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The yellow wallpaper critical interpretations
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” setting
The yellow wallpaper by charlotte perkins gilman analysis
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Imagine enduring nine long months of discomfort endured for the sole reason of having a child of your own flesh and blood, only to feel disconnected from the baby, like the child in front of you is a total stranger. This is what the speaker in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is experiencing, and similar to what Gilman herself experienced.In this short story, we follow a unnamed woman who has just had a child, but suffers from postpartum depression. Her husband, John , is a doctor who believes she suffers from “temporary nervous depression” and prescribes her the “resting cure.” This consists of being kept inside in almost total isolation. This isolation drives the narrator to a very dark place in her mind. She starts seeing …show more content…
Gilman states “At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be”(Gilman 653). In other words, the narrator’s insanity has reached such a heightened state that she is starting to become delusional and seeing a woman trapped behind bars in something as simple as the pattern in the wallpaper. Subconsciously, she is the woman in the wallpaper and nobody, not even John, can imprison her in the wallpaper again. There is no doubt that the narrator will be physically imprisoned at some point in the future in a mental institution due to her breakdown. Therefore, the woman in the wallpaper can be seen as a creation of her imagination that finally breaks through the rigid expectations of the women during the 19th century. One source states, “ Unfortunately, the escape of her imagination means that she cannot ever regain any sort of rationality; by freeing the woman in the wallpaper, the narrator ensures that her mind will be trapped in a prison of insanity” (Wayne). Gilman is trying to show that the resting cure is ineffective and can drive a someone to absolute …show more content…
Gilman states,“I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store”(Gilman 650). Due to the speaker’s “resting cure”, she begins losing her sanity. While reading"The Yellow Wallpaper," we see the narrator’s descent into madness through her eyes, as her mind grows more chaotic, and as she begins seeing shapes in the wallpaper. One analyst states,”this is the ultimate example of showing, not telling. We have to deduce from her frantic writing style that there isn’t actually a woman trapped in the wallpaper; the narrator just thinks there is because she’s losing her grip on reality” (Shmoop Editorial Team). The author is showing her descent into madness by slowly changing the writing style from simple diary entries to haphazard and frantic telling of what is going through her
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.
In addition, she always talks about the moonlight during these times of night. When the moonlight is not present, the narrator is not active. Her husband comes to visit and she does not do much. But at night, when her husband is sleeping, the narrator wakes up and starts walking around the room. The protagonist believes that there is a woman trapped by the wall, and that this woman only moves at night with the night light. The allusion to this light is not in the beginning of the story, but in the end. “She begins to strip of the wallpaper at every opportunity in order to free the woman she perceives is trapped inside. Paranoid by now, the narrator attempts to disguise her obsession with the wallpaper.” (Knight, p.81) In the description of the yellow wallpaper and what is seen behind it there are sinister implications that symbolize the closure of the woman. It implies that any intellectual activity is a deviation from their duties as a housewife. Her marriage seems to be claustrophobic as her won life, a stifling confinement for a woman's creativity. As imaginable, such treatment and "solitary confinement"(Knight, p.86) will do nothing but worsen her condition, affecting
In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman recounts, by means of Jane’s journal, the story of Jane and her husband John, following the birth of their baby. Like Gilman, Jane suffers from post-partum depression, and, her husband, who is a physician, locks her in the nursery on the top floor of their summer home. After the first few weeks of her summer in isolation, Jane hides her journal, which contains her true thoughts, so that John will be unaware of...
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper is partly autobiographical and it illustrates the fight for selfhood by a women in an oppressed and oppressive environment. In the story, the narrator is not allowed to write or think, basically becoming more dysfunctional as she is entrapped in a former nursery room where bars adorn the windows and the bed is nailed to the floor. In this story there is an obstinacy on behalf of the narrator as she tries to go around her husband's and physician's restrictions, however, there is no resisting the oppressive nature of her environment and she finally surrenders to madness even though it represents some kind of selfhood and resistance because it allows her to escape her oppression, "She obsesses about the yellow wallpaper, in which she sees frightful patterns and an imprisoned female figure trying to emerge. The narrator finally escapes from her controlling husband and the intolerable confines of her existence by a final descent into insanity as she peels the wallpaper off and bars her husband from the room" (Gilman, 1999, 1).
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is the disheartening tale of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Set during the late 1890s, the story shows the mental and emotional results of the typical "rest cure" prescribed during that era and the narrator’s reaction to this course of treatment. It would appear that Gilman was writing about her own anguish as she herself underwent such a treatment with Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell in 1887, just two years after the birth of her daughter Katherine. The rest cure that the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" describes is very close to what Gilman herself experienced; therefore, the story can be read as reflecting the feelings of women like herself who suffered through such treatments. Because of her experience with the rest cure, it can even be said that Gilman based the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" loosely on herself. But I believe that expressing her negative feelings about the popular rest cure is only half of the message that Gilman wanted to send. Within the subtext of this story lies the theme of oppression: the oppression of the rights of women especially inside of marriage. Gilman was using the woman/women behind the wallpaper to express her personal views on this issue.
