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. In the 1800’s, women lived under men’s rules and ideologies and were forced to conform to the social “norms” of the time. To women, these rules seemed normal as they were used to them. In the story, Jane is put in a nursery because she is said to be sick and …show more content…
Despite the fall of its popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries, Gilman uses this form of writing to show the narrator’s thoughts as well as her point of view. The Yellow Wallpaper uses the narrator’s journal as a way to seeing into her mind and giving another perspective to the tale. Although not being permitted by her husband and his sister, “[Jane] did write for a while in spite of them” (2). The journal is very important to the story because without it, it would not be possible to know what she’s thinking and the story wouldn’t make much sense. With the journal, Jane’s thoughts are revealed and her actions are justified. The journal is also important due to it being her first sign of rebellious behavior. It is the flame that lights the fire of her discovering what she really wants. The journal to Jane is a method of self-expression that helps her cope with all the difficulties of being left alone in creepy nursery. The story and her behavior escalate after she writes in her journal. She starts to think about what it would be like if she got out of there and even asks John if they could move out. The journal leads her to second guess what she is doing and it is the beginning of her …show more content…
As a result, women were stuck at home, usually alone, until their husbands got home. In the story, Jane is at home staring at the wallpaper in her room. The wallpaper’s color is described by Jane as being “repellent, almost revolting” (3) and the pattern is “torturing” and “like a bad dream” (10). The description of the wallpaper represents Jane’s and all women’s thoughts about the ideologies and rules upheld by men prior to the First World War. It is made evident that this wallpaper represents the screen made up of men’s ideologies at the time caging in women. Jane is subconsciously repelled by this screen and represents her discovering continuously figuring out what she wants. Metaphorically, Jane is trapped in that room by a culture established by men. Furthermore, Jane compares the wallpaper’s pattern to bars putting further emphasis on her feelings of being trapped and helpless. Later in the narrative, she catches Jennie staring at the wallpaper’s pattern and then decides to study the pattern and determine what it means herself. Her study of the pattern is representative of her trying to analyze the situation in which she’s in. By studying the pattern, she progressively discovers herself, especially when she sees the woman behind the
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, is a first-person narrative written in the style of a journal. It takes place during the nineteenth century and depicts the narrator’s time in a temporary home her husband has taken her to in hopes of providing a place to rest and recover from her “nervous depression”. Throughout the story, the narrator’s “nervous condition” worsens. She begins to obsess over the yellow wallpaper in her room to the point of insanity. She imagines a woman trapped within the patterns of the paper and spends her time watching and trying to free her. Gilman uses various literary elements throughout this piece, such as irony and symbolism, to portray it’s central themes of restrictive social norms
Throughout the nineteenth century the roles played in culture and society by men and women started to change. Women began achieving rights that allowed them to further their education and careers outside of the home. Even though these rights began to form, men were still considered superior to women. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” there is a prominent theme of men controlling women. The two most active characters, John and his wife, demonstrate the relationship between a man and a woman in this time period.
The first theme present in the horrific and heart wrenching story is the subordinate position of women within marriage. “The Yellow Wallpaper” begins with the narrator’s wish that her house were haunted like those in which “frightened heroines suffer Gothic horrors” (DeLamotte 5). However, this wish is in essence to empower herself. The narrator is already afraid of her husband and is suffering mentally and emotionally. She desperately wishes for an escape “through fantasy, into a symbolic version of her own plight: a version in which she would have a measure of distance and control” (DeLamotte 6). Throughout the text, Gilman reveals to the reader that during the time in which the story was written, men acquired the working role while women were accustomed to working within the boundaries of their “woman sphere”. This gender division meritoriously kept women in a childlike state of obliviousness and prevented them from reaching any scholastic or professional goals. John, the narrator’s husband, establishes a treatment for his wife through the assumption of his own superior wisdom and maturity. This narrow minded thinking leads him to patronize and control his wife, all in the name of “helping her”. The narrator soon begins to feel suffocated as she is “physically and emotionally trapped by her husband” (Korb). The narrator has zero control in the smallest details of her life and is consequently forced to retreat into her fantasies...
Women were not seen in the past as they are seen now. They were seen as the weaker, less knowledgeable sex. They had to listen to their husbands and they had no say in anything. We are reminded of this when we read “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an activist for women’s rights. With this being said, I believe Gilman’s purpose for writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” was to show the readers women do have rights, this is a changing world, and women don’t have to listen to everything their husband or significant other tells them to do. She does this by the narrator symbolically seeing herself trapped inside the wallpaper and her eventually pulling the wallpaper off the wall and being able to feel free to do whatever she wants. In “Monumental feminism and literature’s ancestral house: Another look at ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’” Janice Haney-Peritz, Department of English (Beaver College), states, “As a memorial, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is used to remind contemporary readers of the enduring import of the feminist struggle against patriarchical domination; while as a boundary marker, it is used to demarcate the territory appropriate to a feminist literary criticism” (114).
