In the story, "Yellow Wallpaper," Charlotte Gilman claims that women were submissive to man. Gilman shows this by using some past background from her life. Gilman uses a female in comparison with the male characters from her past to prove that men were most dominate in their relationships with women. Throughout her life the narrator has endured isolation, control, and depression; allowing her to use her-life comparison in relation with her story. The author’s use of: imagery, irony, and symbolism becomes clear to the reader as the struggle she endured is embodied in her written work.
The Yellow Wallpaper was written by a woman named Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who during the late 1800’s to early 1900’s was a famous writer and strived to change social standards for women through her writing. She started writing after having left her husband after suffering from a nervous breakdown and needing a job to support herself after she moved to California in 1890. Her experiences with having to support herself as single women in a society that repressed women’s rights are what drove her to write some of her most famous books and short stories. She wrote The Yellow wallpaper and Women and Economics which dealt with teaching the public about women’s health issues and financial independence are just some of the many short stories and books she wrote to help bring social awareness to women’s oppression from society's standards. She used her own life as her inspiration
----------------The yellow wallpaper is a short story which shows the regressive and condescending treatment of “hysterical” women. The author writes about the common “rest cure” which women had to endure to “cure” their mental problems. The book came out in 1892 and created an outrage across the country by the more dominant sex in the era – the male sex. One physician in Boston obviously felt offended as he responded with; “Such a story ought not to be written… it is enough to drive anyone mad to read.”. Because of comments like this, Charlotte Perkins Gilman did not find success until the middle of the 20th century.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the story of a young wife as she visits their vacation home with her husband. The story is written in a journal form from the wife’s perspective which includes her interactions with the people around her and gives insights to her thoughts and true opinions about others. The story develops the characterization of the wife as she ascends to madness depicted through her actions which contrasts from the beginning to the ending of the story. Gilman uses the description of the narrator’s experiences to convey how women were treated during the treatment of mental illness in late 19th century. Gilman uses the characterization of the husband to portray the inequality of women in marriage in the
The plot begins when the narrator sees the house that her husband John has taken for the summer. She immediately feels as if something about the situation is weird. This then leads to her discussion of her illness, “nervous depression” and of her marriage. John her husband and her doctor belittles both her and her illness. Her treatment is prescribed as nothing active, including writing and working.
In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator is not a typical upper class young woman, who has just given birth to her first child. She is an inquisitive dynamic young woman, whose nervous condition has gradually gotten worse as she adapts to the restrictions placed upon her. We see how the restrictions transform her through a series of journal entries, and learn that she has a tough time expressing her feelings to others. Through intimate journal entries we see how the protagonist is controlled by a dominating husband, and how she becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper.
A World of External Silence with an Audible Mind As someone who personally struggled with mental illness, author Shannon L. Alder quotes, “Your perspective on life comes from the cage you were held captive in.” People may recall when they have been rejected by close acquaintances, but the true, shocking memories are those of rejection from friends and family. These issues strike the most in people because they try to live a fulfilling life to please friends and family, while inside, they are the ones suffering. A society that is split between equality and destruction leads to a deranged world in themselves.
Taking Control of the Mind Imagine waking up every day and feeling angry, hopeless, anxious, and not even enjoying the things you do. It would be a life that would be miserable and not even enjoyable. Being depressed is something that is crippling. People have a hard time holding down a job, and even having relationships.
Trapped within her own mind, oppressed by a faithful spouse, a victim of malpractice, and stripped of the rights to be a dutiful wife as well as a loving mother, Charlotte Perkins Gilman depicts a vivid fictional narrative that symbolizes the entrapment and suffering that many women of the nineteenth century lived through. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, creates a narrator who suffers from a mental illness, in a time where clinical psychology, and depression had yet not been explored, nor studied. The narrator’s husband, John, handles her illness terribly. In the narrative “The Yellow Wallpaper” John, as a medical practitioner, as well as a husband, is negligent, controlling, and mentally abuses the narrator.
The dystopian story “The Yellow Wallpaper” analyzes the struggle for equal rights of women and their quest for freedom. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story shows the idea of equality and treatment of women in the late 1800’s. The story explores the intense impact of status and power on rights of gender and mental health. This is shown in several ways throughout the story by John, the narrator’s husband who imprisons her, and the environment in which the narrator is placed in. These elements throughout the story exemplify the inequality of women and the control held over them by men at this time.
There is no doubt that “The Yellow Wallpaper” has played a tremendous role in the equality of women then and now. The era that this story takes place in is known for it’s unfair treatment of women, but this did not stop strong-willed and impactful writers like Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This author paved the way for women’s rights through her writing by bringing up social topics such as the way men and women’s relationships were portrayed, women’s creativity, and the many operations of patriarchy. Gilman reveals the inequality between men and women by showing how each gender was treated in this era.
Women of of the 19th century era encountered a distressing period where medicine and their health were prominent highlights associated with their being. To the bewilderment of those today, society of this time believed that it was in a woman's nature to be sick, that a female was born with an illness of both the body and mind, and that nothing could be done to permanently alleviate her sickness. Ultimately this falsehood laid the foundation for the physical and often mental demise of many women. This is very clear in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a short story about a woman's slow descent into insanity while following the physician- prescribed “rest cure" made known to society by nerve disorder specialist, Silas Weir Mitchell
Ashley-Marie Rodriguez World Literature Professor Rose 7 January 2016 The Patriarchal Confinement During the 19th century, women and men were expected to fill certain roles. Men were expected to work and be out in society. Whereas, women were expected to be private in their daily lives and to be committed to their domestic duties. Women were not expected to be authors or educated, but they strived during the 19th and 20th century to fight this patriarchal society that has existed since the dawn of social construction.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, born in 1860 in the United States, was an influential intellectual and feminist who fought intensively against women 's inequality in north- american society. In many of her novels, shorts stories, poems, and nonfiction work, Charlotte Perkins portrayed the oppression suffered by women, and talked about the social changes she thought were necessary to achieve gender equality. Her most famous work the novel “The Yellow Wallpaper”, considered a classic in feminist literature. It is the story of an emotionally fragile woman who is taken by her own husband to therapeutic retreat in which the wall is clothed in a dark and scary yellow wallpaper.
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.
