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Symbolism In Charlotte Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

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“Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good,” (Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” 779). In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Gilman writes of her lasting nervous breakdown, forcing confinement upon her inside of a nursery surrounded by a mysterious, twisting, and seemingly glooming yellow wallpaper. During this period of isolation, Gilman’s husband, John, forbids her to work and write. However, Gilman opposes this rule, ultimately realizing that her love and practice of writing aids in fighting her illness. “The Yellow Wallpaper” reinforces the theme of staying true to oneself despite the weight of society through its use of the setting, symbolism, and conflict. The setting of “The Yellow Wallpaper” adds to the isolated tone within the story. The house is described as alone, away from the road. There are many gates and locks, and separate small …show more content…

These many patterns symbolize the complexity of societal norms and how they can often trap a person, restricting freedom. Examples of Gilman being forced to submit into gender roles include the restraining of her intelligence through writing and the inability to visit or receive visitors. As Gilman goes against her husband and continues to write, she detects that the woman is attempting to shake her way free from behind bars. The more Gilman writes, the clearer the image of the woman’s struggle is seen. The idealization of the woman being set free in the end of the journal, along with Gilman opposing the rules of her husband and doing what she believes is best, is made to allow women to “remake themselves in men’s image, adopting the masculine ideals of rationality, career, and success,” (King and Morris

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There are many events that can foreshadow the rest of one’s life for the better, or, for the worst. In Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Jane (the narrator) struggles with a mental illness that causes her to become very weak so her husband, John, takes her to a country home to heal. While at the house she stays in a room that has old yellow wallpaper. Jane is deeply disturbed yet highly intrigued and maintains her deep inspections of the wallpaper as she stays there.

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The central idea in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins, Is that a person’s environment can lead to insanity. A writing strategy, which develops this idea, is symbolism. In Stenson’s short story, the narrator’s room symbolizes her confinement and being oppressed. An example where the narrator’s room symbolizes confinement is when she describes her room as, “a big airy room… for the windows are barred for little children…” (648). By the narrator describing the windows as barred, it gives off the feeling of being trapped.

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In literature, an author’s life experiences are often reflected in their writing. Likewise, the environment and time period of an author, plays a crucial role in the development of their stories. Many cultural, historical and political references are made in literary works. In her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman reflects upon her own struggles, along with the struggles that women faced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

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Gilman incorporates the literary techniques of tone and diction to provide the reader with a clear understanding of how the narrator falls into the beliefs of society, while she is confined and oppressed by her husband’s diagnosis of her being “Nervously Depressed”. Gilman’s use of both techniques allows the work to come together as a whole, and demonstrates the idea that women are content with living in a world were men is seen as more intelligent, able-minded and higher in standard than woman,

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” narrates an ill and depressed wife slowly plummeting into insanity as she becomes obsessed with the wallpaper she hates. Gilman reveals the theme of self-isolation and its dire effects by displaying the narrator’s progressive unstable mental state throughout the story by developing the narrator’s obsession with the wallpaper, her inferiority to her husband, and how the wallpaper parallels the narrator. Gilman develops the narrator’s obsession with the wallpaper later in the story, contradicting the narrator’s distasteful attitude towards it early in the story. “I never saw a worse paper in my life.”

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How does Charlotte Gilman approach the idea of women writing in her story The Yellow Wallpaper? In the 1890s, women were seen as intellectually incompetent; men perceived writing to encourage negative ideas in women. In the story The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman conveys how work and expression through writing is good for the female mind, despite common belief. Only when the narrator is encouraged to stop writing does her mind begin to unravel. The work of writing was keeping the narrator sane; it was her hold on humanity: the world outside of the room with the horrendous wallpaper.

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Charlotte Gilman’s short narrative “The Yellow Wallpaper” communicates a message to women to combat male dominance. She walks readers through the experience of a woman being controlled by her husband and has them see everything through her lens, portrayed by many journal entries. It shows the progression of her mental and physical state as she undergoes his control and spends the majority of the story in the same place because of him. Through the actions of the characters and symbolism, Charlotte Gilman argues against men’s control over women and their need to resist it, which displays how women's lives can be negatively affected when abiding by their authority and doing nothing to withstand it.

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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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Charlotte Gilman’s short story, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, (1899) is a text that describes how suppression of women and their confinement in domestic sphere leads to descend into insanity for escape. The story is written as diary entries of the protagonist, who is living with her husband in an old mansion for the summer. The protagonist, who remains unnamed, is suffering from post-partum depression after the birth of her child and is on ‘rest’ cure by her physician husband. In this paper, I will try to prove that ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ acts as a subversive text by portraying the protagonist’s “descent into madness” as a result of the suppression that women faced in Victorian period.

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Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-paper,” tells the story of a well-off, married woman experiencing a “nervous depression” (193) that is likely postpartum depression. To treat her illness her husband, a physician, whisks her away to the countryside where she is prescribed to rest and do absolutely no stimulating work or activity, a parallel to Gilman’s own experience of rest cure (Berke et al. 193). While the unnamed narrator who tells the story in first person, does not agree with this form of treatment, she resigns to following the prescription or at least pretending to follow the order. The narrator is confined to what is supposedly a former nursery to “rest” and “get air” (Gilman 194). Here, the narrator has an immediate reaction to the horrible yellow wallpaper (Gilman 195).

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It is evident that change is a natural component in the average person’s life. Some however, are more drastic than others. This is exhibited through the first-person narrator of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall Paper”, who undergoes a drastic change in her health due to postpartum depression, her relationships with the individuals around her, and her isolation. These changes later develop an internal conflict in the form of a troubling identity plight.

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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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The narrator leads a fairly boring life. The only thing she seems to do all day is sleep, write, eat, look out the window and study the yellow wallpaper in her room. Evidence of this in the story is “I lie here on this great immovable bed - it is nailed down, I believe - and follow that pattern about by the hour” (Gilman 650). Another piece of evidence would be, “The color is repellant, almost revolting ; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others” (Gilman 649).

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the story of a young woman who is battling severe depression. The protagonist is essentially locked away for the summer as a cure for her psychological disorder(s) (Craig 36). Being locked in the house with the yellow wallpaper worsens her mental state and eventually drives her to insanity. Throughout the course of the story, the protagonist’s mental state noticeably declines; she claims there are people in the wallpaper and believes it is haunting her. Several Gothic themes are scattered throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper”; however, the protagonist’s isolation, the presence of insanity, and the occurring idea of supernatural elements are most prominent and can be used to justify “The Yellow

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