In the initial chapters of A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, there is no reference to the novel’s title. However, as the plot progresses, both the yellow raft and the color yellow become integral symbols for both Rayona and Christine. For Rayona, the color yellow and the yellow raft are a symbol for peace, security, escape, and perfection. Rayona leaves Father Tom on the shore, swims out to the raft and suns herself. The raft is said to broaden her universe, one which contains racism and a feeling of not fitting in. “I pull myself over the side and lie on the sun-warmed dry boards, panting and soaking up the heat. The silence is wide as the sky,” (59). Still, the peace that Rayona comes to know on the raft is destroyed by Father Tom’s arrival. …show more content…
“She wears her yellow sleeveless top that I gave her for her birthday last year.” (103.) Even when Rayona dreams of her perfect life, it includes her mother and the people she loves. Rayona does not wish for a perfect family to appear for her, she wants her family to become perfect. Even as she tries to imagine Ellen’s family in the roles of the letter she cannot, she can only imagine her own family. “I try to picture Mrs. DeMarco using a green felt-tipped pen at the kitchen table in their house wherever it was. I look through her eyes out the door and try to see Mr. DeMarco in his blue suit and tie, cutting the grass. And I can’t. They don’t fit the letter that I’ve heard again and again in my Mom’s voice, It’s Mom I’ve imagined.” (103). Yellow represents her dream for the family she does not …show more content…
Each of the three women has a unique struggle and finding her place in the world. Ida struggles to find her own identity, as much of her identity is chosen for her with the circumstances of her childhood and Clara's pregnancy."I was 15 in the new rush of my awareness, too naive to recognize a point of deciding, when Mama conceded her long fight to be well, and called for her baby sister, Clara." (298). Rather then Ida's teenage years allowing her to explore who she wanted to be, at 15 Clara's pregnancy decided who Ida was going to be. Even as Ida attempts to come to peace with these events, she still is
Hoffmann depicts the women characters in his short story as symbols of the historical movements that occurred in the early 19th century. Clara can be viewed as the “voice of reason”; she has her own ideas pertaining to the well-being of her fiancé, Nathaniel. Olympia, on the other hand, is an automaton that agrees with everything Nathaniel does. With the exception of Olympia, Clara and the rest of the women and Frankenstein share a small relevance to their respective stories. All of these women are seen as individual thinkers, but have not reached a full understanding of being independent.
Yellow represents many things in this novel, without the references to it; the plot and themes would be completely different. The raft represented false security and escape for Rayona, but also relief when she was able to share her secret with Evelyn. For Christine the color yellow represents failure when she could not cross the bridge, but near the end of her life, the yellow symbolized safety and contentment.
Throughout the film we learn that each woman has setbacks within her household. One sister has a terrible drinking problem and ultimately loses her job due to excessive drinking and tardiness. The second sister has had several pregnancies that each result in miscarriages
The narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper is always judged by her husband's sister. She is judged for different reasons than Emily, she is treated badly for this “illness” she supposedly has. The sister makes sure to watch the narrator to make sure she doesn’t write or do anything that will make her illness worse.
The color yellow describes Daisy’s inner self and Gatsby’s strive for wealth and prosperity. Daisy always
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.”
As the narrator’s mental state changes so does the way she perceives things around the house. The most prominent example of this is the imagery of the wallpaper and the way the narrator’s opinion on the wallpaper slowly changes throughout the story; this directly reflects what is happening within the narrator’s mind. At the beginning of the story the narrator describes the wallpaper as “Repellent...revolting... a smoldering unclean yellow” (Gilman 377). As the story continues the narrator starts to become obsessed with the wallpaper and her opinion of it has completely changed than that of hers from the beginning. Symbolism plays a big part in “The Yellow Wallpaper” too. This short story has a multitude of symbols hidden in it but there are specific ones that stand out the most. The recurrence of the wallpaper definitely makes it a symbol. An interesting interpretation is that the wallpaper represents women, in the sense that the 18th century woman was considered almost decorative and that is exactly what the purpose of wallpaper is. Another prominent symbol that runs parallel with the wallpaper, are the women the narrator would see in the wallpaper. The women appear trapped behind bars in the paper and one could argue that the women the narrator sees represents all women of her time, continuously trapped in their gender
The woman in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is slowly deteriorating in mental state. When she first moves into the room in the old house, the wallpaper intrigues her. Its pattern entrances her and makes her wonder about its makeup. But slowly her obsession with the wallpaper grows, taking over all of her time. She starts to see the pattern moving, and imagines it to be a woman trapped behind the wallpaper. The total deterioration of her sanity is reached when she becomes the woman she imagined in the wallpaper and begins creeping around the room.
However, whereas the chrysanthemum is used to symbolize Elisa’s character, the yellow wallpaper is used to depict the mental state of the unnamed narrator as she deteriorates from a state of depression to ever worsening episodes of schizophrenia. In her initial description of the yellow wallpaper, the woman writes: “It has stripped off...in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach…one of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.” (235) Here begins her sickly obsession with the wallpaper: “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study…the color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow…I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room
1. The Yellow Wallpaper: The wallpaper is, as the title suggests, the chief symbol in this story. What does it symbolize, and how does it work as a symbol? What details about the wallpaper seem significant? How does the narrator 's attitude toward and vision of the wallpaper change, and what is the significance of those changes?
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.
The narrator in The Yellow Paper was a mother and a wife who was trying to free herself from the prison her husband had put her into. She lived in a male-dominate world whereby she was to be a wife who never questioned her husband’s authority. She suffered from a severe postpartum depression case, yet her marriage depressed her too. The narrator was in a marriage whereby her husband dominated and treated her like a child. Her husband was the sole decision maker and since she lived in a society whereby women were never allowed to question their husband’s decisio...
There is a difference between the colour yellow and when an object is yellowing. Yellowing suggests fading and decaying. Blanche says “These are love-letters, yellowing with antiquity.” (Williams 41). The letters shows the downfall of the upper class, as all that is left of Blanche’s love is these letters, which are disappearing like a vapor and a mist.
The title itself, The Yellow Wallpaper, is symbolizing the role men play in a patriarchal society, where men are the more dominant sex, and how women are 'trapped'; in a life of male control. For instance, At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all moonlight, it becomes bars!';(Gilman 211) This shows how the narrator feels trapped by the paper. Another symbol that refers to the role women play is, 'And she is all the time trying to climb through that pattern, it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads.';(Gilman 213) This is meaning that if a women tried to play a role in society she was just not taken seriously, or felt like trying to play a role was getting nowhere.