ipl-logo

Literary Criticism In The Yellow Wallpaper

870 Words4 Pages

The Yellow Wallpaper, A Feminist Text According to Charlotte Perkins, the author behind “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the text was written in response to Silas Weir Mitchell’s infamous rest cure. The rest cure was established during the late 1800’s and prospered the most in the United Kingdom, and the United States. This cure was intended to treat neurasthenia, hysteria, and different forms of nervous illnesses, but it was ultimately used as a remedy for anorexia nervosa. Although this treatment was designed for both sexes, it alluded to women more than men. With that being said, if Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell’s rest cure were to be applied and followed today, it would most certainly cause havoc and earn a protest in response. Not only will his profession and sense of authority be questioned, but he’ll also be …show more content…

Two of the most prominent symbols in the story are the narrator’s desire for writing and the yellow wallpaper. “I did write for a while in spite of them—having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition” (Gilman). Writing is the unnamed character’s weapon; it’s the only thing that makes her feel in control and independent in the prison cell that she’s in. When she writes, she has the ability to freely reflect on her feelings and emotions, easily distributing her every thought. It liberates her as a woman, whereas the wallpaper illustrates the narrator’s life. “I kept still and watched the moonlight on that undulating wallpaper till I felt creepy…the faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out” (Gilman). When she’s locked away in her room, the character analyzes every little detail on the wallpaper, trying to interpret the patterns in it. The details that she sees portray her role as a woman, going against social norms and declaring her independence from society and her husband. She is no longer inferior or

Show More
Related
228 Words | 1 Pages

Finally, the yellow wallpaper plays the biggest role in the story. Not only for the reason that the narrator saw a woman behind it. But for the reason that the woman behind the yellow wallpaper was Perkins. According to the narrator "And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. "(Perkins 532),"I don't like it a bit"(Perkins 532), Trying to send out the moral of the story which was gender oppression.

Read More
811 Words | 4 Pages

Everything that the wallpaper represents take the story deeper and allow the reader to actually understand the woman’s situation. While reading the story, the reader learns that this story is told through a diary the woman used to vent. After being left alone in that awful room, the woman is very bored and lonely, so she decides to write in it. At the beginning of the story, the woman is prescribed a “cure” for her “problems.”

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
798 Words | 4 Pages

It's yellow color symbolizes the way the narrator feels about her situation. "Unclean", "dull", "sickly" is how she may have felt deep down about her relationship with her husband and the life she lived under him. The wallpaper itself becomes a symbol for her. She uses it as a coping method and projects her feelings onto it and the woman she sees in it. The windows symbolize how she is trapped in this marriage and she can only view the beautiful outside through the many windows, reminding her of what she cannot have.

Read More
1096 Words | 5 Pages

The narrator is a woman who is imaginative trying to make her mind think and realize the meaning of the yellow wallpaper. She describes the wallpaper as, “repellant, almost revolting; smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow turning sunlight” (Gilman 641). This specific wallpaper makes the narrator feel a certain way. At first, she does not like the color or how it looks. But then not having anything else to do in the room, she starts examining the wallpaper.

Read More
1248 Words | 5 Pages

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is suffering from postpartum depression. The narrator 's husband John, who also happens to be her physician, prescribes the rest cure to help lift his wife of her depressive state and ultimately heal her depression. However, the rest cure does not allow the narrator to experience any mental stimulation. Therefore, to manage her boredom the narrator begins obsessing over the pattern of the yellow wallpaper. After analyzing the pattern for awhile, the narrator witnesses a woman trapped behind bars.

Read More
1080 Words | 5 Pages

The pursuit of freedom: An Analysis of the Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkin’s Gilman’s story, “The Yellow wallpaper”, is a piece of gothic fiction that clarifies the idea of patriarchal dominance over women in society. Gilman, an outspoken feminist herself, expresses the notion of woman’s freedom and status quo. The “Yellow wallpaper” takes to ground when the narrator and her husband move into new residence for the summer after giving birth to their child. The narrator is supposedly in a delirious situation and is locked up in a room to heal, paving way to her expressing her emotions. The dilemma between the husband and the narrator seems to be purely psychological in the idea that the husband talks down to her, perceiving the

Read More
797 Words | 4 Pages

She becomes obsessed with the patterns of the wallpaper, but she mainly notices a woman that she thinks is trying to free herself from the confines of the wall. During the day this woman is still, but when night time comes around, it seems as though the woman creeps around. Towards the end of the story, the narrator has a breakdown and thinks that she is this woman inside of the wallpaper, and begins to perform similar actions like creeping around. This meaning of this scene is simple cause and effect. Not only did she already have postpartum depression, but she is basically trapped in this house for a whole summer with nothing to do so she can heal.

Read More
1008 Words | 5 Pages

However, we later see a shift in her feelings towards the wallpaper as she states that she is growing “really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper” and comes to a realization that it may be “because of the wallpaper” (Par 94) As her opinions on the wallpaper begin to change, the progression of her mental instability becomes increasing visible. She begins to build a relationship with the wallpaper and claims that “There are things in that paper that nobody knows about” (Par 22) her. As this relationship with the wallpaper builds, her sanity begins to slip, and the hallucinations begin in a somewhat minor manor. In her first mention of “the woman” she says that the pattern on the

Read More
802 Words | 4 Pages

It 's here where she discovers the yellow wallpaper that leads to her mental demise. What is the symbolic meaning of the yellow wallpaper and how do her interactions with the wallpaper represent the change in her feelings towards her husband and society. The yellow wallpaper symbolizes women 's suffrage and the struggles women went through, and her interactions with the wallpaper represent the problems woman had with their husbands and society. The main symbolism present in the story is how the yellow wallpaper represents woman suffrage and the problems they endured during the 19th century.

Read More
1291 Words | 6 Pages

Secondly, there is also a sense of confinement throughout the story. The Yellow Wallpaper fits the winter or the anti-romantic phase of Northrop Frye's monomyth diagram as it, "tells the story of imprisonment … and fear." (Bressler 152). The narrator is imprisoned in the room which has yellow wallpaper. Basically, the room where the narrator is staying in is like a prison.

Read More
814 Words | 4 Pages

The vast majority of people wouldn’t give the wallpaper much thought, however the narrator becomes obsessed with it. To the narrator, the wallpaper is alive and becomes the focus of all her time. Her overwhelming lure to the wallpaper becomes obvious when she first provides a very vivid description stating “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions” (217-218). As she begins to lose her grip on reality, the narrator beings to see faces and eventually a woman within the wallpaper. At first, her description of seeing faces in the wallpaper seems like it could be her mind making since of the varying patterns or just part of her imagination.

Read More
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.

Read More
562 Words | 3 Pages

(678) in this statement she is challenging herself and this shows the reader she is facing some confusion. The yellow wallpaper in the main characters (the narrator) bedroom is a major point in the story. The yellow wallpaper plays a major role in the woman’s insanity. The woman’s obsession with the wallpaper creates her problem and affects her mind and judgment. This is shown in, “It dwells on my mind so!”

Read More
1155 Words | 5 Pages

Nonetheless, the narrator continues to pen her ideas about the wallpaper as it transpired from being perplexing to gaining clarity each day. Amidst arriving at a full conclusion of what the wallpaper depicts, the narrator says she sees “a woman stooping down and creeping about behind the pattern” (Perkins Gilman, 50). As the days passed,

Read More

More about Literary Criticism In The Yellow Wallpaper

Related Topics

Open Document