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Tone Of The Yellow Wallpaper

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In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gillman gives a real life example of how the inhumane treatments for postpartum depression genuinely do just the opposite of what they are supposed to. The narrator, which is the woman in the story, shows how her development symbolizes the effects of cruel postpartum depression treatments and how they transform women into something they are not. The narrator is developed through certain regimens of the treatment, altering her thoughts through journaling, and forming an unhealthy obsession with the wallpaper in her bedroom which eventually consumes her into believing what is not there. Tone is a very important element in this story. The author uses tone to demonstrate how the narrator’s thoughts change from the beginning to the end of her treatment. In the beginning of the story, the narrator writes, “You see he does not believe I am sick!” (647). The author knows she has slight depression, but her case is not serious enough to deserve this type of treatment. The treatments consist of locking her away in a room to rest with no working, and not even writing. The narrator secretly keeps a journal of her daily activities and this shows the serious transition into her …show more content…

Women were thought of as weak and unable, and they did not question a man’s authority. Through the development of this story, it shows how passive women with postpartum depression were treated poorly and it resulted in mentally ill patients rather than healthy ones. The ever changing tone, vivid imagery, and ironic situations all show how the woman comes to understand who she is. The narrator in this story comes to the realization that she is the woman in the wallpaper she has envisioned- trapped in this world by her own husband. To break free of this entrapment, she ripped off all the wallpaper so no one could put her back into her horribly vivid

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