...Dementia is an illness that affects the brain and memory and makes you gradually lose your intellectual capacity to behave properly. On the surface of “The Yellow Wallpaper” we see a woman driven insane by depression. However, an examination of the protagonist’s actions reveals that the story is in fact way deeper that what it seems. The woman goes through various scenarios at her stay in the house: the relationship between her and her husband, and the relations between the yellow wallpaper and her inner self. Since the story is told by the narrator, the point of view is also made by the same. The first scenario is one of a very delicate touch, since it is still seen in the present time, though lesser than at the time the story was written. When the narrator’s husband says “bless her little heart; she shall be as sick as she pleases” (Gilman) it’s clear the childlike treatment given to her. The fact that he says “she shall be as sick as she pleases” follow the way a kid would be treated when injured, as of a way to escape from chores. Besides all of this, there’s also the gender subordination. It’s clear that the husband, a well-known doctor, is in power in the relationship and would always have the right decisions. Throughout the story we see the repetition various quotes where the beginning would be “He said”. Once again it is notable the power the husband has over the wife, everything he says is seen as a law in the household they share. Once the wife started stating how...
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...Yellow analysis and interpretation A short story by Peter Carty In a contrast to nature mankind has always seemed small. Nature with its dark rivers, gigantic mountains, forests filled with danger and endless oceans. Nature can swallow you in one breath if you let it and can through your life make you scared and make you feel not noticeable and hopeless. Suicide is normally caused by problems like these that a person cannot seem to overcome and either way it’s a desperate act. In the novel Yellow written in 1999 by Peter Carty, a man named Jon is sent to Egypt to write an article about scuba diving. An Italian man named Berto is to teach him on a team containing Jon and another student, Brian. Through the considerations and reflections of this protagonist, Jon, the reader gains information about his fears, problems and inner conflicts, which end up causing his suicide. In this analysis of the story I will focus on characterization of the protagonist, Jon, narrative technique, language, the significance of the setting, symbols and at the ending and at last I will elaborate on themes, draw perspectives to other texts and finally make a conclusion. Through the analysis I’ll focus, among other things, on the question: can nature be tamed, owned and transferred into something that is subject to mankind? The story starts out with no introduction, in other words: in medias res. The reader is thrown directly into the story and that emphasizes that nothing is given to the reader...
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...The Yellow Wallpaper: A Woman's Struggle Pregnancy and childbirth are very emotional times in a woman's life and many women suffer from the "baby blues." The innocent nickname for postpartum depression is deceptive because it down plays the severity of this condition. Although she was not formally diagnosed with postpartum depression, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) developed a severe depression after the birth of her only child (Kennedy et. al. 424). Unfortunately, she was treated by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, who forbade her to write and prescribed only bed rest and quiet for recovery (Kennedy et al. 424). Her condition only worsened and ultimately resulted in divorce (Kennedy and Gioia 424). Gilman's literary indictment of Dr. Mitchell's ineffective treatment came to life in the story "The Yellow Wallpaper." On the surface, this gothic tale seems only to relate one woman's struggle with mental illness, but because Guilman was a prominent feminist and social thinker she incorporated themes of women's rights and the poor relationships between husbands and wives (Kennedy and Gioia 424). Guilman cleverly manipulates the setting to support her themes and set the eerie mood. Upon first reading "The Yellow Wallpaper," the reader may see the relationship between the narrator and her husband John as caring, but with examination one will find that the narrator is repeatedly belittled and demeaned by her husband. On first arriving at the vacation home John chooses...
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...Yaqi Wan Instructor: Joshua Weathersby EN 210 September 20, 2015 Feminist For the first paper, I want to talk about a fiction called “The Yellow Wall-paper” which made a profound impression on me. This short novel is written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman who is a well-known American novelist and wrote so many works about feminist. She also made a huge contribution of feminist movement from 19 to 20 century. If we want to know well about a fiction, the first thing we need to do is to understand the experience or background of the author. According to the introduction of Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the book “The Norton Anthology American Literature”, she was born in Hartford, Connecticut and had an unfortunate childhood. When she was young, her father divorced with her mother. Then, she lived a hard life with her father. Maybe because of this reason, she showed a high degree of autonomy and independence in her young age. Gilman got married in 1884, and had a daughter. However, her marriage is not so lasting and it ended in 1888 (484). Housework always troubled her and made her almost breakdown. As for this fiction which called “The Yellow Wall-paper”, it was published in 1892 and this novel was written based on Gilman’s life experience. At the beginning, the heroine was send to a villa which was in a remote suburban for recuperating by her husband, because she suffered from mild postpartum depression. She was forced to accept medical treatment in this villa, and lived like...
