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Gothic Fiction In 'The Yellow Wallpaper'

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The story “ The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short but, very interesting storying demonstrating a Gothic Fiction. As you read the story you realize the narrator is someone who claims to see specters, spirits and even believes to seeing ghost. Not only is that a characteristic of a Gothic Fiction but, she is also seen to be a women in distress which also falls in the category of a Gothic Fiction story. With a very rocky introduction the story catches the reader's attention as you find out the wallpaper is to blame for the woman's possession. The story is written as a sequence of diary writing for a woman who is suffering from depression. The story starts off with the description of the large, abandoned home the narrator and her husband are renting for the summer. …show more content…

She also stated that she felt something was odd about the house. With her having this fear of her own home, later in the story arousing, unfamiliar figures are seen being the placing of the wallpaper. Due to these sightings she starts to look at the wallpaper daily. She began to submerge deeper with her fascination with the wallpaper.Resulting to her looking at the yellow wallpaper daily, she realizes the small detail of a woman who is behind bars with many heads, Surprisingly she helps the ghost, by gradually peeling back the wallpaper. Towards the end of the story she is starting to see them around the house, and due to her seeing the creeping woman she does not like to look out the window, due to the woman creeping so

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Together the themes of manipulation and mental illness will trigger a series of events that change their lives. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the protagonist becomes increasingly obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom and seclusion from human contact. This was a cure that her husband John prescribed that proved detrimental to her mental health. As she spends more time alone in the room, she becomes fixated on the patterns and images, slowly becoming convinced there is a woman behind the wall that is trapped and that she must free, "The front pattern does move—and no wonder!

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The main character is quiet, always following orders during the day, but at night she creeps; creeps on to the very edge of the wallpaper to converse with the women trapped inside, for "by daylight, she is subdued" (245). The protagonist in "The Yellow Wallpaper" thoroughly describes how the absence of light changes the paper, claiming "it changes as the light changes" (244) though it is only her perception of it that is distorted. There is a quality to the wallpaper that disturbs her inner being, "things in that paper that nobody knows"

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The gothic tale of “The Yellow Wallpaper” has become just that, although it took nearly a century to find a truly understanding audience. Early readers were appreciative of the sheer horror of the tale, and, indeed, it still stands as a wonderful example of the genre. But it was not until the rediscovery of the story in the early 1970’s that “The Yellow Wallpaper” was recognized as an early feminist indictment of Victorian patriarchy. The author has used symbolism to tell the reader how the protagonist truly feels whereas the apparent impression of the text shows a conventional façade with many gothic trappings seen through the eyes of a mad narrator.

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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.

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