The narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the main character in the short novel. She is a young newly married mother in the upper middle class who is very imaginative. The narrator is going through a stage of depression and believes the house they have temporarily moved into is haunted. What the narrator is actually experiencing is called Postpartum depression, depression suffered by a mother following childbirth. This illness can arise from the combination of hormonal changes, psychological adjustment to motherhood, and fatigue.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator, Jane, has postpartum depression. In order to cure this depression, John, Jane’s husband and a doctor, administer the rest treatment on her. Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” through her personal experience. Along with writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” she wrote an explanation for why she wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
The narrative begins when the narrator and her husband, John, rent a colonial estate for the summer after the wife gives birth to her daughter. John is a doctor; he diagnoses the narrator, who is his wife, with "nervous depression" and prescribes a "rest cure. " This prescription includes a strict rest and seclusion routine in a room with yellow wallpaper, which the narrator dislikes from the beginning of the isolation. The rising action in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" follows the narrator's growing passion for the yellow wallpaper in the room where she is trapped. She becomes obsessed with the pattern that made her imagine a lady trapped behind it and wants to free her.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” written in 1892, is a short narrative told through the journal entries of Jane, a woman who is presumably suffering from postpartum depression. Jane’s husband, John, who does not believe she is sick, has arranged for them to spend three months at a rented mansion so she can recover from what he claims to be slight hysterical tendencies. In the interim their newborn baby is being looked after by, Mary, whose relation to the couple is not stated. As part of her recovery, John has forbidden her to write, have any form of stimulus or social interactions, as well as think, or make any decisions as to the course of her own recovery. Though Jennie, John 's sister, has accompanied the couple, Jane, spends most of her time alone while her husband is away tending to patients.
In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the emotional state of the narrator and feelings toward her husband are reflected in her description of the setting through the use of first person narration, imagery to portray feelings of oppression and figurative language to create a consistent tone of isolation and cynical irony. The narrator uses symbolism to portray her connection with her observations and the yellow wallpaper. From the moment they moved into their house, the narrator felt like her husband treated her like a child which was shown when he forces her stay in a nursery. John forces the narrator to repress her imagination. While her "habit of story-making" might have found a healthy outlet in writing,
"The Yellow Wallpaper" was influenced by Gilman 's rhetorical situation. In the beginning of the short story the audience is told about her depression. The readers are not aware at the severity of her depression until the end when it drivers her insane. The narrator in the story mentions how the husband never listens to her and tells her to get over it. This may be because she did not grow up with a father in her life so she does not think they care much.
The short story, The Yellow Wallpaper was written by a lady named Charlotte Perkins Gilman. “Charlotte was a young lady born in the 1860s right into poverty. Her upbringing was in poverty and didnt have it very easy at a young age. She was born in England and at the age of 22 she married a man by the name Charles Walter Stetson. They eventually had a child and almost immediately right after the birth of the child Charlotte fell into a deep depression.
In Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", the wallpaper itself, albeit only a thing in nature, becomes a vital part of the story's narrative, even seems to present itself as more alive than the other characters in the narrative. This "life" enables the "thing" to mirror the main character's intentions and progress throughout the story, mainly because of how the main character observes the paper and because of its relative physical and psychological relation towards the characters inside the story. This qualifies the wallpaper as an It-narrator, and thus enables it to become a vital narrator for the short story. Character and paper are linked: it is a reflective surface, but it is also the confinement, a body encasing the protagonist,
Charlotte is a feminist, she believes in equality between men and women. Her writing reflects all of her beliefs on this topic. When she writes “The Yellow Wallpaper” it is similar to an experience in her life. This story is about a woman who is going through postpartum depression and is locked in a room till she gets over this sickness. Her brother and husband don’t want her doing anything until she is better.
The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story full of imaginative symbolism and descriptive settings. However, without the narrator’s unique point of view and how it affects her perception of her environment, the story would fail to inform the reader of the narrator’s emotional plummet. The gothic function of the short story is to allow the reader to be with the narrator as she gradually loses her sanity and the point of view of the narrator is key in ensuring the reader has an understanding of the narrator’s emotional and mental state throughout the story. It’s clear from the beginning of the story that the narrator’s point of view greatly differs from that of her husband’s and other family in her life.
Growing up, my mom always told me that there are multiple sides to a story. Whenever I was faced with a decision, she would say to me “you can’t make an informed decision until you know all the sides of a story.” When I was younger, this seemed like a silly concept. I thought it was just something my mom told me to nag me. However, the older I got, the more I started to see the wisdom in my mom’s words.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story told through diary entries of a woman who suffers from postpartum depression. The narrator, whose name is never mentioned, becomes obsessed with the ugly yellow wallpaper in the summer home her husband rented for them. While at the home the Narrator studies the wallpaper and starts to believe there is a woman in the wallpaper. Her obsession with the wallpaper slowly makes her mental state deteriorate. Throughout The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses many literary devices such as symbolism, personification and imagery to help convey her message and get it across to the reader.
She wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” in an effort to open the public’s eyes to the unfairness of this treatment. By infusing Jane’s narrative with childish language and actions without ever actually calling “Jane” by her name, Gilman creates a universal experience any woman of the time could insert herself into. This allowed women to fully realize the injustice they faced. John’s belittlement of Jane also serves to create both a universal and eye opening experience for the women reading it. Additionally, for those who were willing to read into the symbolism, the nursery and the meaning underlying it added to the injustice Gilman conveys.
The dual narration of these characters demonstrate the juxtaposition of Mariam who is scorned and isolated by society and is aware of the social stigma for being an illegitimate child, or “harami”, (which is the Farsi term for ‘bastard’) and Laila, a well educated and strong-willed girl who rejects the social norms and values of a women in their society. However, their lives come to a halt, when forced to marry the abusive antagonist Rasheed whose violence is endorsed by societal customs and the law of the land. Conversely, The Yellow Wallpaper written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a semi-autobiographical short story published in 1892. Exploring the idea of a women’s right to express themselves, that were hindered
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was not just an author but a great feminist. Gillam inspired countless women to seek indecency with her work like "The Yellow Wallpaper. " The story is a fictionalized short story of a woman who is descending into madness while dealing with her mental illness and cannot heal due to her husband 's lack of belief. At the same time, the woman also known as the narrator feels imprisoned in her marriage. The story takes place during a time were women and had no independence and were not able to voice their own opinion.