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...Kimberly Powers Analysis and Theory on “The Yellow Wallpaper” March 25, 2014 Professor Langston The Yellow Wallpaper was published in 1892 by Charlotte Perkins is a short story of one woman’s decline into madness. It can also be viewed as an accusation of shrewdness over creativity or the horrifying inequality in marriage back in the 1890’s, it depicts that back in the 1890’s the societal pressures were placed on women. Charlotte writes this short story so that the reader can see the dangers of rest as a form of cure. She is trying to prove that the method does damage to a person. A woman suffering from post-partum depression is driven mad by her over baring husband who allows her to do nothing more than to merrily exist. Her husband treats her like a child and confines her to a house in the country. Her husband doesn’t think there is anything wrong with her and that it’s all in her mind, she tries to write but it exhausts her to hide it from everyone, she is forbidden to “work”.( pg 1 The Yellow Wallpaper) Her husband is a physician and leaves her alone so often to “work difficult cases in town”. They chose a bedroom that is at the top of the stairs and takes up most of the floor and the wallpaper that was hideous. She keeps starring at it day in and day out until it looks as if there is someone was moving behind it, the wallpaper drives her insane and she finally tears it down. Unfortunately her husband does not give her any support. Also she isn’t allowed to go visit...
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...The Baby Yellows “The Yellow Wallpaper”, a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is an unnerving tale about a woman and her spiral into psychosis. Mirroring the author’s actual experiences with depression and the “resting cure”, the story criticizes medical care that ignores patient concerns and deprives them of emotional outlets that could have been beneficiary towards a healthy mind. Set in the late nineteenth century, “The Yellow Wallpaper” illustrates the psychological effects of the popular “resting cure” and how the narrator is influcenced by it. While the illness the narrator has is never actually said, it is very heavily implied that she is suffering from postpartum depression. Eventually, her husband’s reliance on the “resting cure” and denying her healthy mental activities is what causes her depression to grow into postpartum psychosis. Postpartum depression is a form of depression typically affecting women after childbirth. Symptoms of postpartum depression include hallucinations and delusions, extreme agitation or anxiety, overwhelming fatigue, bizarre behavior, mood swings, inability or refusal to eat or sleep, and over worrying about the infant. The narrator showcases all of these symptoms, leading to the heavy assumption that she is suffering from postpartum depression. The narrator regularly experiences hallucinations, seeing a woman trapped behind bars in the pattern of the wallpaper. Gilman writes, “The front pattern does move- and no wonder! The woman...
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...Yellow Journalism Yellow journalism is a type of writing that exaggerates or can be biased to one particular opinion or belief that is said to be written as the truth. When writing yellow you take factual information and changing facts to keep readers interested. Yellow journalism could also be used to establish fear, concern and even in certain cases sympathy to readers to keep them enriched in the article. Where did Yellow Journalism come from? William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer are considered to be the father of Yellow Journalism. Yellow journalism was born during the industrial revolution period, which was famous for the invention of the printing press, which aloud for mass production of mass media. During the late 1890’s Joseph Pulitzer owned New York’s most popular news paper, the New York World. Soon after Pulitzer’s paper became number one, William Randolph created his own paper, New York World, which became his largest competitor. So where did the term Yellow Journalism come from, it originated between two rival paper companies in the early 1900’s, over a comic strip called the “Yellow Man “ . Really the whole competition started because of the ink they used for printing the comic and because Hearst stole Pulitzer’s cartoonist. So after Pulitzer lost his cartoonist he was forced to hire another one and duplicate his original design which caused the conflict. Michael Jackson’s overdosed in May of 2009 caused quite a fuss when they suspected his personal...
