Beyond this current reality everyone finds themselves living in, could there be an alternative realm in which our inner embody is roaming around freely or even facing the troubles that one contains inside? In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the short story seems to be representing a tale of which the narrator 's mind projects into an imaginary realm where her inner self is trapped behind a dreadful wallpaper. The wallpaper signifies all the demons she faces like her husband and his high standing of being a Physician, her lack of having a say in her own life, and the judgments she faces every day on her sickness. Upon several examinations of the text, “The Yellow Wallpaper” shows stereotypical gender roles that women face, which she portrays as the women trapped behind the wallpaper. The thought of the narrator 's life of staying home all day to be taken care of by her husband and his sister, as well as having the husband go out and tarnish her reputation to her family and friends is such a dreadful thought. Apart from her husband John 's treatment is to keep her away from her family for a bit till she is better, but in order to do that he must disclose her well being with them. It is preposterous that her …show more content…
The Ugly Wallpaper represents the major things in her life that is making her feel trapped and unable to breathe. It is the lack of say she has over her own life because of her Physician husband, the schedule she is under holding her back from seeing the outside world and her family, and the judgement she faces everyday on her sickness as well as losing herself to the sickness that is consuming her due to the unethical way of treating her known as rest cure. The woman whom is truly trapped is taken to be her inner self who is trying to break free from the reality she faces, including letting out the many women behind the wallpaper who are trapped under a man 's
Until she sees a woman creeping behind the pattern one night tempting her to go see if the wallpaper is actually moving which is when her husband catches her. He always seems to talk down to her treating her like a child in this particular instance calling her “little girl”. In spite of this she sees this as an opportunity to talk to let him know her concerns informing him that she is not getting better as he so adamantly believes. Nevertheless, her attempts are futile for he dismisses her once more putting his supposed medical opinion above his wife’s feelings. The story takes a shocking turn as she finally discerns what that figure is: a woman. As the story progress she believes the sole reason for her recovery is the wallpaper. She tells no one of this because she foresees they may be incredulous so she again feels the need to repress her thoughts and feelings. On the last night of their stay, she is determined to free the woman trapped behind bars. She begins to tear strips of the wallpaper and continues to all night by morning yards of the paper are stripped off. Her sister in law Jennie offers to help but at this point the narrator is territorially protective of the wallpaper. She locks herself in the room and is determined to strip the wall bare. As she is tearing the wallpaper apart she sees strangled heads in the pattern shrieking as the wallpaper is being torn off. At this point, she is furious and even
The presence of a woman's perspective in the The Yellow Wallpaper is evident whenwe see the first passage describing the trees and how aesthetically pleasant theatmosphere is; this is the "view" of the stereotypical nineteenth century woman.To compound that she is the subject of her master, her husband. To the woman, themaster is wiser (he is a good doctor). He is physically superior, and he controlsthe social situations and preserves "order" by acting like a "man" should.
The wallpaper in The Yellow Wallpaper represents the societal barriers oppressing women. In the beginning, the narrator, Jane, is very skeptical of the wallpaper but does not question it, thus emphasizing how she is trapped by this oppression. However, as the story progresses, she starts to become more intrigued by it. The wallpaper runs parallel to Jane’s life. The more she observes the patterns, the more she acknowledges that in order to seek liberation, she must resist these restrictions placed by the patriarchal society.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a self-told story about a woman who approaches insanity. The story examines the change in the protagonist's character over three months of her seclusion in a room with yellow wallpaper and examines how she deals with her "disease." Since the story is written from a feminist perspective, it becomes evident that the story focuses on the effect of the society's structure on women and how society's values destruct women's individuality. In "Yellow Wallpaper," heroine's attempt to free her own individuality leads to mental breakdown.
Obviously, it is impossible to maintain a healthy mental state in the oppressive environment surrounding the woman. Throughout the story, the author traces the woman's mental deterioration from a having a normal but weakened sense of self, to a complete inversion of her ego. She slowly inverts her orientation of her place in society, turning away from society completely in order to create a world where she can act on her own volition. In order to represent the stages of her gradually worsening state of mind, the author represents the woman's struggles through a parallel with her view of the wallpaper. The wallpaper is at first a seeming inversion of the woman's mind, but it is gradu...
“The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Stetson (Gilman)” embodies the idea that imprisonment in the “yellow wallpaper” room was the cause of the narrator’s absolute madness, as seen how her character changes and at the end and she no longer addresses her husband as John but “that man”. When reading the story we can see the narrator is being oppressed by her husband, “John is a physician, and perhaps – (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) – perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster” (p.g.1). This quote shows us how the narrator is trapped and can’t express her feelings fearing her husband. The helpless sensation of oppression and being trapped leads the narrator to madness and we can witness the whole scene unfold. From her change in attitude to obsession with the wallpaper and the illusion of herself as the woman behind the wallpaper.
