...article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ped/summary/v004/4.2murphy.html Access provided by SULTAN QABOOS UNIVERSITY (29 Dec 2014 03:14 GMT) The Pedagogical Possibilities of Covering Gilman’s Wallpaper Karla J. Murphy In his introduction to The Pedagogical Wallpaper, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock notes how the pedagogical diversity of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” prompted him to collect essays for this book. He goes on to explain that “given the ubiquity of the text within various academic settings, I was also struck by the absence of attention to the text within pedagogical contexts. Despite the large (and steadily growing) body of criticism to the story, very little of it explicitly addresses its importance as a tool to facilitate learning or various ways in which to make use of the text in the classroom” (3). As a collection, Weinstock’s The Pedagogical Wallpaper contains informed, detailed, and diverse analysis that attempts to shore up the absence of “pedagogical possibilities” concerning Gilman’s transgressive short story (9). Among the contributors are a MOO space specialist, a Gilman scholar, a queer theorist, an existentialist, a formalist, and several reader/student-response theorists. Because each essayist presents a distinct critical perspective on Gilman’s text, each essay is likewise concerned with “how the narrative teaches and how to teach the narrative” (5). Thus, it seems to me that Weinstock’s The Pedagogical Wallpaper resonates with...
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...Contradictions: Through the scope of formalist criticism, it is apparent that the setting in James Joyce’s Araby and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper affects the main character’s mental and physical state” “Araby” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” are both remarkable short stories, but the thoughts conceived after reading it are everything but short. Araby, written by, James Joyce is about a young character that lives in a neighborhood that appears to be dark and gloomy based solely on the author’s description of the houses and such. “An uninhabited house of two storeys at the blind end…” suggests that this neighborhood isn’t in paramount condition. On the other hand, the author makes several references to religious faith. For example, the Christian Brothers’ School, where the young character attends, or the Priest who has died prior to this story taking place, evokes this idea of purity. It is quite contrary that in a short story where the author paints a vivid image of gloom and despair, there are religious references that cause readers into a world of contradiction. In the same way Charlotte Gilman Perkins, author of The Yellow Wallpaper seeks to evoke a message of individual expression and successfully does so by recording the progression of the illness, through the state of the “yellow” wallpaper. Apparently, the bulk of the setting of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is in a room that the unnamed narrator has been forced to stay in by her husband, John, so that she...
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...Name: Course: College: Lecturer: Date: The Yellow Wallpaper Paper: A Story Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in 1860 and was a prominent American social reform lecturer and writer of short stories, novels and poetry. She was an ideal feminist in a time when her achievements were exceptional for women. For this reason, she acted as a role model for future generations of feminists owing to her nonconformist concepts and lifestyle. This means she was an activist for women’s rights. She is today remembered for her semi-nonfictional short story, The Yellow Wall Paper, which she wrote after a difficult period of post-partum depression. She wrote the book in early 19th century when feminism was rather revolutionary. The book is a true impression of a strong woman reacting to adversity. The Yellow Wall Paper is a short story that describes the suffering of a woman confined to her home after subjection to post-partum depression. She appears as a woman who is totally submissive to her husband. While suffering from acute depression, she has to spend her days restricted to her house. However, there is a frightful wall paper in her bedroom that she keeps staring at day in day out. This yellow paper drives her totally insane, and she eventually tears it down. She feels alone in her little world. Unfortunately, her husband does not give her any support despite her sickness and does not want her to write. She also cannot visit or interact with family and friends and is confined...
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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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...When Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” was first published in January of 1892 in the New England Magazine, it was considered a dark chronicle that was protested by a Boston physician (name unknown) in “The Evening Transcript”, a popular newspaper in Boston between 1830 and 1941. This doctor wrote; “such a story ought not to be written, he said; it was enough to drive anyone mad to read it.” It wasn’t until later that the story was realized for the depiction of societal values in an age when women were making their mark in society, both intellectually and politically. The character Gilman portrays is caught between her own artistic expression and that of expected wifehood and motherhood being regarded as the sole role of women. The time was ripe for such a story with women making their way towards equality and the Suffrage Movement. Here was a woman propelled into a stereotypical role of the time who could not conform to the servile and ancillary qualities of how a marriage was supposed to be. A woman listened to her husband, held her hanky properly and carried a tussie-mussie. The convergence of Gillman’s character as being sequestered by her physician husband as a cure for her illness in a room with yellow wallpaper lays the foundation for what becomes an obsession with the Yellow Wallpaper. It is often said that artists and writers are touched by unusual qualities of the mind, perhaps even a bit of madness. The wallpaper in the story is representative of a...