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...The Yellow Wallpaper The narrator starts off the story by talking about a large old house. She and her husband John are on a summer vacation for three months at this house. The house is a large estate that has been empty for many years, she describes it as haunted. She goes on and says she is sick with temporary nervous depression, one of the reasons they are staying at this house is to help her feel better by getting her fresh air. The house is standing alone far back from the road and three miles from the village. There are gardens, small houses for grounds keepers, and old greenhouses surrounding the house they are staying in. The narrator’s treatment requires her not to do any physical activity including writing. The narrator feels that activity, freedom, and writing would help her condition and says that she has been writing her secret journal in order to relieve her mind. She continues to describe the house, but more specifically the room she is staying in. There are bars over the windows, “rings and things” on the walls, an old mattress that has been through the wars, and a horrid yellow wall paper that has been ripped in spots. Her husband John is very controlling of the narrator and what she does because of her illness. He is a doctor and is limiting things that his wife wants to do. The narrator likes using her imagination but her husband discourages it. She continues describing the bedroom; she thinks it was a nursery for young children. She describes...
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...The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, highlights the repressed position of most married women during the 19th century. The narrator struggles both at the hands of her family members and internally. Her husband John, a physician, makes an effort to alleviate his wife’s mental state by moving their family into an old style home located in a remote area and isolating her as much as possible. He determines that it is unhealthy for her to entertain, interact with their baby, even to write which she seems to enjoy a great deal. When approaching “The Yellow Wallpaper” one has to keep in mind the importance of the title itself. John decides on their bedroom in the new home and it is covered in yellow wallpaper that the narrator takes great issue with. Using reader response, it is evident that Gilman uses imagery and symbolism to merge the protagonist’s life with that of the “woman” behind the yellow wallpaper. Before an analysis is presented the reader must first understand the marital expectations and male to female dynamic during the time period to which Gilman is writing. Married women faced oppression at the hands of society as well as their husbands. The 1800’s were a time when the wife was to be seen and not heard. It was a general societal expectation that wives if financially secure could have no real issues of their own. This was also because they were not expected to think on their own. They were expected to only reflect the...
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...Charlotte Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a feminist’s tale of a woman who is spoken to like a child, ignored like a piece of furniture, and treated medically in a way that is horrible to most sensibilities. The horror she tolerates starring at the dreadful wallpaper day after day is really just a side effect of her abuse, and her frustrating lack of fulfillment, which was forbidden by a fool-hardy psychologist and enforced by the patriarchy of her husband. The short story was published in a New England magazine in 1892 and was received with mixed reviews. “Such a story ought not to be written” said one Boston physician. “Another physician, in Kansas, I think, wrote to say that it was the best description of incipient insanity he had ever seen” Crazy, or not, Gilman’s work was quickly recognized for its feminist message. “Gilman's story quickly evolved from a relatively obscure and subversive magazine piece of the late nineteenth century to a formative feminist classic” (St. Jean, 2002,). There are several examples of Gilman being spoken to by her husband the way a parent would speak to an anxious four year-old. “What is it little girl?” he said, “Don’t go walking about like that – you’ll get cold” (Gilman, in Kirszner, 2010, p. 465). “Bless her little heart!” said he with a big hug, “she shall be as sick as she pleases…[go] to sleep, and talk about it in the morning” (p. 466). Thrailkill confirms that The Yellow Wallpaper is indeed a feminist manifesto...
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...Justin Weber Professor Stover English 1302 Paper A/ 3:00 05/03/2014 “The Yellow Wall-Paper” “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story about a woman who moves to a house with her physician husband, John, who orders her to rest to help with her “nervousness.” After a while of being alone, she begins to see a woman coming out of the mysterious wallpaper and becomes obsessive. Near the end of their rental, she locks herself in the room to pull down the wallpaper and free the woman trapped inside. As John arrives and unlocks the door, he faints upon seeing his wife. The story concludes with the woman circling the room, stepping over her husband. The central idea is to show how when one is oppressed and denied the opportunity to be free, it can often have dangerous side effects. "The Story of an Hour" "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin is the story of Mrs. Louise Mallard, a woman with a heart condition, whose sister has arrived at her house to inform her of the death of her husband, Brently. Mrs. Mallard immediately bursts into tears crying into her sister's arms before retreating by herself to a vacant room. Once inside the room, Mrs. Mallard becomes overwhelmed with joy at the thought of the freedom she will now have. As Mrs. Mallard leaves the room, the front door is opened and Mr. Mallard unexpectedly walks in, unaware that he was thought to be dead. Mrs. Mallard, at the sight of her husband, is overcome by her heart condition and dies...
