put me back! " The author used this quote to signify, the woman realized she was
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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
The two common threads that connect Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the narrator in her story are depression/postpartum depression, and entrapment within their roles as of women. Specifically, Gilman and the narrator are trying to escape the function society has placed on them. First, after fulfilling their expected duties as wife and mother, both Gilman and the narrator become depressed after the birth of their child. It is this depression that leads them to the infamous rest cure...
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The yellow wallpaper itself is one of the largest symbols in the story. It can be interpreted to symbolize many things about the narrator. The wallpaper symbolizes the mental block mean attempted to place on women during the 1800s. The color yellow is often associated with sickness or weakness, and the narrator’s mysterious illness is an example of the male oppression on the narrator. The wallpaper in fact makes the narrator more “sick” as the story progresses. The yellow wallpaper, of which the writer declares, “I never saw a worse paper in my life,” is a symbol of the mental screen that men attempted to enforce upon women. Gilman writes, “The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing” this is a symbolic metaphor for restrictions placed on women. The author is saying subliminally that the denial of equality for women by men is a “hideous” act, and that when men do seem to grant women some measure of that equality, it is often “unreliable.” The use of the words “infuriating” and “torturing” are also descriptions of the feelings of women in 19th century society.
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Often, too much power can go to that particular person’s head, and he/she can become corrupt. As readers have seen in literature, abuses of power are often harmful to the abuser and their subjects. Corrupted authority and abuses of power eventually lead to the collapse of society. This concept is shown many times throughout the novel Lord Of the Flies and the short story “I Only Came to Use the Phone”. Displayed through characters and actions, abusive power has dominated what should be morally correct in literature.
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Gilman creates a horrific tone that helps explore the idea of freedom and confinement within a certain place. The story is created to follow the situation of the narrator and how slowly she begins to deteriorate psychologically due to the wallpaper. The narrator is never assigned a name, therefore it can be assumed that the story is suppose to serve as a voice for the women who have been in a similar situation and have lost their freedom and say on their own lives. However, the narrator appears to come from a wealthy family with privilege so there cannot be this idea that all women who have been through this form of depression and inequalities have experienced it in the same form. Through the use of imagery, the reader was able to understand and clearly visualize the situation in which the narrator is in and see how she has begun to slowly deteriorate, even though she is finally freed in the end of the story, or at least that is what is assumed. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is indeed a very profound image of what it was like to be a female during the 19th century while emphasizing the themes of freedom and confinement. Even though it illustrates the impact that confinement can have on a person, it restricts the situation to fit only women who had similar social backgrounds as the narrator, which is
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This quote which comes early in the text of Flannery O’Connor’s “The Artificial Nigger,” is of great significance for understanding this novel as a whole. The quote comes from the beginning of this short story when the Grandfather (Mr. Head) is on the train with his grandson (Nelson). Mr. Head utters this quote to the man sitting next to him on the train. Mr. Head decided to take Nelson to Atlanta to see the city where Nelson was born and to teach him some things along the way.