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Gender Roles In The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

710 Words3 Pages

Charlotte Gilamans short story brings us through a first hand experience of a woman suffering through what appears to be postpartum depression, and the isolation her husband is putting her through in order to try and cure her. The more time she spends isolated in the room the more she can see within the wallpaper. Not only does this short story do a great job at showing the stigma associated with mental illness among women in patriarchal societies, but also spreading awareness on her own experiences being part of a treatment called “the rest cure”. In this time period there were strict gender roles in place that women were expected to follow and if they didn’t fit into these gender roles they could be seen as mentally unstable. The main …show more content…

She increasingly becomes more fixated on the wallpaper the more she spends alone in the room. She first saw eyes in the wallpaper, then actual people in the wallpaper. She first describes the wallpaper as “One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” , and “The color is repellent, almost revolting” which shows her irritation and resentment towards this treatment at first. But the story goes on and she becomes more fixated and begins seeing a woman in the wallpaper representing her being trapped within the restrictions her husband has given her and the expectations of a patriarchal …show more content…

Symbolism is used a lot as the whole point of the wallpaper is to symbolize her entrapment and mental decline. Personification and imagery was used on the wallpaper to bring it to life. “This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had”, “Up and down sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes everywhere”, “The paint and paper looks as if a boys’ school had used it. It is stripped off-the paper-in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw worse paper in my life”. I feel these quotes do a really good job using imagery and personification to highlight her increasing obsession with the wallpaper leading her into

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