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was famous in her time as a women's activist. Later, she began writing fiction. As noted in her Norton Anthology biography, Charlotte's stories often reveal her worldview. The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story written to combat the modus operandi for curing depression in her day. This cure consisted of being completely sequestered from any intellectual or artistic engagements. Her addendum to the story also makes clear she experienced this same treatment. Gilman's catalyst was to write a story that would serve as a social corrective. What we are left with today is a masterpiece of psychological suspense.
Her story focused on a woman named Jane who couldn’t make their own decisions and the males overlooked them. “The Yellow Wallpaper” was a story about a lady who was forced to live by other decisions and rule of her husband. “My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing.” (376) Jane’s husband and her brother never took her ideas very seriously, and laughed on her feelings and ideas. She always felt suffocated in a room with yellow wallpapers because no one appreciated her ideas, which forced her to become, useless and imprisoned in her own home. When Jane requested her husband to change the wallpaper of the room, he rejected her ideas and wished to keep her imprisoned in the room with small windows. The condition of Jane in the story represents the current situation of women in society, they have rights but they are not being listened to. In (DATE) Heather Savigny wrote “Feminisms In News”, the article presented similar ideas as in Gilman’s story. “As with other political movements, it has its detractors, and feminism is often blamed for much that is wrong with our society.” (Heather Savigny) Among all other things, feminism is also important in society but women get blamed for everything wrong. Now-a-days women take same jobs as men, but they don’t get the respect they deserve. The article presented a very clear idea of how women don’t get compensated in the society although they challenge themselves to take same level jobs that men do in the society. Nowadays women are becoming more independent; they have the potential to manage their families by themselves. This proves that women are growing in the society and have a surpassing future. In (Date) Philips Frisk wrote, “The narrative voice tells us that she has a big nose and fat legs, something she is cruelly reminded of by her peers at the onset of puberty.” (Philips Frisk) Just like the small girl in
"There comes John, and I must put this away- he hates to have me write a word" (p659). As evident by the above quote, Gilman places the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" as secluded as she could be; she is placed in a large house, surrounded only by her husband and by little help (Jennie), when it is unfortunately clear that her relationship with her husband is based on distance and misunderstanding: "It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so"(p 663). Gilman further confines her narrator as it becomes clear that the poor soul has absolutely no one to talk to; that is, no one who can understand her. The narrator is cornered by her loved ones, she is isolated from the world under her husband-doctor orders, she is thus physically confined to her shaky mental realm.
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.
During the time period in which Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper”, discrimination towards women was widely evident throughout most of the world. It was especially obvious in nineteenth-century America due to historical evidence not relevant to this topic, but this was the time period that Gilman grew up in; therefore, it is easy to see why a female writer would chose to write about such a thing. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a three month tale about a woman who is suffering from some form of postpartum depression that reveals insight into gender subordination by the usage of symbolism, tone, and imagery, showing how the conventional nineteenth-century marriage ensured that women remain second-class citizens.
Throughout history women were forced into the roles of a housewife, nanny, etc. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman displays what it was like for women before they were as equal as men. The main character in this story begins to lose her mind as her husband and people around her trap her in her mind. The author utilizes symbolism to express the main character’s true feelings about herself and her role as a women.
The ideas expressed by Gilman are femininity, socialization, individuality and freedom in the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Gilman uses these ideas to help readers understand what women lost during the 1900’s. She also let her readers understand how her character Jane escaped the wrath of her husband. She uses her own mind over the matter. She expresses these ideas in the form of the character Jane. Gilman uses an assortment of ways to convey how women and men of the 1900’s have rules pertaining to their marriages. Women are the homemakers while the husbands are the breadwinners. Men treated women as objects, as a result not giving them their own sound mind.
The “Yellow Wall-Paper” is a reflection of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s personal situations, regarding the protection of the rights of woman. She provides a critique on traditional feminine roles, and women’s desperation to get out of them. In the short story, the author depicts the idea that women conforming to the norms of society can be driven to destruction. Her criticism of gender conflicts is portrayed through the journal entries of the narrator. In order to illustrate her feminist concerns about gender equality, Gilman employs the characters of John, Jennie, and the narrator.
Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells her readers the story of a woman desperate to be free. Gilman’s use of symbolism is nothing short of brilliant in telling the story of a new mother suffering from postpartum depression and fighting her way through societies ideas of what a woman should be. When her husband, John, also known as her physician, tells her nothing is wrong with her mind, at first she believes him because she knows that society tells her she should. However, with her husband’s misdiagnosis, or attempt to keep his wife sane for the sake of their reputation, comes a short journey into madness for his wife, Jane. Jane’s downward spiral, as one may call it, turns out to be not so downward when the reader
“The Yellow Wallpaper” contain 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 author’s time, woman 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 not apart of the workforce, could not vote, or have a say 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.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins-Gilman explores the oppression of women in the nineteenth century and the constant limitation of their freedom, which many times led to their confinement. The short story illustrates male superiority and the restriction of a woman’s choice regarding her own life. The author’s diction created a horrific and creepy tone to illustrate the supernatural elements that serve as metaphors to disguise the true meaning of the story. Through the use of imagery, the reader can see that the narrator is living within a social class, so even though the author is trying to create a universal voice for all women that have been similar situations, it is not possible. This is not possible because there are many