...Rachael Paige 6/14/15 Introduction to Literature Writing Assignment 1 “The Yellow Wallpaper” Analysis After reading the short story again, my views of “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman have stayed mostly consistent with a few deviations from my original reaction. I’ve read the story with a more focused desire on understanding it much more in depth than the first time. I tried to pick up on some more literary details like the tools Gilman uses to tell the story; theme, irony and the symbolism. I’ve also looked into the character John, the narrator’s husband, once more to better understand him. “The Yellow Wallpaper” was a short story that showcased the troubles of women in marriage, the evils of depression, and the importance of independence. The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses theme and symbolism in great volumes to portray her ideas. First, to break down the meaning of the title and essentially the room the narrator is “caged” into, the author uses great symbolism and imagery. The yellow of the wallpaper is very dingy and gross, the color yellow even symbolizes decay, rotting, violence, and approach of death. Choosing this color not only characterizes the way the wallpaper already appears, but foreshadows the way the narrator feels by the end of the story. The walls of the room are barriers both physically and emotionally for the narrator; walls are typically symbols of barriers between people or barriers that shut out the world. Together...
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...The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells the story about a woman named Jane, who writes in her journal about a summer home her and her husband will be staying at. Her husband John, who is a physician assures others that she only has temporary nervous depression. Because of her illness she is not supposed to do anything active, including writing. She feels that writing and having freedom can help her get better, so she begins to write in a secret journal. Particularly when she writes in her journal she describes a disgusting yellow wallpaper she sees in her room. She becomes fixated on the wallpaper and instead of hating it, grows fonder of it. She becomes more and more obsessed with it that she starts to see a woman trying to escape. As the summer goes on she continues to write about the yellow wallpaper, and the woman trying to escape from the paper. She has completely gone insane when her husband breaks down the door and faints at the site of her creeping around, and peeling off all the wallpaper. The theme behind this story is that lack freedom can lead to insanity. Throughout Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the elements of fiction conflicts, symbolism, and characters all represent the theme, that lack of freedom can lead one to insanity. The first element of fiction that connects with the theme that lack of freedom can lead to one’s insanity is the conflicts Jane faces throughout the story. The first main conflict...
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...Michelle Feldner English 1302 March 28, 2013 Literary Analysis Essay At first glance, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story can be confusing to read. You may think you are reading about a woman who is losing her mind, or as the narrators husband says “there is nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression”(9), but in all actuality it’s about a woman who is suffering from post partum depression. Even though the plot of this story is based around her illness, there is another objective to the story, to deliver a completely unrelated message. Gilman seeks instead to evoke a message of individual expression and successfully does so by recording the progression of the illness, through the state of the wallpaper. In the story it’s apparent that the women allows herself to be inferior to men, particularly her husband, John. John is a physician and he orders her to not do anything, simply to rest. “Personally I disagree with their ideas,” she writes. ”Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do?”(12-14) This statement shows her lack of self-confidence and feeling of inferiority. She is very accepting that her thoughts and opinions do not count. She belittles herself throughout the story several more times. Many people, in our society today, go through not being able to speak up for themselves with doctors. Although one knows what makes themselves feel better, but they...
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...As Gilman loses touch with herself and the outer world, she starts to realize her reality of her life. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a women suffers from postpartum depression and is prescribe the resting cure. As she is doing what her husband, an outstanding doctor, has told her to do, she becomes increasingly depressed and soon this results in her losing her insanity. As she losses her way of expressing herself and is doing what the doctor says, she is expected to conform to the doctor and the world around her. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Gilman she illustrates women’s struggles through this story by using symbolism, theme, and irony. The wallpaper is a symbol used throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The author states, “The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight” (649). The way this is worded can...
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...Homework # 2: “The Chrysanthemums” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” In what ways does each character experience a miscommunication or a misunderstanding? There was miscommunication between Elisa and her husband,Henry, after he made a comment regarding how pretty she looked in a dress. She takes offense, claiming that she has always been strong. As they head down the road, she sees the chrysanthemum sprouts that she had given to the traveler on the side of the road. Then she cries. As the story progresses, the wife discern misunderstanding regarding the yellow wallpaper. She sees behind the wallpaper begin to merge together. She claims she sees figures moving around on the wallpaper, but that could have just been her shadow from the moonlight. Either way, it paves the way for her to eventually become a woman behind the yellow wallpaper...
