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Deeper meaning of the yellow wallpaper
Deeper meaning of the yellow wallpaper
Character analysis essay on the yellow wallpaper
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Narrative Voice in The Yellow Wallpaper and The Virgin Suicides
Both The Yellow Wallpaper and The Virgin Suicides are told in first-person. The former, singular and the latter, plural. While the stories themselves are different in terms of content, the narrative used is very similar, and the narrators share similar characteristics through their respective stories. The narrators in The Yellow Wallpaper and The Virgin Suicides suffer from a neurosis of sorts, affecting how the reader understands the story. The narrators experience severe obsessive tendencies, prompts that cause them to retreat to a more juvenile state of mind, and are ambiguous about themselves. This mental impairment shown by the narrators changes how the readers interpret the
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Whether or not she actually has this mental illness at the beginning is debatable. However, certain indications can be made that she is succumbing to hysteria throughout the story. Most apparent is the development of her excessive fascination with the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom. She uses a relatively normal choice of words to describe its repulsiveness: “The colour is a repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight,” (Gilman, 649). This preoccupation with the wallpaper became the primary focus of her writings and her thoughts during the story. The words the narrator uses to explain the wallpaper become much more obsessive, with the tiniest details, whether or not they are actually there, noticed by the narrator: “Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind [the pattern], and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast…” (Gilman, 654). This narration forces the reader to identify with this obsession with the wallpaper. It is very quickly what the story becomes to be about, even though it was originally only meant to be her journal during the Rest …show more content…
In The Virgin Suicides, there is no character development of the narrators as they serve solely to tell the story to the readers, even if they occasionally share their own opinions. Therefore, there is no need for the reader to know who the boys really are, as long as they explain the story of the Lisbon girls. This only serves to help the reader get a side of the story that’s relatively unbiased, since it’s not from the Lisbon girls themselves. This is contrary to The Yellow Wallpaper, where the ambiguity of the narrator actually adds an important element to the story: mystery. We never find out the name of the narrator, nor much of her background or what is to become of her once the story is over. The only clues the reader gets are from what she mentions about herself, her husband, her sister-in-law and from a single line she writes near the end of the story: “‘I’ve got out at last,” said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane?’…” (Gilman, 656). This line could mention her name, however, it could also be a misprint of her sister-in-law’s name, Jennie. It could also be the final clue into who she was before her downward spiral into madness through her time in the Rest Cure. This possible name is one of the only indications one has of the narrator’s identity, other than an estimated age, that she has a child and is
These thoughts always seem to be optimistic and minimizing of her symptoms. This reflects the standard view of mental illness in the 19th century, which assumed the condition, was just a temporary state of over expressed emotions within a woman. (Gilman. 956) Gilman herself however, used imagery and symbolism to express her ideas concerning her mental illness and the patriarchal ideals that surrounded them. The yellow wallpaper in the story symbolized Gilman’s state of mind. At first, like her depression, the wallpaper was simply an eye sore. It was not disabling to the room however, made it not as appealing as before. As the story progresses, Gilman forms an obsession with the wallpaper. This represents the declining of her mental state and the obsession she developed with her life conditions. We can see the mental illness is now fixated in her like she is fixated on the wallpaper. The wallpaper’s distracting features controlled her mind like her husband controlled her. She was mostly alone when staring vastly into the wallpaper. She begins to see humanly images in the paper. This becomes her sense of social stimulation that her husband forbids her to have. She becomes disgusted with the wallpaper as she is likely disgusted at her disease for disabling her and her husband for limiting her freedom. The humanly image soon develops into “a woman
In Alan Brown’s article “The Yellow Wallpaper’: Another Diagnosis”; Brown discusses why Charolette Perkins Gilman published The Yellow Wallpaper as well as another diagnosis on the character in The Yellow Wallpaper. In the article it is explained that Gilman published this short story as a reflection of her own life. Gilman battled depression and sought out help from expert neurologist. The neurologist had suggested that she rest and be confined to her room. This experience lead to the creation of The Yellow Wallpaper. Being confined to a room like the character in The Yellow Wallpaper is enough to drive anyone to insanity. Brown had a different idea on why the character lost her mind and began to believe she was seeing figures in the wallpaper.
The wallpaper in her bedroom is a hideous yellow. "It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others" (pg 393) The wallpaper is symbolic of the sickness the author has by the end of the story. Yellow is often a color associated with illness. It’s been suggested that she herself was clawing at the paper during moments of insanity. But there are many times when she is sane, and sees the marks on the wallpaper, and she writes about how others who had spent time in this room tried to remove the paper as well.
Her mental state is again revealed a few pages later when she states, "It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight" (Gilman 430). Related to thought disorder is obsession, which the protagonist displays in her relentless thoughts about the yellow wallpaper which covers her bedroom walls. The narrator begins her obsession with the yellow wallpaper at the very beginning of the story. "I never saw a worse paper in my life," she says. "It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study" (Gilman 427)....
