As we read literature, we tend to overlook the details the author offers in the story. The setting is the most important part of the story, it gives the reader details of what the characters outcomes are going to be before the story even ends. From traditional works Hawthorne to more modern works of Carol Shields, the stories that we have read all have an underlying meaning that foreshadow and offer clues to help us see what the author is trying to express to us. The stories that we have read tell many things, such as how an environment can affect the character. As we look at “The Chrysanthemums” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”, we are going to see how the setting can cause a character to have emotional turmoil and how their gender roles effected …show more content…
She takes pride in her garden and is usually not dressed to impress. Steinbeck wanted to show her as not being the traditional woman of her time, but rather a woman that mostly wore her “gardening costume” and took care of the thing that matter the most to her, such as a mother would. During her time she would have been considered independent when it comes to hard work or “men’s work”. Steinbeck describes the Salinas Valley as being grey and somber along with being closed off from the outside world. “The high grey flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all of the rest of the world. On every side it sat like a lid on the mountains and made of the great valley a closed pot.” (Steinbeck) This gives us insight into how Elisa’s living her life with her husband and how she is stuck with a limited job. She is also closed off from the world and just focuses on her flowers. Even her garden is fenced off from any harm that could come to them. The house that they live in is neat and perfect and well cared for, knowing that it is her job to keep things neat. “Behind her stood the neat white farm house with red geraniums close-banked around it as high as the windows. It was a hard swept looking little house, with hard polished windows, and clean mud mat on the front steps.” (Steinbeck) Steinbeck refers to the house as being the person she is …show more content…
The narrator and her husband travel to an isolated house for the summer with hopes that she “gets better”. The setting that Gilman portrays are things that are falling apart and decaying within the narrators grasp. She is set in a room that would be the only place that she interacts with. This is a big clue for foreshadowing because it gives insight into the decaying of the narrators mind and body. The isolation of the house plays a big part in how she interacts with her husband, sister-in-law, and brother. Gilman not only isolates the house but she isolates the room that the narrator stays in. “I don’t like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, such a pretty old fashioned chintz hanging! But John would not hear of it. He said there was only one window and not room for two beds and no near room for him her too another.” (77) She is left alone by her husband because he believed she would get better with limited interaction. The room, however, would leave her with a strong
The narrator, throughout the story, progressively breaks away from the role of women during the nineteenth century by doing things that women were not supposed to do. Women were considered as the ones who must stay home and take care of the children. Gilman shows this aspect of a women’s role by having the narrator live in a room that is supposed to be a nursery. (1661) John and his sister, Jennie represent society during this time. During the story the narrator is constantly writing when no one is around because it is frowned upon for women to write. “There comes John, and I must put this away-he
Elisa's unhappiness in her role as the wife of a cattle farmer is clear in her gardening. Through the authors detailed diction it is clear that gardening is her way of freeing herself from her suffocating environment. “The chrysanthemum stems seemed too small and easy for her energy” which is “over-eager” and “over-powerful” (Steinbeck 460). The intensity with which she gardens, “terrier fingers destroy[ing] such pests before they could get started” suggests more than simply a deep interest, but a form of escape completely submerging her self into the task (Steinbeck 460). It is possible that some...
Gilman manipulates the reader s perspective throughout her story as she immediately introduces us to her world. Language plays an important role as a normal woman assesses her husband s profession and her own supposed illness. The narrator comes across intelligent if not a little paranoid-less concerned with a slighthysterical tendency but rather a queer untenanted (Gilman 691) house. Her suspicion occurs early on; appearing at first as misdirection meant to foreshadow a possible ghost story. She goes on to describe the most beautiful place with a delicious garden (Gilman 692). Her depiction is that of a quaint home-leading thereader to imagine a stable woman in a new setting. Clearly the narrator s broad vocabulary is an indication of her right-mindedness as well as her ability to examine a condition she disagrees with.
The Salinas Valley is symbolic to Elisa’s inner feelings. The farm responsibilities Elisa shared with her husband Henry encouraged “cold and tender” thoughts that often left Elisa feeling “closed off from the rest of the world” (paragraph 1). Her consistent lonely and empty days began to “fog” the belief of any better days to come. The [quiet of waiting] was yearning for any “sharp and positive” (paragraph 2) notion that had yet to be nurtured. But until Elisa was given any chance to set free of such desires she had to remain forcibly content inside of her chrysanthemum garden.
Many critics question whether this story is meant as a personal documentation about Gilman or a reflection of women’s position in society in 1892. However, due to her creation of this unreliable narrator, it creates the allusion that this story has many meanings. The narrator generates the way we see John and the ironic theme of entrapment, through many different angles. The subject of the story changes from reality, to her obsession with the wallpaper and consumes the narrator’s tone and thoughts. The way Gilman used narration to manipulate the reader’s interpretation John and to convey the theme of entrapment makes this an effective piece of literature.
