“The Yellow Wallpaper” contains many symbols in which Charlotte Perkins Gilman develops the idea that society at the time of the story presumed certain things “proper” - without knowing that they were indeed harmful. In the 19th century, women had no power, worth, or opportunities, and that could have been enough to drive woman of the time, including the narrator, into madness. Women were involved in the workforce, could not vote, or have a voice in anything. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wanted to change the way in which women were viewed in the 19th century. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, she uses numerous symbols to show the many restrictions upon women, lack of public interaction, and the struggle for equality. Perhaps the biggest symbol in support “I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal—having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.” She also claimed that “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.” She is restrained from both writing and reading, so her mind settles onto the wallpaper as her source of literary work instead. This supports my thesis statement because men viewed it “proper” for a woman to be entirely dependent on a man, even though it was economically and socially damaging. In comparison, in William Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew”, Bianca, one of the female leads, is praised for her ways that never “tested the system”, which is why many suitors came her way. Katherine, on the other hand, pulled, tested, and played the social setup for women in the 19th century. Men despised Katherine because of her rebellious nature and she was viewed as an outcast at the time. The narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is very much like Katherine, wanting to bring out her true self, yet she is forced to be more like Bianca, quiet and obedient. The narrator internally struggles with this expectation of herself throughout The Victorians thought that their woman should be motherly and uninterested in sex. Women were supposed to be pure and virginal, and even after marriage, they should still be uninterested in sex. The bed is nailed to the floor, which is a metaphor for the culture of male dominance at the time. The narrator's husband, John, is a very successful physician. He tells the narrator time and time again that she is sick. He can be viewed as a very controlling man in which everything must happen his way or not at all. John was a metaphor for the type of society in the 19th century. He is the image of a male-dominated culture where every woman and child had to follow the rules without complaint. The narrator is like a child taking order for the male doctors in her life, even going on to say, “personally, I disagree with their ideas.” She does not accept their diagnosis but has no other choice but to follow it’s harsh procedures, much like the woman of the 19th century. The wallpaper, rules, and opinions of other stood between the narrator’s imagination and intellectual desires, eventually driving her to insanity. However, she is not the only woman in the story to feel this snared feeling. John’s sister, Jennie, claimed that she wouldn't mind tearing the wallpaper apart herself, proving she also felt oppressed by the strict rules of society. The narrator finds
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a 19th century, journalist from Connecticut. She was also a feminist. Gilman was not conservative when it came to expressing her views publically. Many of her published works openly expressed her thoughts on woman’s rights. She also broke through social norms when she chose to write her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” in 1892, which described her battle with mental illness. These literary breakthroughs, made by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, help us see that the 19th century was a time of change for women.
The windows are barred, symbolizing the restrictive nature of the narrator’s mental condition. She is imprisoned within her mind. Her room was once a nursery, symbolizing that she is helpless and dependent on her husband’s care, similar to how a parent is reliant on the care of it’s parents, “… for the windows are barred for little children,” (Gilman 2). The narrator is not only trapped by her own mind and mental condition, but her husband’s wishes and expectations as well. The most significant symbol within the story is the yellow wallpaper. Initially, the narrator only views the wallpaper as something unpleasant, but over time she becomes fascinated with it’s formless pattern and tries to figure out how it’s organized. She discovers a sub-pattern within in it in which she distinguishes as a barred change with the heads of women that have attempted to escape the wallpaper like the woman she has been “seeing” moving within the wallpaper, “And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern - it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads” (Gilman 8). The yellow wallpaper is symbolic of a women’s place in society within the nineteenth century. It was not commonplace, or deemed acceptable, for women to be financially independent and/or engage in intellectual activity. The wallpaper is symbolic of those economic, intellectual, and social restrictions women were held to, as well as the domestic lives they were expected to lead. The narrator is so restricted by these social norms that her proper name is never given within the story, her only identity is “John’s wife”. At the climax of the story, the narrator identifies completely with the woman in the wallpaper and believes that by tearing the wallpaper, both she and the woman would be freed of their domestic prisons, “…there are so many of those
Stetson made it clear in “The Yellow Wallpaper” that women in the Victorian era were portrayed less than men. In contrast, Stetson also makes it clear to readers that no certain gender role determines the abilities of men and women. While the narrator struggles with clinical depression, she strives to free herself of her husband’s authority over her. As Stetson, a feminist conveys the difficult hardships women went through during this time, and she was desired to change the society of women
“There are things in that paper which nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit. I wonder—I begin to think—I wish John would take me away from here!” The late 19th century hosted a hardship for women in our society. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman expressed a form of patriarchy within the story. Gilman never addressed the woman in the “The Yellow Wallpaper” by a name, demonstrating her deficiency of individual identity. The author crafted for the narrator to hold an insignificant role in civilization and to live by the direction of man. Representing a hierarchy between men and women in the 19th century, the wallpaper submerged the concentration of the woman and began compelling her into a more profound insanity.
