ipl-logo

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Ideal Women In The Yellow Wallpaper

555 Words3 Pages

In the beginning of the story, Gilman incorporates a character who has convinced herself that she is living in a perfect marriage when in fact it is quite the opposite. In the story, along with her marriage, the woman becomes obsessed with patterns, beginning to criticize and become sceptical about every pattern. The women believes “the color [of the wallpaper] is repellent, almost revolting, a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow turning sunlight.” (2) The character has altered her body from a once lustrous to now grotesque. Gilman uses the term “faded” as a metaphor to represent the way John diminished her true personality and rather created his ideal women. The wallpaper is not only symbol of her mental state but also …show more content…

The woman was trapped in a barred, dirty room, imagining that she is locked up. Along with the thought that she must stay in that room, as her husband demanded, the wallpaper dominated her thoughts and made her pull “off most of the paper, so you can’t put me [her] back!”(9) After days of interpreting and thorough investigation of the women behind the bars creeping around, Gilman finally creates a direct association between her and the wallpaper for the first time in the book. The wallpaper is symbolic of how the woman would always have to creep around their husbands and if they wanted to be free they must be stripped of their privileges. Gilman writes, “you can’t put me back” to give personality to the character she has created. The woman is crazy yet so powerful. Unlike many women, she was able to break away from the ideals of marriage, and free/liberate herself from the nightmare she was living in. Though it seemed like she was incapable of making “proper” decisions she knew what was best for herself. The character blatantly comes out and says “you” meaning John was the reason that she was imprisoned in his “game.”. The irony stems from how she always would blame herself for anything she felt she did wrong, but now blamed the cause for her problems, being John. Though she may have not won overall as she ended

Show More
Related

Mental Illness In The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

1862 Words | 8 Pages

There are many events that can foreshadow the rest of one’s life for the better, or, for the worst. In Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Jane (the narrator) struggles with a mental illness that causes her to become very weak so her husband, John, takes her to a country home to heal. While at the house she stays in a room that has old yellow wallpaper. Jane is deeply disturbed yet highly intrigued and maintains her deep inspections of the wallpaper as she stays there.

Read More

What Are The Similarities Between Harold Krebs And The Yellow Wallpaper

775 Words | 4 Pages

As the narrator becomes more fascinated with the wallpaper she moves progressively away from her normal day-to-day routines and lifestyle. When the narrator finally recognizes herself as the woman trapped in the wallpaper she screams at her husband "I 've got out at last," (Gilman 656) "you can 't put me back" (Gilman 656). She realizes woman are forced to hide behind the internal patterns of their lives and they need that she needs to be

Read More

Examples Of Isolation In The Yellow Wallpaper

1002 Words | 5 Pages

The woman in the wallpaper is trapped just like she is. The narrator creates a figure that she could relate to and then spends all her time focused on the figure and trying to figure out how to help the woman in the wallpaper escape her cell. As the story continues and she remains isolated, it is obvious Jane views herself as the woman inside the wallpaper. As a result of being trapped in her room, she begins to lose her sanity. She believes she is trapped in the wallpaper and must escape its holds.

Read More

Comparing Women In The Yellow Wallpaper And The Story Of An Hour

600 Words | 3 Pages

When the narrator saw the woman captured by the wallpaper, she begins to want her freedom even more. She starts to realize that she too, is a prisoner. The more the thinks about it, the more insane she becomes. During the day, the narrator sees the woman walking around, which shows her that she can be free during the day at times, but is certainly trapped in the wallpaper at night. The author wrote, âI think that woman gets out in the day time!

Read More

Physical Entrapment In The Yellow Wallpaper, By John Gilman

1362 Words | 6 Pages

Essentially, it is the physical and subsequent metaphorical entrapment of the female protagonist by her husband in The Yellow Wallpaper that leads to a loss of her identity. In addition to physical descriptions, a sense of identity can be established through the delivery of relationships with others, and moral beliefs. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the interplay of characters plays a key role in defining the narrator’s identity through the imbalance of power in her marriage with John. Gilman arguably presents the narrator’s descent into madness through her inability to create a new identity counter to John’s entrapment of her.

Read More

Similarities Between The Yellow Wallpaper And A Doll's House

581 Words | 3 Pages

John is Jane’s husband who is trying to control every aspect of Jane’s life. Jane states, “There comes John, and I must put this away-he hates to have me write a word.” (Gilman) This is just one of numerous situations and statements that the narrator shares with the audience. John’s influence also plays a big part in his dysfunctional marriage with Jane.