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...The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” focuses on a woman who is struggling with post traumatic syndrome after recently having a baby. Her doctor, who is also her husband, gives her the diagnosis to stay in bed all day and eventually thinking she will get better. From lying in bed all day she starts studying the yellow wallpaper, thinking she sees something in it. By the end of the story, it has driven her crazy and realizes the woman she sees in the wallpaper is really her and breaks free. The setting where the story is takes place in the nineteenth century in a large, summer home. The narrator is primarily stuck in one of the bedrooms within the house with yellow wallpaper. The story never gives her a name, but that she is a young, upper-...
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...Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an activist for independence for women, which was promoted through her popular stories and lecturers in the 20s. She was born on July 3rd, 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut and raised with no farther in poverty. Gillman wrote the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” in 1892 to emphasize the poor treatment of women and found a way to portray her own depression, by expressing it through the story. To summarize the story, it captivates a woman who is suffering from post-partum depression after having a child. Her husband, John, brings her to a mansion to retreat for the summer and restrains her upstairs in a nursery room. Truthfully, deep down the woman believes something is wrong with her, but her husband insists that she...
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...The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, shows the slow progression of insanity the narrator/Jane experiences through the fixation of the yellow wallpaper. In the beginning the narrator seems to be stable, she expresses her shock and pleasure of vacationing at the Estate. We go on to learn the true reason and intent her husband John meant for the stay. John felt it to be necessary for a break, to her cure her nervous condition. By hindering her creativity and imagination, with the stifling role of mother and wife, lead her to become more and more unreliable. We question on several occasions whether if it is truly her illness causing the paranoia, or if it is John’s treatment causing her loss of sanity. As soon as...
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...The Yellow Wallpaper was written by the prominent American feminist, Charlotte Gilman. It was published on January of 1892 and has been read by millions of people over the years. This story attempts to give a man perspective so he can further understand the struggles of being a woman. Gilman uses Syntax, Diction, and Figurative Language to develop her theme, which is that women want to have the same rights as men and to be as highly portrayed. Gilman uses excellent structure throughout her story, and the sentence functionality is used correlate to the story in a very interesting way while proving her point that women deserve more respect. Later, as the character begins to 'fall apart', you can notice that the Syntax creativity does as well. The story begins a little more playfully with the punctuation and long clauses: "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" (Gilman, 1). This is a reference to her feministic points of view, stating...
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...Erica M. Blair Erin Adair-Hodges English 1102-52 August 12, 2010 Diagnosing Bipolar Disorder in “The Yellow Wallpaper”: A Textual Analysis Clinical psychology was a field of major interest in the 19th century, but its early theories and diagnoses are now obsolete. Since its inception, mental illness has been a concept used to disenfranchise and stigmatize eccentric individuals. However, its use against women by men in the 19th century was profoundly great. Some mental disorders had no root in science or observation but were social constructs used to control and manipulate women. A modern, scientific analysis of Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” reveals that it’s heroine doesn’t suffer from the socially constructed “nervous depression”, but from a real clinical diagnosis: Bipolar I Disorder. Through the course of this story, Jane displays all the necessary criteria to receive a diagnosis of Bipolar I Disorder. Jane describes herself as being tired and depressed. She has irregular sleeping, eating and activity patterns. Through her writing, she conveys anxiety, paranoia, and delusions. The most damaging part of her disorder is the hallucinations she experiences as witnessed by her descriptions and personification of the wallpaper in the nursery. The text reveals through her own words, as well as her writing style, that she transitions from the depressive phase of Bipolar I Disorder to full-blown mania with psychosis. From the beginning of the story, Jane presents...
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...Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a vocal women’s rights activist and writer, wrote the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” in 1892. Gilman wrote the story while in an unhappy marriage with her first husband, pulling some of her own personal experiences of depression and the treatments she was suggested (“Charlotte Perkins Gilman”). The story is filled with symbolism, allegories, and vivid imagery that all relates to a woman experiencing post-partum depression and the patriarchal society she lives in where mental illness is not seen as serious or a concern. Gilman starts the story off with the main woman and her husband arriving to their new house, the unnamed woman immediately suspicious of the place; “Still I will proudly declare that there is something...
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...I believe this story is about a woman fighting with her closely controlled life which she can relate to the yellow wallpaper in the nursery bedroom. She is not allowed to work or write because she is sick with “nervousness” (Perkins Stetson 649). Her husband John, micromanages her because he is a physician and thinks he knows what is best for her, which she does not agree with really anything he has to say. When he is gone during the day and some nights she loses herself in her journal writing as well as the mesmerizing yellow wall-paper. She says at night the woman behind the first layer of wallpaper can be free and at night when the moonlight hits she is behind bars and upset. I think bars resemble John, he is constantly telling her no...
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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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...enough) even become indistinguishable. As for the anonymous protagonist (the wife) of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” her continuous visions of a woman ensnared...
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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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