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
The short story titled, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is given its name for no other reason than the disturbing yellow wallpaper that the narrator comes to hate so much; it also plays as a significant symbol in the story. The wallpaper itself can represent many various ideas and circumstances, and among them, the sense of feeling trapped, the impulse of creativity gone awry, and what was supposed to be a simple distraction transfigures into an unhealthy obsession. By examining the continuous references to the yellow wallpaper itself, one can begin to notice how their frequency develops the plot throughout the course of the story. As well as giving the reader an understanding as to why the wallpaper is a more adequate and appropriate symbol to represent the lady’s confinement and the deterioration of her mental and emotional health. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the color of the wallpaper symbolizes the internal and external conflicts of the narrator that reflect the expectations and treatment of the narrator, as well as represent the sense of being controlled in addition to the feeling of being trapped.
"The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts a woman in isolation, struggling to cope with mental illness, which has been diagnosed by her husband, a physician. Going beyond this surface level, the reader sees the narrator as a developing feminist, struggling with the societal values of the time. As a woman writer in the late nineteenth century, Gilman herself felt the adverse effects of the male-centric society, and consequently, placed many allusions to her own personal struggles as a feminist in her writing. Throughout the story, the narrator undergoes a psychological journey that correlates with the advancement of her mental condition. The restrictions which society places on her as a woman have a worsening effect on her until illness progresses into hysteria. The narrator makes comments and observations that demonstrate her will to overcome the oppression of the male dominant society. The conflict between her views and those of the society can be seen in the way she interacts physically, mentally, and emotionally with the three most prominent aspects of her life: her husband, John, the yellow wallpaper in her room, and her illness, "temporary nervous depression." In the end, her illness becomes a method of coping with the injustices forced upon her as a woman. As the reader delves into the narrative, a progression can be seen from the normality the narrator displays early in the passage, to the insanity she demonstrates near the conclusion.
Imagery in literature brings a story to life for the reader. It draws the reader in and surrounds them with the environment of the narrative. The use of imagery will make the reader fully understand the circumstances under which the characters of a story live. In "The Yellow Wallpaper", by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator of the story often describes the wallpaper, each time giving more details. The vivid descriptions allow the reader into the psyche of the narrator, which illustrates her ever-deepening mental illness. The imagery presented in the wallpaper through the narrator's words show her descent into insanity coupled with her desire for independence.
When first reading the gothic feminist tale, “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, one might assume this is a short story about a women trying to save her sanity while undergoing treatment for postpartum depression. Gilman herself had suffered post-natal depression and was encouraged to undergo the “rest cure” to cure her hysteria. The treatment prescribed to Gilman resulted in her having a very similar experience as the narrator in the short story. The “perfect rest” (648), which consisted of forced bed rest and isolation sparked the inspiration for “The Yellow Wallpaper.” This story involving an unreliable narrator, became an allegory for repression of women. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman illustrates the seclusion and oppression of women in the nineteenth century society by connecting the female imprisonment, social and mental state, and isolation to the objects in and around the room.
Evidence of Gilman's life experiences can be seen all throughout the story. The main character in the story, a slightly neurotic woman, is married to a prominent physician. This husband refuses to believe anything is wrong with his wife's health simply because her physical health is intact. Thus, he prescribes for his wife nothing more than relaxation and cessation of her writings. This character clearly correlates to the doctor who "treated" Gilman for her nervous breakdown. The description of the room and the wallpaper is clearly crucial to the story as a whole. The room itself is described as large and airy, with windows facing towards a "delicious garden." The wallpaper does not fit the room at all. It is a repulsive, pale yellow color. The description of the wallpaper seems to function metaphorically. The wallpaper becomes much more detailed and much more of a fixture in the main characters life as the story progresses. The wallpaper essentially takes on a life of its own. This progression seems to represent mental illness itself. As mental illness progresses, it becomes much more whole and enveloping. Gilman attempts to represent the depth of mental illness through the wallpaper. For example, the woman in the story comes to the conclusion that there is a woman in the wallpaper behind the pattern.
When the narrator states, “I can see her out of my windows! I see her in that long shaded lane, creeping up and down. I see her in those dark grape arbors, creeping all around the garden” (Gilman 1006). The reader knows there is no actual woman trapped behind the wallpaper; in fact this is a hallucination that seems to be caused by forced isolation as part of her treatment.
Gilman’s narration advocates the slow development into insanity and growing frustration that accompanies it. With each entry the woman writes, it was apparent as to how her mental pain she endured was taking over her mind and behavior as the days passed. “This wallpaper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then. But in the places where it isn’t faded and where the sun is just so—I can see a stra...
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story that continues to transcend time with its’ themes of feminism and mental health issues. The narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper must struggle not only against her own mind, but the oppressive nature of her husband and her horribly inaccurate treatment plan, the combination of which destroys her sense of self. Throughout the story the narrator shares her experiences of her mental illness in a day to day basis until she completely loses her sanity. This just shows how serious it can be to ignore a type of mental illness for too long.