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...Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and its contemporary criticism Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” in a time when it was customary to consider women as the weaker sex, and in need of constant care and protection. There has been an overwhelming amount of literary criticism throughout the following century, with the purpose of establishing Gilman’s message. Most critics seem to agree that it is a strongly feminist text, targeting the patriarchal society of the late 19th century. Elaine Hedges sums up the most common readings of “The Yellow Wallpaper” in her essay. She herself then argues that the text’s essentially feminist point is emphasized by the fact that the narrator is destroyed by society, where she can never get free. Initially, she debates between two possibilities of what happens to the narrator in the end: she is either liberated in her madness or is defeated by it. Then she proceeds to consider the implications of the wallpaper itself. According to critics referred to by Hedges, the entangled pattern of the wallpaper itself represents a crucial text and it has been argued that this text is not written by the narrator. Instead, it is the text of social conventions and rules presented to her by her husband, and through him by the male-dominated society, where she is not allowed to write her own story. This is one of the reasons why her text then becomes “hopelessly encrypted in fantasy” (Hedges 225). Other interpretations connect the...
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...Gender roles have always existed, but Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper” shows how these gender roles had extreme consequences for women in the 1900’s. “The Yellow Wallpaper” addresses several topics in De Beauvoir and Gilbert and Gubar’s texts by illustrating the passivity forced onto women, the aura of mystery that subsequently surrounds the feminine, and the mental illness that inevitably follows. Gilman’s text is a tale that warns of the dangers of forcing inactivity onto women. The narrator’s husband, a physician named John, diagnoses her with a “temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 648). He prescribes for her uninterrupted isolation: a “rest cure.” This was a common treatment for hysteria...
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...Cameron Davidson Professor Dennis LAL 250 04 18 Sept. 2015 Writing Assignment: Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper In the short story The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman gives us readers a tale that leaves us confused. Jane, the story's main character has just had a child and is told by her husband John to rest, to not do anything. John's sister Jennie is there as their housekeeper, and the wallpaper, which seems to be very old, seems to be emitting something that perplexes not only the characters, but us as well. First, Jane discovers the smell of the wallpaper itself. Giving it personificational qualities, that is, like giving a tree a set of legs and telling it to walk to you. The problem is, we as readers...
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...Alex Moraga Professor Dreiling English 102 21, June 2014 Opinion Essay Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “ The Yellow Wallpaper” A Woman’s Journey from Subservience to Freedom Are male and female minds created equal? Charlotte Perkins Gilman shows us the ideals towards women, held by society in the late 1800’s. Her story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written in the first person point of view, takes us on a journey through the mind of the narrator. The narrator secretly writes in a diary and as we read through her diary entries, we are able to see that during this time in history, women were seen as weak, meek and humble. They were expected to be subservient to men and unequal to their male counterparts in all aspects. Men are seen as being superior to women and godlike. As we read the diary we are looking into her mind, we see how she thinks and how she is expected to think. We meet her as a subservient woman who obeys and believes in her husband. By the end of the journey she has freed herself mentally and shows us that men can be weak. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, is a story of a woman’s mental journey to freedom. From the very beginning of the story the narrator gives us insight into her mind. In today’s times we would view her ability to wonder and question as creative. During these times, her inquisitive mind was seen as an illness. The narrator and her husband are off to a summer getaway. The summer getaway was really a “cure” prescribed...
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...Feminist allegory: “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was published for the first time in 1892 and it is oftentimes referred as being a feminist, psychological or even a gothic story. From a feminist point of view, or women's liberation movement this story is taking into account the supposition that woman should have the same human, social and political rights as men, moreover, that they ought to have the same opportunities as men, and make their own decisions with respect to vocations, and legislative issues. In this story Gilman portrays a woman’s personal conflict with her unjust conditions. In the first place a feminist story is written by a woman, and it reveals...
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...throughout the stories. The character's feelings are shown within their minds, it shows how they are changing throughout the story. In “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Stetson, the main characters’ words and actions help the reader understand the plot and theme clearly. The main character of this story has a journal in which she records how she is feeling during her “sickness.”One can conclude from her journal especially as one reads further and further into the story, that she is going out of her mind, from this yellow wallpaper.In the story it states,“The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight... I’m really getting fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper”(649). The main character is giving us insight to the fact that she is becoming angry with this yellow wallpaper that is haunting her in her room. It gets to point where she starts seeing shadows and figures in the wallpaper staring at her through the night. Another example from the story, “ I tried to lift and push it until I was lame and then I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner but it hurt my teeth. Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor”(655). Our character is growing so angry with this wallpaper, that she is starting to peel it off of the walls of the room. She has even thought of jumping out of the window to get away from...
