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Restriction In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

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The Restriction of a Wallpaper

The narrator in 'The Yellow Wallpaper', whose name we never learn, is diagnosed with temporary nervous depression. She is being treated by her husband, John, in a big beautiful house that is far off the road. Her husband, as well as others, believes that isolating her from everyone and everything will cure her. John is a physician, so he and the narrator convince themselves that he knows what is best for her. After spending some time alone in this house, while being inconsiderably taken care of by her husband, the narrator's condition worsens. Throughout the story, she is treated as though she has no maturity. She is also stripped of her creativity and freedom. As the story continues to progress, she comes to the realization of her enslavement. The narrator experiences something similar to a rebirth that frees her from the bondage of societies' expectations. In the end, she decides that she will not let her husband or anyone else live her life for her, yet in the midst of freeing herself, she drives her insane. This short story was set in the ninetieth century, in a big isolating house that contains a yellow wallpaper. All three of these settings helped the author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, exploit the truth of how women are not treated equally in society. …show more content…

During this time, women are looked down upon if they wanted to do anything besides the roll of a submissive house wife. They are not expected to work. In fact, businesses like the American Medical Association refused women membership during this specific time. Women are expected to be taken care of by their husband. They are basically expected to be in the shadow of their husbands. Overall, they are expected to look to their husband much like a child would look to a parent. In 'The Yellow Wallpaper', The narrator describes her room in the big beautiful house as being an old child's room. She

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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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It changed as the women became the financial heads of the financial heads of their household with the men away at war. There was a lot of tensions and doubt with the women’s new jobs, and many thought that the women would be incapable of fulfilling their new tasks. They were under tremendous stress as they were dealing with the fear of their husbands, brothers, and other important men in their lives dying or coming home injured.

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She proceeds to explain the contributing factors of the narrator succumbing to her “disease” of hysteria which was isolation from social interaction and the restriction of her own thoughts. She points out that the narrator is confined to a simple square room with nothing to offer in terms of mental health therapy. The narrator’s lack of the ability to interact with anything or anyone leads to infatuation with the wallpaper, which turns out to be “the

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In the nineteenth century, woman had no power over men in society. They were limited in their freedom, as their lives were controlled by their husbands. Some women did not mind this lifestyle, and remained obedient, while some rebelled and demanded their rights. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, are short stories that exposes the lifestyle women lived in the nineteenth century. The protagonists from both stories, Jane and Georgiana, similarly lived a male dominated lifestyle.

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When they walk into the house in the countryside, the wife sees a room in which she believes is her best fit, where she can have a view of roses, but the husband is determined to put her in the old nursery, with bars on the window as he believes it is a better suit for her.

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Women during this time period had to juggle around their job and home life. Each duty in itself entrails many responsibilities. Despite the insanely low income that they received and the way they were treated by others, women had to maintain a steady balance between working many hours of the day and taking care of their family at home. In some cases, the only source of income in a family was a woman. Oftentimes, those burdens were incredibly detrimental to their health and mind.

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The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a wife and a mother who suffers symptoms of depression and anxiety. Although she does not believe that anything is wrong with her, John who is her physician husband makes her in the “rest cure”. Also, while she was isolated in the nursery in the rented summer home, the narrator is banned to write or do any creative activities. The narrator severely wants to make her husband happy and accept her role as an ideal mother and wife, but she could not satisfy her husband’s needs with her passion to show her creativity. While trying to achieve John’s wishes for the best, the narrator writes in her journal that peace from her extreme loneliness and inaction.

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During the 1900s, upper class women in America lived luxurious lives that consisted of maintaining a pleasant appearance and entertaining guests. However, women of this prestige typically underwent more social restrictions than those of a lessor status. For example, societies view on women failed to revolve around equality. These previous concepts of how life was during the 1900s are illuminated greatly in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Gilman. This accumulative story is about a woman named Jane whose thoughts are suppressed by her husband who prescribes her a treatment for her nervousness.

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The house is in a super-isolated place. The house represents the narrator 's personal emotions; restricted and isolation. In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the symbolism of the the wallpaper and the diary demonstrate the psychological difficulties, that were caused by being disrespected and thought less of, during the 19th century for women across the United States. In the “Yellow Wallpaper”, the woman 's husband John neglects her symptoms of postpartum and says she has a slight hysterical tendency.

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Domestic Imprisonment in The Yellow Wallpaper The Yellow Wallpaper is an epistolary short story written in 1892 using conventions of the psychological Gothic horror to critique the position of women in the domestic circle within a Victorian society by prominent American feminist and social reformer Charlotte Perkins Gilman who lived from 1860 to 1935. This work of fiction is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the 19th century towards women’s health, both physical and mental. In this essay, I will be discussing the portrayal of imprisonment within the domestic sphere in The Yellow Wallpaper with close commentary on space and setting primarily, as well as supporting references to other

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Her descriptions of the room, with the furniture seemingly being nailed to the floor and the windows being “barred” show an underlying understanding that her thoughts and personality is being confined. The irony present in this description, due to her belief that the room used to be a nursery, shows her early denial of her husband’s dominance over her. As the story progresses and she begins to see the woman behind the wallpaper, the reader is exposed to the narrator’s realization that she is the one that is actually being suppressed. The descriptions of the wallpaper, showing how confining it is for the symbolic woman behind it, shows how the narrator is being trapped by those bars in both her marriage and in her mental illness. Thus when she says, “At night in any kind of light… it becomes bars,” the reader is shown how restricted the narrator feels, reflected through the wallpaper.

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Women in the 1800’ and early 1900’s were treated the same as slaves, second class citizens who had no voice or decision over their lives. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892 with a late American 19th century setting. The main character, a nameless woman, fights depression and anxiety along with being oppressed by her husband John and wanting to rise against the norms of

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However, because of societal standards at this time, women were already typically treated like children. In the “Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkin Gilman criticizes infantilism of women in Victorian society through Jane’s childlike actions, John’s interactions with her, and the symbolism of her staying in the nursery. Throughout the story, Jane is compared to, or acts like a child. On page three of the text, Gilman writes that Jane used to be easily entertained by blank walls and furniture than most children could find in toy stores.

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What situation is being described? • The Yellow Wallpaper is a part of biography of the author in which she describes her mental illness after the birth of her child. She is supposed to stay away from the society to recover herself. She is now living in a rented house, which she thinks was a play way for small children before. Here

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Gender Inequality: A Woman’s Struggle in “The Yellow Wallpaper” In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman captures the lives of women in a society based on societal expectations during the late nineteenth century. She focuses on the issue of gender inequality where women were often discriminated against and expected to fulfill the role of a perfect wife and mother. The narrator is based on on Gilman’s personal experience of suffering from her treatment for postpartum depression due to the social restrictions on women which represents a reflection on women's social status in society. The narrator, who remains anonymous, is depicted as a depressed and isolated prisoner who is oppressed under her husband’s control and struggles to break free.

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