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How Does The Struggle In Charlotte P. Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

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Throughout the story The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte P. Gilman illustrates a unique relationship between a married woman and the wallpaper in her room. This particular woman went through a rough patch recently believed to be suffering with postpartum depression. Her husband – a doctor – seems to know what is best for his wife and keeps her locked away from friends and family all day long. Due to her captivity, the woman begins to imagine a woman trapped inside the awful yellow wallpaper. However, many people she sees herself trapped behind bars trying to escape to freedom. By the end of the story the woman escapes out of the wallpaper but the question still stands if the woman actually escaped or if she was still trapped in her life. In Charlotte P. Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, the wallpaper itself …show more content…

Throughout the story, the narrator illustrates how controlling her husband is and how she is oppressed in her marriage. After her pregnancy, the narrator starts to suffer with postpartum depression which has a huge toll on her family. Her husband feels as though he knows what’s best for her since he’s a doctor; however, the situation gets worse. While reading the story, it’s obvious that the narrator is not in a stable emotional or physical state and her husband isn’t supporting her at all as she states, “John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall. But I don't want to go there at all” (Gillman 9). From this quote, it is evident that John believes he knows best and urges the narrator to get better soon and threats to send the narrator to a more isolated environment. By using this threat is suggesting that the husband is done dealing with his wife’s problems and doesn’t understand why she isn’t better. Maybe by shipping her to someone else to deal

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They may not agree with the decision 's John is making but maybe that’s the only way he knew he could help as a husband. It 's very apparent that John care for his wife a great deal and what 's her to live a happy life with him. He suffers just as much as his wife, having to treat your wife who has a mental condition can have a heavy strain on the heart. John feels as the husband in the marriage that he 's supposed to be the one whose control the situation.

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Her husband is a doctor, “John is a physician, and PERHAPS--(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)--PERHAPS that is one reason I do not get well faster” (Gilman). She eventually convinces herself that he knows everything about her mental and physical health both, “If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression--a slight hysterical tendency--what is one to do?” (Gilman). This is during the time period where men were more in control of their wives and had a higher say so. “John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall,” her husband was in complete control of where she went (Gilman).

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1212 Words | 5 Pages

The Narrator from The Yellow Wallpaper tries to do the best she can to please her husband and fulfil her role to be the perfect wife, but she isn’t able to balance out her husband’s needs. Towards the end she starts to forget the desire she once had to become the perfect wife and mother and starts to think of ways she can release the imprisoned woman that is trapped from behind the yellow wallpaper. I can see the connection that the woman trapped in the yellow wallpaper can be her trying to get out of the position she’s in, sometimes the color yellow signifies being sick or very much ill. With the narrator tearing the paper apart wanting the sickness

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827 Words | 4 Pages

Jay Patel Ms. Murchie AP English 12 Feb 2016 The Yellow Wallpaper Analysis In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman portrays the story of the heavily restricted domestic life of a woman who is suppressed by being trapped in a marriage with no personal growth. She does this through the usage of many different types of literary devices.

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1011 Words | 5 Pages

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” follows an unnamed woman as she struggles with an unspecified mental illness. The narrator and her husband, John, temporarily move to a colonial mansion. While there, the narrator becomes increasingly more obsessed with the yellow wallpaper that covers her bedroom. This obsession increasingly grows until she eventually breaks down at the end of the story. However, while the narrator is struggling with her mental illness, John brushes it off, continually saying that nothing is wrong with the narrator.

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Throughout her journal, the narrator reassures the reader of John's love for her and her trust in him, at one point musing that “Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick” (7) and “It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise and because he loves me so” (8). It is this implicit trust that she has in her husband that convinces her to continue the treatment he prescribes despite her misgivings about it. John also uses this trust as a tool to emotionally manipulate her into subservience during the night he finds her awake. During his conversation with the narrator John attempts to convince her that she is getting better, but after rebutting that she is only “Better in body perhaps-”

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882 Words | 4 Pages

From the beginning, it is clear that the narrator appears as a docile and complacent. In the novel, the narrator makes it obvious that John her husband, has all control over her. She writes “If a physician of a high standing, and one husband... assures there is temporary nervous depression… what is one to do?” This shows the narrator’s position, there is nothing she can do or say.

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When reading “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman many readers interpret the short story differently. Readers may find the story to be confusing and perhaps disturbing. It was written in June 1890. This story is about a woman who is considered depressed after having a baby. She gets trapped in a room by her husband to cope with her “depression.”

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Interpretive Analysis of “The Yellow Wallpaper” The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story about a woman and her husband's efforts to cure her unexplained mental health symptoms. The narrator is isolated in her home, far from the outside world and her husband's attempts to control her behavior. Throughout this story, Gilman highlights the insubordination of women in marriage, in which the husband has all the power, and the wife is left with no power or voice.

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970 Words | 4 Pages

From the very beginning of the story, the narrator questions the methods used to treat her. She is desperate more socialization with other people, and this is quite explicit in her writings, quote, “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad. ”(Gilman) The narrator knows that the real way to actually combat her depression is to go out and distract herself and talk to people instead of sitting at home all day and letting it fester. The narrator also places an importance on her own thoughts and understanding of her own condition over her husband's opinions. These transgressions are visible many times in the text, but one instance can be found in the first portion of the story where the narrator writes, “John is a physician, and perhaps--(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)--perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.

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533 Words | 3 Pages

The story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” is Charlotte Gilman’s interpretation of how women were treated and were thought that they were only useful in the home. The story follows the first person point of view of a woman who is struggling to break free from the irrational labels of being a woman that her husband is attempting to force upon her. The narrator dreams of being able to write freely and leave her home to be in the world she sees outside her window. However, John, the husband, convinces her that she has nervous depression, and that she is unable to leave the house until she is better. John, being a physician, believes that he knows exactly how her nervousness affects her and convinces himself and his wife that it is better for her to stay in the home until she is not “sick” any longer.

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767 Words | 4 Pages

The narrator feels as if she is a burden on John but she is also growing tired of his constant dictation. She feels this especially since she knows what she needs but he does not allow it. She wrote that she, “meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort,” but she feels like a “comparative burden” (par. 44). John makes her feel that it is her fault for not getting well faster. The narrator feels that she can not talk to John about her case because, “he is so wise, and because he loves me so” (par.

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1626 Words | 7 Pages

And now, she claims that she can see so much expression in the yellow wallpaper, as she begins to imagine faces, heads, and unblinking eyes across the paper. Later in the story, these hallucinations change to just one thing. A woman. This woman is believed to be herself, escaping from the wallpaper. The wallpaper that symbolises gender expectations of the time, and the confinement of her imagination and true self.

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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.

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1202 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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