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.
In the 19th century, women were not seen in society as being an equal to men. Men were responsible for providing and taking care of the family while their wives stayed at home not allowed leaving without their husbands. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman writes about a woman named Jane who is trapped by society’s cage and tries to find herself. Throughout the story, the theme of self-discovery is developed through the symbols of the nursery, the journal and the wallpaper.
...ow Wallpaper" and Henry Isben’s play A Doll's House both prove that independence is key in a woman’s life in order to feel free; yet social norms of the Victorian Age cause freedom to come at a high cost. Nora, the heroine in A Doll’s House, escapes from her husband’s confinement by leaving her family. While this seems revolutionary, Nora’s freedom will only cause confusion in her life. Had she not had her personal awakening on individualism, she would have remained happy with her family. In the “Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator achieves freedom through madness. The narrator thinks she is free when she goes mad, yet this is only a brief feeling, as she will most likely realize the publicity of her mental state will only increase the restrictions upon her. In both texts, the heroines break for freedom will only result in more confusion and confinement in their lives.
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 story "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story about control. In the time frame in which the story was written, the 1800’s, women were looked upon as having no effect on society other than bearing children, maintaining a clean house, and food on the table etc. etc. There was really no means for self expression as a woman, when men not only dominated society but the world. The story was written at a time when men held the jobs, knowledge, and society above their shoulders. The narrator on, "The Yellow Wallpaper" in being oppressed by her husband, John, even though many readers believe this story is about a woman who loses her mind, it is actually about a woman’s struggle to regain, something which she never had before, control of her life.
In a female oppressive story about a woman driven from postpartum depression to insanity, Charlotte Gilman uses great elements of literature in her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. Her use of feminism and realism demonstrates how woman's thoughts and opinions were considered in the early 1900?s.
In the 19th century society was from different from what it is today. Women were not in the workforce, could not vote, or even have a say in anything. Women were not permitted to give evidence in court, nor, did they have the right to speak in public before an audience. When a woman married, her husband legally owned all she had (including her earnings, her clothes and jewelry, and her children). If he died, she was entitled to only a third of her husband’s estate. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wanted to change this. She wanted people to understand the plight of women in the 19th century. In her short story The Yellow Wallpaper she tries to convey this to the reader not just on a literal level, but through various symbols in the story. In The Yellow Wallpaper the author uses symbols to show restrictions on women, lack of public interaction, the struggle for equality, and the possibilities of the female sex during the 1800s.
“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.
Women have been mistreated, enchained and dominated by men for most part of the human history. Until the second half of the twentieth century, there was great inequality between the social and economic conditions of men and women (Pearson Education). The battle for women's emancipation, however, had started in 1848 by the first women's rights convention, which was led by some remarkable and brave women (Pearson Education). One of the most notable feminists of that period was the writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. She was also one of the most influential feminists who felt strongly about and spoke frequently on the nineteenth-century lives for women. Her short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper" characterizes the condition of women of the nineteenth century through the main character’s life and actions in the text. It is considered to be one of the most influential pieces because of its realism and prime examples of treatment of women in that time. This essay analyzes issues the protagonist goes through while she is trying to break the element of barter from her marriage and love with her husband. This relationship status was very common between nineteenth-century women and their husbands.
Women were regard as a second class of people. They had neither legal right nor respect from their male counterparts. When the narrator's husband, John, a physician, placed the narrator in the horrid room with yellow wallpaper, and bed-rested, he claimed that he knew what is best for his wife. The narrator had no choice but to obey her husband since her brother, who was a male physician, was convinced by her husband's theory. "So I take phosphates of phosphites-whichever it is-and tonics, and air and exercise, and journeys, and am absolutely forbidden to "work" until I am well again" (pg277). Male domination is clearly seen here as the males claimed that their decision was always the right choice. "I thought it was a good time to talk, so I told him that I really was not gaining here, and that I wished he would take me away"(pg283). The narrator tried to convince her husband to change his treatment because she thought that her husband's prescription was not working for her, instead her husband asked her to go to sleep. Her husband's ignorance clearly shows that even the narrator herself had no power over her own health. She just simply said, "But ...
"The Yellow Wallpaper" motivated the female mind of creativity and mental strength through a patriarchal order of created gender roles and male power during the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. While John represented characteristics of a typical male of his time, the yellow wallpaper represented a controlling patriarchal society; a sin of inequality that a righteous traitor needed to challenge and win. As the wallpaper deteriorates, so does the suppressing effect that male hierarchy imposed on women. Male belief in their own hierarchy was not deteriorating. Females began to think out of line, be aware of their suppression, and fight patriarchal rule. The progression of the yellow wallpaper and the narrator, through out the story, leads to a small win over John. This clearly represents and motivates the first steps of a feminist movement into the twentieth century.