Gender roles can have a negative effect on a person as was illustrated in the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The stereotypical gender roles which are associated with both men and women strip both genders of their individuality as it encourages all women and, subsequently, all men to behave in the same fashion as the rest of their gender. This limits self-expression and restricts people to conform to the gender roles set for them by society. Accordingly, this can lead to negative effects on a person if they feel that they do not act according to the gender roles set for them by society. The journal entries written by the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” display the negative effect that gender roles
The room becomes the woman’s world because he cannot leave. The yellow wallpaper represents her fear of being trapped. It also is the very thing causing her imprisonment inside the room. The narrator says “At the night in any kind of light, in twilight, candle light, lamp light, and worst of all by moon light it becomes bars!” (Gilman 662). Every night she lies awake and looks at her cell of a room as her eyes roam around the wallpaper. At the beginning she hates the wallpaper but becomes infatuated with it as the woman continues to try to get out. “ ‘nobody could climb through that pattern it strangles so…strangles them off and turns them upside down, and makes their eyes white’… If this can be seen as a metaphor of women’s oppression and death in the limited domestic space” (Fanghui). The woman could end up feeling useless, “suffocated” (Fanghui), and so closed off and commit suicide. The restraints used against her could be her downfall. She has become “possessive about the wallpaper” (Rao) because she feels “it is here property” (Rao). She no longer feels the need to leave because she has not found a way out yet. Once the narrator “freed the woman in the wallpaper” (Rao) she became insane (Rao). She says “I wonder if they all came out of the wallpaper, as I did?” (Gilman 665). She no longer sees the trapped behind the wallpaper as someone else but herself. She has been alone in for weeks trapped in the room with
Gender roles seem to be as old as time and have undergone constant, but sometime subtle, revisions throughout generations. Gender roles can be defined as the expectations for the behaviors, duties and attitudes of male and female members of a society, by that society. The story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is a great example of this. There are clear divisions between genders. The story takes place in the late nineteenth century where a rigid distinction between the domestic role of women and the active working role of men exists (“Sparknotes”). The protagonist and female antagonists of the story exemplify the women of their time; trapped in a submissive, controlled, and isolated domestic sphere, where they are treated as fragile and unstable children while the men dominate the public working sphere.
During her isolation, the narrator becomes interested in why it was there and begins to believe it affects her directly. At first, she hates the wallpaper and understands why the residents before would tear it up in the room. She describes the paper looking at her and mocking her feelings, “This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had.” (382). Suddenly her interest changes and becomes very fond of the wallpaper because she continues to dissect the pattern it creates. She spends hours on hours just following it until she finds a “some sort of conclusion” (384) as if the pattern could speak to her. After becoming so obsessed with the pattern her mental state begins to dwindle again, and one night she wakes up stands up and sees a figure in the wallpaper from the moonlight. This figure was of a woman a shadowy looking woman, which is actually the narrator’s own shadow. At this time, she has become so unstable that she believes there is a woman trapped inside the wallpaper. The woman begins coming out during the day, creeping around the narrator inside the house and outside. On the last day of her stay, the narrator believes she can save the woman in her prison, pulling and shaking the wallpaper off with help (she believes) from the shadowy woman. While the narrator locks herself in the room, believing she can do whatever she pleases “It is so pleasant to
The narrator struggled with her self-identity primarily due to her unequal relationship with her husband John unequal relationship. Their disproportionate relationship is a picture of the larger gender inequality in society. John’s patronizing and fatherly behavior toward his wife seems to not be due to her illness. He outright dismisses her opinions and her “flights of fancy” with equal aloofness, while he depreciates her creative impulses. The narrator reveals how restrained she is when she says: “There comes John, and I must put this away,-he hates to have me write a word” (Gilman 309). She is a grown woman, and she is not allowed to express her thoughts even on paper. John speaks of her as he would a child, calling her his “little girl” and saying of her, “bless her little heart!” (Gilman 314). John dominates her judgments on the best course of treatment for herself, forcing her to live in a house she despises, in a room she loathes, and in a remote environment which
Over the years, the roles of women have drastically changed. They have been trapped, dominated, and enslaved by their marriage. Women have slowly evolved into individuals that have rights and can stand on their own. They myth that women are only meant to be housewives has been changed. However, this change did not happen overnight, it took years to happen. The patriarchal society ruled in every household in earlier times and I believe had a major effect on the wives of the families. “The Story of an Hour”, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and Trifles all show how women felt obligated to stay with their husbands despite the fact they were unhappy with them
"The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, tells the story of a woman's descent into madness as a result of the "rest and ignore the problem cure" that is frequently prescribed to cure hysteria and nervous conditions in women. More importantly, the story is about control and attacks the role of women in society. The narrator of the story is symbolic for all women in the late 1800s, a prisoner of a confining society. Women are expected to bear children, keep house and do only as they are told. Since men are privileged enough to have education, they hold jobs and make all the decisions. Thus, women are cast into the prison of acquiescence because they live in a world dominated by men. Since men suppress women, John, the narrator's husband, is presumed to have control over the protagonist. Gilman, however, suggests otherwise. She implies that it is a combination of society's control as well as the woman's personal weakness that contribute to the suppression of women. These two factors result in the woman's inability to make her own decisions and voice opposition to men.
Feminism can be referred to as the equality of sexes through the rights of women. Feminism is the ongoing fight for equal rights among sexes and the protection of women and their legal rights. It has a long-known history throughout the world. The first thoughts towards better treatment of women started in the fifteenth century. Thus, starting the revolution of waves towards women equality. The first wave consisted of women’s suffrage in the Nineteenth century towards the early Twentieth century. In this wave woman also fought for the right to vote and have economic, sexual, and reproductive rights. However, the second wave then was produced in the early 1960s to the late 1980s. This wave consisted on ending discrimination and breaking barriers
"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.