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...“THE YELLOW WALLPAPER” BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN Introduction In the late nineteenth century, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1973) wrote “The Yellow Wall Paper”. This story can make a readers' mind think just by the way this story presents the main character of a woman and her ordeals as she lived a secluded life, as well as how her relationship with the man in her life is dealt. Some readers might think she is crazy and some may think she is depressed. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's, "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the story of a woman's descent into madness as the result of being isolated as a form of "treatment" when suffering from post-partum depression. The author, who is believed to be narrator as well, talks about her personal travel in to the world where an illness has brought her. All her thought and feelings are written in a journal and as she goes down in to the world that she has created in the confines of the room where she was kept. The story line presents that the narrator's mental condition is getting worse, leading to psychosis. Gilman explains the complexities of woman nature as she uses symbolisms to define the psychological realms of the plot. “The Yellow Wallpaper” The unnamed woman in this story (believed to be the author herself) fantasies about the yellow wallpaper are driving her mad. The protagonist experienced hallucinations and persistent thoughts over things. Crawling women, colorful artwork and a moving pattern depict the narrator's increased anxiety...
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...February 18, 2013 English - 205 Baby Blues Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “ The Yellow Wallpaper ”is a tragic story of a women in the 1890’s, whose oppressive treatment by her physian husband for her postpartum depression, causes her to spiral into madness. The setting is the narrator’s constant companion as she suffers through her rest therapy, which was the popular treatment at that time for women given to fits of “hysteria”(Gilman, [2006] p.487-491 ). The author focuses on the setting to get the reader’s attention, and to pull them into a world that the narrator has created to ensure her survival. The narrator has only her imagination while she suffers through her imprisonment alone. Away from her home, family, and friends in an isolated country house, she is forced to endure her quiet time in an aged nursery room. A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, and a haunted house are a few of Gilman‘s descriptions used to to pique your curiosity. Subtle hints throughout the story make you wonder if this deserted rundown place was at one time some type of sanitarium, for instance; the barred windows, rings on the walls, gate at the head of the stairs, or the bed frame nailed to the floor. Yet as she notices these strange things, her denial quickly explains them away (p. 487-489) . This forced treatment of solitude seems only to contribute to her mental illness, which sends her into a severe depression. Trapped without any form of stimulation...
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...Philipps-Universität Marburg FB 10: Fremdsprachliche Philologien Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik Class: Academic Writing | Instructor: Dr. Johanna Heil The House in “The Yellow Wallpaper” Ambivalence or Brilliance? Name: Anas Asmaeil Module: Literary Studies: History Semesters Studied: 1 Address: Adam-Krafft.7, 35039, Marburg Email: Shoqarqwa@hotmail.com Date of Submission: February 29, 2016 Student ID: 2739275 Table of Contents: 1. Introduction 1 2. [Main Part I] 2.1 Gothic Element 2.2 Feminism 3. Conclusion 1 [Bibliography] 1. Introduction: “All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.” By Georg Eliot It goes without saying that the more one ponders upon the masterpiece written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the more compelled one finds themselves to, not only reverence what she brought forth, but to also acclaim the diverse interpretations one can come up with of a text written well over a century ago. The story talks about a woman who is diagnosed with "temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency" (Gilman 1) and thus is sentenced by her physician to a rest cure. Following her husband’s and doctor’s orders, her suffering grows worse and worse and signs of depression, anxiety and dissociation manifest, quite the opposite of what was supposed to happen. Having the ability to scare and horrify the reader, this unique story had been considered as a classic...
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...Charlotte Perkins Gilman Stetson is a woman who grew up in the 19th century where women only lived in a domestic sphere. She was married to Walter Stetson for about two years before they separated due to Charlotte’s illness. After giving birth to her daughter Katharine Stetson “Began to experience increasing, melancholy, depression and fatigue” (O’Brien 2). Her doctors treated her by using isolation and they wouldn’t let her write. Her illness and her journey to being well is what gave her inspiration to write her story “The Yellow Wall-Paper”. Gilman’s uses diction, symbolism, and Irony in her short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” to portray how women were treated in the 19th century. Gilman uses diction to describe how the room she has been isolated in. She uses words like unclean, sickly, and atrocious to describe how the wallpaper looks. These words also describe how her isolation makes her feel. “I should hate it myself if I had to live here long” (Stetson 3). John treats her as if she’s not sick, just that she has “hysterical tendency” (Steston 2). In the 19th century is was common for men to look over their wives because men were the dominate spouse. So, for john to be her husband...
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