ipl-logo

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Symbolism In 'The Yellow Wallpaper'

2085 Words9 Pages

Living through a brief, unsuccessful marriage, postpartum depression, and relinquishment of her young child, Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses her experiences to create a revealing portrait of women’s societal constraints in her famous short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Published in 1892, “The Yellow Wallpaper” brilliantly represents the plight of women during the Victorian era. The story tells of a woman’s dual confinement, both in a rest home, specifically, and in the society as a whole, more generally. The apparent symbolism categorizes the story as a significant and progressive feminist text. Through exploration of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s biographical influence and the symbolism throughout the short story, readers will be able to see how …show more content…

Gilman uses the narrator’s mental demise to show the two sides of one woman, the side that conforms and the rebellious side. The narrator’s name is not revealed throughout the story. This suggests that the narrator was too unimportant to even have a name, that she was just another woman suffering from the degrading limitations of her society. It also makes the narrator universal and able to represent any woman facing similar circumstances. The narrator describes many different symbols of confinement throughout the short story. The barred windows in the room the narrator stays in represent the sexist restrictions of her society. The narrator …show more content…

However, it was not immediately seen as this. This is because people of the nineteenth century did not have access to texts that would have made the “female meaning” clear. (Haney-Peritz 122) Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” cryptically compared to other literature at the time. There are different ideas on why it is viewed as a feminist text. Haney-Peritz suggests that in writing “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman learned “a woman could only imagine that she had found herself, for until the material conditions of social life were changed, there was no “real” way out of mankind’s ancestral mansion of many apartments.” (Haney-Peritz 124) Another idea Bak presents is that the text indicted the men who were responsible for the narrator’s confinement and mental demise (Bak 39). These ideas and others critics have presented all show that Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” effectively embodies the sexist society of the Victorian

Show More
Related
650 Words | 3 Pages

In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, author Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses many literary techniques to allow the reader to understand the universal truth that a woman’s class is seen as lower than that of a man’s, due to their sex. We see this truth throughout the literary work, when the main character who is a woman, is put in confinement and later becomesdistraught and mentally unstablebecause her husband and brother who are both Physicians diagnoses her as “nervously depressed”. Two techniques author Gilman uses is tone and diction to illustrate how the narrator, among most women in that time period is treated as below men in class, with little say in their own mental or physical issues. Gilman utilizes tone to illustrate the universal truth of gender being in hand with class status, effectively. In the literary work,the narrator’s tone shifts from hopeless in the beginning, to determine in the end.

Read More
1112 Words | 5 Pages

In Charlotte Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” she tells a horrific ghost story about symptoms of the rest cure. The “rest cure” was a treatment developed by Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell who restricted women of intellectual stimuli and condemned them to a domestic life to help their postpartum recovery. After being a victim of this treatment, Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Careful attention to the use of Gilman’s symbols in her short story allows the reader to analyze some of the themes concerning feminism and societal misogyny. Foreshadowing throughout, Gilman uses the house, the writing, and the wallpaper as symbols to show how man’s use of the “rest cure” limit women in society and offers that the solution to this issue is to persistently tear away at man’s injustice.

Read More
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
1799 Words | 8 Pages

Women were repressed and controlled by their husbands as well as other male influences. This story represents the way women were treated in society. The story shows a lot of symbolism due to this conflict such as the house, the window, and the wallpaper. The house is symbolizing the way the main character is feeling trapped because the house is not her own and she does not want to be in it. Although she acknowledges the presence of the house and what surrounds it, she constantly goes back to her feeling that there is something strange about the house.

Read More
988 Words | 4 Pages

Whereas women were expected to live as a housewife. They were supposed to cook, clean the house and take care of the kids. The Gilman’s story “the Yellow Wallpaper” is a symbol to how women were treated in the 1900, it’s related to the men attitude towards women in 1900. The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written

Read More
723 Words | 3 Pages

“Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good,” (Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” 779). In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Gilman writes of her lasting nervous breakdown, forcing confinement upon her inside of a nursery surrounded by a mysterious, twisting, and seemingly glooming yellow wallpaper. During this period of isolation, Gilman’s husband, John, forbids her to work and write. However, Gilman opposes this rule, ultimately realizing that her love and practice of writing aids in fighting her illness. “The Yellow Wallpaper” reinforces the theme of staying true to oneself despite the weight of society through its use of the setting, symbolism, and conflict.

Read More
1480 Words | 6 Pages

Charlotte Gilman’s short story, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, (1899) is a text that describes how suppression of women and their confinement in domestic sphere leads to descend into insanity for escape. The story is written as diary entries of the protagonist, who is living with her husband in an old mansion for the summer. The protagonist, who remains unnamed, is suffering from post-partum depression after the birth of her child and is on ‘rest’ cure by her physician husband. In this paper, I will try to prove that ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ acts as a subversive text by portraying the protagonist’s “descent into madness” as a result of the suppression that women faced in Victorian period.

Read More
1295 Words | 6 Pages

Women in the 1800’ and early 1900’s were treated the same as slaves, second class citizens who had no voice or decision over their lives. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892 with a late American 19th century setting. The main character, a nameless woman, fights depression and anxiety along with being oppressed by her husband John and wanting to rise against the norms of

Read More
774 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
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
834 Words | 4 Pages

“The Yellow Wallpaper” a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and published in 1892, is both a psychological and feminist piece of literature. It demonstrates oppression, defined as “the feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or physically by troubles, adverse conditions, anxiety, etc.” The story, written in a form of a journal, is seen through the eyes of a nameless female narrator, who moves with her husband, John, to an estate during the summer to cope with her “hysteria”, eventually leading her to a state of oppression and insanity. The story reflects the confinement and restraint most women during the 1900s felt in marriages and the inferiority women had too men.

Read More
1155 Words | 5 Pages

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a first-person written feminist short story that critiques and condemns the nineteenth-century American male attitude towards women and their physical as well as mental health issues. In the short story, Perkins Gilman juxtaposes universal gender perspectives of women with hysterical tendencies using the effects of gradually accumulating levels of solitary confinement; a haunted house, nursery, and the yellow wallpaper to highlight the American culture of inherited oblivious misogyny and promote the equality of sexes. The narrator and her husband, John, embody the general man and woman of the nineteenth century. John, like the narrator’s brother and most men, is “a physician of high

Read More
1106 Words | 5 Pages

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.”

Read More
1091 Words | 5 Pages

Gender Inequality: A Woman’s Struggle in “The Yellow Wallpaper” In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman captures the lives of women in a society based on societal expectations during the late nineteenth century. She focuses on the issue of gender inequality where women were often discriminated against and expected to fulfill the role of a perfect wife and mother. The narrator is based on on Gilman’s personal experience of suffering from her treatment for postpartum depression due to the social restrictions on women which represents a reflection on women's social status in society. The narrator, who remains anonymous, is depicted as a depressed and isolated prisoner who is oppressed under her husband’s control and struggles to break free.

Read More
810 Words | 4 Pages

"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman shows the pain women had to go through to be heard. The whole story demonstrates Gilman 's view on feminism through the male and female dialogue in the. As well as the symbolism of the yellow wallpaper itself and the imprisonment its captured. One can learn from the story that gender roles should be removed as they can cause a feeling of imprisonment and psychological struggles on women, as well as women, should live

Read More

More about Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Symbolism In 'The Yellow Wallpaper'

Open Document