Read More

The Yellow Wallpaper Passage Analysis Essay

544 Words | 3 Pages

Passage Analysis #1 Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman, in this particular passage of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” explores the theme of female oppression through imagery and symbolism of the wall-paper. These elements of literature make the wall-paper come to life for both the narrator and the audience. “The front pattern does move”(55) personifies the wall-paper to be so animate and physically restraining that the woman behind it must shake it to attempt to escape. The italicization of “does” serves to further affirm that the wallpaper exhibits restrictive human-like behaviors - particularly those of dominant men in society. The narrator states that there are “a great many woman behind”(55), extending the metaphor to all Victorian women in the United States and others around the world who are oppressed.

Read More

Yellow Wallpaper Sane

611 Words | 3 Pages

Initially, the narrator is disgusted and irritated by the paper, claiming, “I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” (339). This reaction mirrors that of a sane person’s--fearing the unknown, they distance themselves from insanity and any iteration of it, seeing it as grotesque and shameful. Yet, as she spends more time in the room, she grows interested in the wallpaper and begins to investigate. She comes to the conclusion that: “I didn 't realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a woman” (346).

Read More

Oppression In The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

1232 Words | 5 Pages

Oppression is defined as prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control. Cruel and unjust punishment is just the beginning for the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Charlotte Gilman while writing the “The Yellow Wallpaper” deciding to make it into a series of diary entries from a woman who is suffering from post-partum depression. The narrator begins by describing this large home that she and her husband have rented for the summer. Their summer house stands away from the road and contains many locks and little houses.

Read More

Descent Into Madness In Charlotte Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

1480 Words | 6 Pages

She begins to see strangles heads in the wallpaper, which can be a symbolic representation of the patriarchal order that stifled women. The bars on the wallpaper that cage the imaginary women are a reflection of her own situation where she is confined in the old mansion. Even the smell of the wallpaper, which she describes as being ‘yellow’ and present throughout the house, is a reflection of the mental repression that is always present in her life. She is so consumed by the smell that she thinks about burning the old mansion just to cover it

Read More

Imprisonment In The Yellow Wallpaper

1414 Words | 6 Pages

The protagonist of The Yellow Wallpaper anthropomorphizes the floral elements of the yellow wallpaper, wherein wallpaper is typically a feminine floral decoration on wall interiors. These elements signify the scrutiny Victorian society makes of lives of its womenfolk, particularly of women who are creative and insubordinate to their spouses. The protagonist is one such woman; her writing denounces her imaginative character and the surreptitious persistence of her writing denounces her matrimonial and feminine disobedience which were considered radical in her contemporary society. Gilman expresses the suppression felt by women from societal scrutiny to be one of “strangling”, through the narrator, who in one instance describes the wallpaper pattern like so: “it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads… the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside down, and makes their eyes white!” Her anthropomorphizing of the pattern of the wallpaper adopts a grimmer facet when she writes that “when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide.”

Read More

Isolation In The Yellow Wallpaper

570 Words | 3 Pages

Her descriptions of the room, with the furniture seemingly being nailed to the floor and the windows being “barred” show an underlying understanding that her thoughts and personality is being confined. The irony present in this description, due to her belief that the room used to be a nursery, shows her early denial of her husband’s dominance over her. As the story progresses and she begins to see the woman behind the wallpaper, the reader is exposed to the narrator’s realization that she is the one that is actually being suppressed. The descriptions of the wallpaper, showing how confining it is for the symbolic woman behind it, shows how the narrator is being trapped by those bars in both her marriage and in her mental illness. Thus when she says, “At night in any kind of light… it becomes bars,” the reader is shown how restricted the narrator feels, reflected through the wallpaper.

Read More

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Portrayal Of Victorian Women

774 Words | 4 Pages

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” critiques Victorian womanhood in several ways throughout the text. Victorian women were expected to be pure, dainty, and perfectly angelic. They were also expected to be perfect mothers, wives, and hostesses at all times. If a woman were to express too much emotion, she would be called hysterical. Hysteria was considered a medical condition which rendered a woman incapable of reason or generally thinking like an adult.

Read More

The Yellow Wallpaper Point Of View Analysis

814 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More

The Yellow Wallpaper Gaslighting Analysis

1319 Words | 6 Pages

Through the dialogue between the narrator and her husband, and by keeping the story through the woman’s perspective, it shows the warning signals in what he is saying, and the warning signals of how she is reacting to it. Gilman showed the importance of validation, and to trust in one’s own instincts. The narrator is seen doubting her instincts, standing up for her husband, and feeling like she has nowhere to turn. The metaphorical gaslight is much like the yellow wallpaper in the story. What starts as something so small, builds and builds into an infatuation.

Read More

More about Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Ideal Women In The Yellow Wallpaper

Related Topics

Open Document