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The Role Of The Narrator In The Yellow Wallpaper

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The Yellow Wallpaper is a narrative story that was told by a woman who was experiencing an illness while telling her story. This peculiar narrative by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is different from other narratives because this one doesn’t introduce the narrator. The narrator is unnamed because the importance resides in the characteristics. In the first sentence of this story, “It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer” (307) tells us that the narrator and John are either high-end middle class or upper class because the ancestral halls would not be available for the lower class. From the passage “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage” (307) tells us that the narrator …show more content…

Once again, the narrator was told that she couldn’t do something because John said so. During this time, the narrator’s condition has gotten worse because she is seeing things in the wallpaper. “And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern.” (315). The narrator noticed this change in the wallpaper as her condition worsen. However, she decides to keep this a secret from John and his sister, Jennie because she is too wise. The narrator hates the hideous wallpaper, but yet she can’t stop herself from studying and analyzing the patterns behind the wallpaper. As time goes on, she began to notice that a woman was behind bars in the yellow wallpaper, who was trying to …show more content…

Ever since she set foot in the house, she has hated the hideous yellow wallpaper. Then after looking at it for months, she realized there is a women barred inside the yellow wallpaper. She realized the woman inside the wallpaper is herself because she said “I’ve got out at last, “in spite of you and Jane? And I’ve pulled most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” (320). Although we don’t know who Jane is, but it is most likely the narrator because she freed herself from John and her domestic self. The narrator was not allowed to do anything, but rest. She was mentally driven to insanity by her

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Only the charwoman goes near him. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator feels trapped by her husband and physician, John, because he is controlling and believes he knows what is best for her. The woman that the narrator sees in the wallpaper is eventually revealed to be

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As the narrator becomes more fascinated with the wallpaper she moves progressively away from her normal day-to-day routines and lifestyle. When the narrator finally recognizes herself as the woman trapped in the wallpaper she screams at her husband "I 've got out at last," (Gilman 656) "you can 't put me back" (Gilman 656). She realizes woman are forced to hide behind the internal patterns of their lives and they need that she needs to be

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The woman in the wallpaper is trapped just like she is. The narrator creates a figure that she could relate to and then spends all her time focused on the figure and trying to figure out how to help the woman in the wallpaper escape her cell. As the story continues and she remains isolated, it is obvious Jane views herself as the woman inside the wallpaper. As a result of being trapped in her room, she begins to lose her sanity. She believes she is trapped in the wallpaper and must escape its holds.

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The nineteenth century was a breeding ground for many literary movements, including realism, romanticism and naturalism. Realism consists of literature that is consistent, predictable, and sticks to the “simple truth” of how regular people live and talk. Romanticism is literature that contains things of intellect, strangeness and remoteness and tries to make the familiar unfamiliar. Finally, naturalism is literature that has regular people in extraordinary circumstances; the hero is at the mercy of larger social and natural forces, which are cruelly indifferent; traces of social Darwinism can be found in the literature and there is generally a brutal struggle for survival. Realism can be seen in The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman,

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581 Words | 3 Pages

John is Jane’s husband who is trying to control every aspect of Jane’s life. Jane states, “There comes John, and I must put this away-he hates to have me write a word.” (Gilman) This is just one of numerous situations and statements that the narrator shares with the audience. John’s influence also plays a big part in his dysfunctional marriage with Jane.

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894 Words | 4 Pages

Then after this she kinda just went beyond crazy. “I’ve got out at last, in spite of you and Jane. And i’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can 't put me back.” She wanted the woman in the yellow wallpaper to escape so she helped her out. Because her husband traumatized her she was always nervous and emotional.

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611 Words | 3 Pages

Initially, the narrator is disgusted and irritated by the paper, claiming, “I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” (339). This reaction mirrors that of a sane person’s--fearing the unknown, they distance themselves from insanity and any iteration of it, seeing it as grotesque and shameful. Yet, as she spends more time in the room, she grows interested in the wallpaper and begins to investigate. She comes to the conclusion that: “I didn 't realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a woman” (346).

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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.

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570 Words | 3 Pages

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the female narrator is greatly troubled by the suppression of her imagination by her husband and her ultimate isolation due to this subordination. These feelings are reflected through the author’s use of setting as the narrator’s dreary and malicious descriptions of the house and the wallpaper mirrors her emotional position. Throughout the reading, the reader is exposed to the narrator’s in-depth loss of touch with reality as she sinks further and further into her own reality. As she becomes more isolated, her descriptions of the house become more abstract as she begins to focus on the wallpaper and starts to see herself as being hidden behind it.

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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

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571 Words | 3 Pages

At the beginning of the short story Jane absolutely hates the wallpaper in her bedroom, but at the end Jane claims that she is “getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper.” (page ) At the beginning of the story Jane is aggravated at John and after John’s treatment she describes him as “so wise” (page ) and “loving [her] so.” (page ) Throughout the “Yellow Wallpaper” John consistently makes Jane’s condition worse and worse until she finally has a mental breakdown.

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814 Words | 4 Pages

However as time moves on, and the woman in the wallpaper becomes more and more real to her, it’s clear that her mental state is rapidly depleting. Her first description of a figure in the wallpaper came when she stated that the wallpaper had a “recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down” (219). By the time the story ends, the narrator had turned into the

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1202 Words | 5 Pages

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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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!”

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779 Words | 4 Pages

The short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a brilliant piece of fictional literature. The tale involves a mentally ill woman who is kept in a hideous, yellow room under the orders of her husband, John, who is a physician. The ill woman is conflicted due to the fact that the horrifying yellow wallpaper in the room is trapping a woman who she must help escape, but the sick woman is aware that she must get better in order to leave the terrifying, yellow room. The setting and personification applied in the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, allows readers to develop an understanding of the sickness of the main character faces.

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