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...The Yellow Wallpaper The Yellow Wallpaper Determining Abnormality In The Yellow Wallpaper the woman in question is clearly suffering. She does not get to see her own child, she cries easily, and gets little to no sleep at night because of the wallpaper in the room. “…and I did not make a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished.” (Gilman) This fulfills one of the seven criteria for determining abnormality. The second criteria is Maladaptiveness which is fulfilled throughout the story as she starts to withdraw from her husband and his sister, keeping secrets from them as well as, toward the end of the story, being suspicious of them. “…but it exhausts me a good deal – having to be sly about it,” (Gilman) In the end the woman in the story believes that she ‘escaped’ from the wallpaper this fulfills the third criteria Statistical Deviance. “’I’ve got out at last,’ said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!’”(Gilman) The fourth criteria, Violations of the Standards of Society, is fulfilled when she tears down the wallpaper although this in and of itself isn’t all that abnormal her reasoning was. “’I’ve got out at last,’ said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!’”(Gilman) Another way she fulfills this is when she crawls around on the floor at the end of the story which causes her husband to faint. “I kept on creeping just the same,”...
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...Insane of Them All? Has darkness ever covered everything in your room before? How difficult was it to find the path to the door with just a sliver of light coming from underneath the door? Being completely engulfed by darkness can have a negative effect on some individuals after a period of time. As a result of this darkness, the feeling of helplessness begins to be released from one’s body in the shape of a noose as it slowly smothers its prey. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, author of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is known for her feminist approach in her writings. In the story, husband and physician, John, questions the nameless narrator’s mental state, for he takes her to an isolated house and has prescribed his wife to several months of “the rest cure”. Being kept away from society with only her thoughts and the room she lays in day after day, the narrator slowly begins to question herself and tries to discover her identity within the wallpaper. Gilman uses setting, symbolism, and irony in “The Yellow Wallpaper” to illustrate that the lack of autonomy can negatively affect a person’s mental instability. Because the story takes place in a feminist era, Gilman shows how the husband has complete dominance within the setting of the story. In the beginning, the narrator, whose name is never stated, is brought to a house on the countryside by her husband, John, who happens to be her physician as well. The narrator expresses in her journal, “[The house] is quite alone, standing well back...
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...The Yellow Wallpaper The attitudes towards women’s mental and physical health in the 19thcentury vary greatly from today’s views on practicing medicine. During that time, there was prevalence for the oppression of women and the general treatment for mental illness was a popular method known as resting cures. The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, serves as a critique of this popular treatment as it is an account of an unnamed narrator who descends into madness when receiving this type of treatment for her illness. The author, Charlotte Gilman addresses themes of madness and insanity through the narrator’s collection of journal entries, which comprise the story. In the beginning of the story, the narrator is confined to bed rest in a rented house with her physician husband, John, who believes that total rest is in her best interest for her condition. Gilman’s disapproving views over rest cures and doctor/patient relationships are initially revealed through the narrator’s description of her husband. The narrator describes him as a man who “scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figure”(355) and refuses to see his wife’s illness as a true condition. Through the narrator’s description, Gilman begins to point out the flaws in medicine’s understanding of mental illness and its shortcomings in treatment. The narrator writes in her journal as a way of escape from the monotony and solidarity of her treatment. While she loves and trusts her husband...
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...The Yellow Wallpaper The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, tells the story of a woman's descent into complete madness as a result of the rest and cure treatment. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the author presents a tragic story of a woman that suffers from what we can now have medically diagnosed as postpartum depression after the birth of her child and how she tries to regain her sanity from her husband John who truly had good intentions to make her well but instead it that eventually drives her to suicide. Gilman's personal story is a resemblance to that of the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” with the exception that she did heal herself by not buying into Mr. Mitchell's rest cure treatment, which he later altered his methods only after reading this story. Perhaps the suicide ending in this story would have been an alternate ending for Gilman if she had followed the rest cure treatment. Perhaps in her struggle to free the woman behind the wallpaper, the woman in the story frees herself from her husband's demands and isolated treatment that drove her over the edge. The character in this story suffers from what her husband can only describe as a “temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 70) and has been “forbidden to work” (Gilman 71). In attempt to resolve and cure this “temporary nervous depression,” her husband takes her to a secluded colonial mansion, a hereditary estate that has been empty for year however...
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