Gilman’s father abandoned the family when she was young, leaving her mother with the arduous job of providing for all of them and having little time for her children. Even though in the story the speaker is still together with her husband, John, they spend most of the time apart. She states that “John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious” (Gilman 958). She misses him, but this adds to the fact that she is spending more time alone, secluded from the world around her as a way to make her feel better, which it doesn’t. Also, she is somewhat detached from her son, maybe portraying Gilman’s own distance from her mother when she was younger. She acknowledges her feelings for him, but is glad that someone is helping take care of him: “Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me nervous” (Gilman 958). This can lead the reader to think that, maybe, she is afraid of hurting her child. Gilman, on the other hand, may be giving her reader an insight into her own feelings as a mother after giving birth to her daughter, believing that “maternal roles are artificial and not necessary for survival anymore” (Oakes). Her daughter remained with her husband after they sep...
In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman uses symbolism to add to the mood of her short story. While being treated for depression by rest cure, the narrator is stuck in a room covered in horrible yellow wallpaper that she claims is revolting, “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.” (Gilman 298). Her view on this wallpaper symbolizes that she is not an optimistic thinker and also immediately shows the reader that she is not emotionally stable, as she is obsessing over a simple color. This also begins to set an ominous and eerie mood to the short story. Secondly, as the story progresses she begins to see things in the
The wallpaper symbolizes the trapped narrator and the structure of the tradition. Also, Elisa’s chrysanthemums are discarded and the narrator’s feelings are disowned which portrays the rejection of women. Elisa ends up “crying weakly like an old woman” and settles for wine (233). The narrator’s actions lead to her husband fainting “but he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time” (447). The narrator is insane and causes faintness in her husband, hoping that she now has an escape. To conclude, John Steinbecks “The Chrysanthemums” and Charloette Perkins “The Yellow Wallpaper” show two different outcomes mainly arisen due to being trapped inside an isolated house or a garden and having a limited life under a husband's control.
In literature, women are often depicted as weak, compliant, and inferior to men. The nineteenth century was a time period where women were repressed and controlled by their husband and other male figures. Charlotte Gilman, wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper," showing her disagreement with the limitations that society placed on women during the nineteenth century. According to Edsitement, the story is based on an event in Gilman’s life. Gilman suffered from depression, and she went to see a physician name, Silas Weir Mitchell. He prescribed the rest cure, which then drove her into insanity. She then rebelled against his advice, and moved to California to continue writing. She then wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which is inflated version of her experience. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the main character is going through depression and she is being oppressed by her husband and she represents the oppression that many women in society face. Gilman illustrates this effect through the use of symbols such as the yellow wallpaper, the nursery room, and the barred windows.
...he wall, he thinks about his rejected opportunities and his unbearable regret. As he sobers with terror, the final blow will come from the realization that his life is ending in his catacombs dying with his finest wine. The catacombs, in which he dies, set the theme, and relate well with the story. Without the yellow wallpaper in the short story, the significance of the wallpaper would not mater, nor would it set the theme or plot. At night the wallpaper becomes bars, and the wallpaper lets her see herself as a women and her desire to free herself. She needs to free herself from the difficulties of her husband, and from her sickness. The settings in both, set up the elements of the stories and ads to the effect in both of the short stories.
The setting of these two stories emphasize, on visually showing us how the main characters are based around trying to find freedom despite the physical, mental and emotional effects of living in confinement. While on the other hand, dealing with Psychology’s ugly present day behavior showing dystopia of societies views of women during the time period they lived.
Gilman uses setting to suggest that imprisoning oppression causes a type of loneliness that can lead to insanity. Gilman's young mother describes the nursery bedroom "with windows that ... [are] barred for little children" (426). In the above passage, the barred windows seem to intensify her oppression, and her perception that she is being imprisoned. Gilman also uses the young woman's description of the summer home to express her feeling of being all alone. "It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of Eng...
Each John, the narrator's husband in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Brently Mallard, Mrs. Mallard’s husband in “The Story of an Hour” and Henry Allen, Elisa Allen’s husband in “The Chrysanthemums” unknowingly lead their wives to a state of mental confinement through their actions taken that are meant to help them. John tells his wife to rest and not to think of her condition for the sake of him and the children which drove her mad because
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
... issues that affected women in general. I was fascinated at how her symbolism of the yellow wallpaper displayed the entire outlook on the story, and I thought this short story would be perfect to write about for my essay.