There are various interpretations of what causes the narrator to go crazy in the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. These interpretations include suggestions that the narrator is possessed, that she is oppressed by society and is acting out, that she has suffered from a traumatic childbirth, and so on. While all of these ideas hold merit and are supported by evidence in the short story, there is an alternative explanation that fits the story just as well, if not better. That explanation is that the reason the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” acts strangely and sees images in the wallpaper of her room is that she is suffering from the disorder of postpartum psychosis. During this essay I will be going into depth on a psychological analysis of “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
The Yellow Wallpaper is the largest and most blatant of the symbols in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, paralleling her mind. In the beginning of the story she recognizes her mental illness, although she doesn’t completely understand it, and attempts to reach out and get help from her husband,
“The Yellow Wallpaper” speaks of a woman who struggled of more than mere insanity, but also the pressures of life. Her life continuously seemed to weigh her down and she felt trapped by what was expected of her along with her mental disease. Her environment, marital relationship, and desire to escape her illness thrust Jane deeper into insanity. In the end Jane finds a way to truly escape her disease.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is the story of a woman descending into psychosis in a creepy tale which depicts the harm of an old therapy called “rest cure.” This therapy was used to treat women who had “slight hysterical tendencies” and depression, and basically it consisted of the inhibition of the mental processes. The label “slight hysterical tendency” indicates that it is not seen as a very important issue, and it is taken rather lightly. It is also ironic because her illness is obviously not “slight” by any means, especially towards the end when the images painted of her are reminiscent of a psychotic, maniacal person, while she aggressively tears off wallpaper and confuses the real world with her alternative world she has fabricated that includes a woman trapped in the wallpaper. The narrator of this story grows obsessed with the wallpaper in her room because her husband minimizes her exposure to the outside world and maximizes her rest. Academic essayists such as Susan M. Gilbert, Susan Gubar, and Elaine Showalter have a feminist reading of the story, however, this is not the most important reading. The author experienced the turmoil of the rest cure personally, which means that the story is most likely a comment on the great mistreatment of depression, hysteria and mental disorders in general. Despite the claims of Gilbert, Gubar, and Showalter that “The Yellow Wallpaper” is solely feminist propaganda, their analysis is often unnecessarily deep and their claims are often unwarranted, resulting in an inaccurate description of a story that is most importantly about the general mistreatment of psychosis and the descent into insanity regardless of gender.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" was written in the late nineteenth century. In that period of time hysteria was thought to occur through irregular blood flow from the uterus to the brain. Over the years the definition of hysteria has changed. Today hysteria can be defined as, "a state of mind, one of unmanageable fear or emotional excesses"("Hysteria biography"). From the research I have done it seems that the fear the person has is usually centered on a certain body part even though there is nothing wrong with it, "a patient experiences physical symptoms that have a psychological, rather than an organic, cause"("Hysteria"). The story does give some evidence of her showing hysterical behavior. For example, in the beginning of the story she tells us she is sick but her husband, John, who is a physician, does not believe there is anything wrong with her, "You see he does not believe I am sick!"(Gilman 103). Although the narrator does show these symptoms of hysteria her overall symptoms lead me to think that she may have postpartum depression.
The husband and brother of the narrator are physicians, and neither believe that she is sick, they say “there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency.” (The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman) and so she is confined mentally, with what they tell her to do, although she thinks there are other things that would fare her better. As the story continues she begins to have more delusions and the wallpaper in her room begins to come alive. But the most alarming effects were the hallucinations.”
In seeing the story through the wife's eyes, we can see that her mental illness in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is inevitable. Between society's view of women at that time, the husband's attitude towards her, and his ineffective remedies, the wife's mental instability can only grow worse. The wallpaper lets the reader follow the woman's regression into insanity as the story progresses. Only with the first person point of view (the wife's) can the reader follow this regression of the mind. All in all, this is a sad story of a woman's struggle for sanity in an indifferent society.
The person can experience hallucinations and mood swings. In her writing, it is visible the hallucination around the yellow wallpaper, how delusional she becomes, looking at the wallpaper. At the end of the story, she is completely delusional, and strips off the wallpaper from the wall (Gilman). Many are the symptoms of mania, it includes grandiosity; irrational imagination; the person does not want to sleep; frenetic speech. All of these symptoms can be noticed in her in this story. Bipolar I can be treated with a mood stabilizer, antipsychotic, and antidepressants
In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, through expressive word choice and descriptions, allows the reader to grasp the concepts she portrays and understand the way her unnamed narrator feels as the character draws herself nearer and nearer to insanity. “The Yellow Wallpaper” begins with the narrator writing in a journal about the summer home she and her husband have rented while their home is being remodeled. In the second entry, she mentions their bedroom which contains the horrendous yellow wallpaper. After this, not one day goes by when she doesn’t write about the wallpaper. She talks about the twisting, never-ending pattern; the heads she can see hanging upside-down as if strangled by it; and most importantly the
Emily and the narrator both face issues pertaining to their identity in the short stories. Both take place in different settings although both women are essentially imprisoned in their houses. The two women are at very different places in life. In “A Rose for Emily,” she is young in the beginning and it ends with her being an old woman. “The Yellow Wallpaper,” focuses on the narrator when she is middle aged woman, it takes place over the course of just a few months. Both stories give different outlooks on the women as “The Yellow Wallpaper” is written in first person while “A Rose for Emily” is written in third person. Nonetheless, it is seen that the lives of both women are similar in certain ways yet different in other aspects.
Signs of the depth of the narrator's mental illness are presented early in the story. The woman starts innocently enough with studying the patterns of the paper but soon starts to see grotesque images in it, "There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a...