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The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Stetson

1234 Words5 Pages

Physical and mental illnesses are impacted by various variables such as lifestyle factors including work, diet, drugs, and lack of sleep, if you experience a problem there are usually factors that cause the issue. While everyone is impacted differently, the interaction of these variables plays a key role in the onset and course of various diseases. The origins and consequences of physical and mental health problems demonstrate how lifestyle variables may affect a person's well-being. The causes and/or effects of a physical or mental ailment have a complicated relationship between social determinants, inactivity, & environment, emphasizing the significance of addressing underlying causes to alleviate their negative effects. In the modern world, …show more content…

According to The Yellow Wallpaper ”John, laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.” (Stetson) What she means is that she grapples with the stifling expectations imposed by society, which dictate her role as a dutiful wife and mother. The confinement and her husband's dismissive attitude towards her creative aspirations exacerbate feelings of powerlessness and isolation. As a result, she experiences a profound sense of alienation contributing to her deteriorating mental state. For example, her enforced bed rest and isolation exacerbate her feelings of confinement and entrapment, fueling her descent into psychosis. The Yellow Wallpaper states “Personally, I disagree with their ideas”. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do?” (Stetson) She struggles to suppress her emotions and conform to societal norms, stifling her creativity and autonomy in the process. Stetson vividly portrays the internal turmoil as she grapples with conflicting desires for self-expression and conformity. The fixation on the yellow wallpaper symbolizes her repressed desires and fragmented psyche, culminating in a harrowing descent into madness. The mental illness estranges her from her family, friends, and society at large, exacerbating feelings of loneliness and isolation. Mental illness strips her sense of identity and agency, rendering her powerless to assert herself or advocate for her own well-being. Stetson poignantly portrays the gradual disintegration as she loses touch with her sense of self and becomes subsumed by the oppressive forces of patriarchal society. The yellow wallpaper serves as a powerful symbol of the protagonist's deteriorating mental

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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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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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Since her husband, a physician of high standard, has prescribed a "rest cure" for her nervous condition, the protagonist is forced to suppress her creative urges and conform to societal expectations of a submissive and passive wife who is to remain still in a room with “the yellow wallpaper.” This suppression ultimately leads to her descent into madness as she struggles to reconcile her own desires with the expectations placed upon her. While the lady narrates the entire story, it is interesting to note that she is not in control of her own life and decisions. Rather, she is a victim of societal norms and gender roles that restrict her agency and

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The bed in her room may represent her inability to leave the bounds of her own thinking, while the barred windows stand for her lack of independence as she is locked in a prison cell. The narrator’s imaginative descriptions of the room’s suffocating environment, from its “air of hush and secrecy” to its “queer odor”, build the sensation of psychological tension as the story goes on, making the reader more sympathetic to the narrator’s situation and circumstances. The narrator also goes in-depth about the issues of female oppression and the silence of women's voices in a patriarchal society using effective imagery that helps her get her point across. Symbolism At its core, the yellow wallpaper embodies the protagonist's deteriorating mental state and her gradual descent into madness. Initially described as "unclean" and "revolting," the wallpaper's vibrant yellow hue and labyrinthine patterns mirror the protagonist's fragmented psyche and a growing sense of

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The Yellow Wallpaper Literary Analysis Essay Identity is key to the one who seizes it. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator has an identity that the author demonstrates. The narrator has an internal battle within herself, that may express depression or a severe mental illness. The narrator shows identity from her actions, reactions, thoughts, and expectations.

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Within the mind of the Narrator, she would always admit to the reader that she has a mental illness. Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Stetson explained the story in First Person, as if it was a diary, and it showed how she was slowly going insane with the wallpaper in the baby’s room. With the narrator’s opinion about the wallpaper, she found the whole thing to be disgusting and vile, which can be figured to imagery, foreshadowing and the point of view that is presented in the story. First of all, Stetson did not grow very fond of the yellow wallpaper as it may have represented her troubles, such as her marriage, family and even her own life. She had described it directly and firmly that the color is “a smoldering unclean yellow”(Stetson)

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The male character, John represents characteristics of a typical male of his time, supressing his wife and disregarding any issues she conveyed. The short story portrays the deterioration of the female character’s mind. As the wallpaper crumbles away, so does the suppressing effect that male hierarchy imposes on women. This also leads to the narrator’s mind collapsing as she descends more into madness. The progression of the yellow wallpaper and the narrator, throughout the story, leads to a small win over John.

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Secondly, throughout the story, the narrator describes seeing an evolving woman trapped inside of the wall. Although readers can assume that this woman is merely a product of the narrator’s mind, the woman can also be seen as a symbol of the narrator and her feelings of being trapped. Eventually, the woman in the wall aids the narrator in her escape. In conclusion, many elements of the narrator’s increasing madness throughout The Yellow Wallpaper contributed to her freedom from the confines of the room, the confines of society, and the confines of her

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As this progresses, the woman starts to go mad from ignorance and starts to believe there is someone behind the Wallpaper. In her room, the narrator starts to obsess over the Wallpaper. The Wallpaper symbolizes women starting to realize how unfair they were treated and how responded to this. As the women’s illness keeps getting subdued by her husband, she starts to go mad and the wallpaper demonstrates this. In the third entry of her diary she says, “Of

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Themes prevalent in “The Yellow Wallpaper” include; self expression, independence, freedom, and marriage. This story shows the psychological horrors one endures as a woman struggling with postpartum depression in the 1800’s. Self expression was one of the most important themes of this story. The restrictions put on Charlotte affected her mental state heavily. Being forced to remain in a false state of happiness and ignore her actual feelings drives her further into insanity.

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Martin states that the narrator’s confinement in the upstairs bedroom fortifies her mental illness developing into “a frightening hallucinatory world constructed around the pattern of the yellow paper on the wall.” This shift in her identity happens as the shift in her disposition towards the wallpaper changes. The wallpaper is a visible metaphor that eventually becomes her identity. In the beginning of her stay in the bedroom she says the wallpaper is “committing artistic sin” (Par34) and can push anyone to “suddenly commit suicide” (Par35) These comments show her despise towards the wallpaper and the separation she originally has from it.

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How she describes her surroundings and her interactions with her family evolves as her condition worsens. By the end, the reader can truly see just how far gone the narrator has gone. The narrator’s fixation on the yellow wallpaper had gone from a slight obsession to full mental breakdown. As it is with most good stories, the presence of strong symbolism and detailed settings is a very important aspect of the story that helps to draw the reader into the story.

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She begins to slip away from reality and into her dreamlike world. The woman seen in the wallpaper mirrors the narrator 's plight for freedom. While she is free from the restraints of marriage and motherhood, she has been consumed by madness. John dominates the relationship, both as doctor and husband.

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(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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Enclosed to the four wall of this “big” room, the narrator says “the paint and paper look as if a boy’s school had used it” because “it is stripped off” indicating that males have attempted to distort women’s truth but somehow did not accomplish distorting the entire truth (Perkins Gilman, 43). When the narrator finally looked at the wall and the paint and paper on it, she was disgusted at the sight. The yellow wallpaper, she penned, secretly against the will of men, committed artistic sin and had lame uncertain curves that suddenly committed suicide when you followed them for a little distance. The narrator is forced to express her discomfort with the image to her husband, he sees it as an “excited fancy” that is provoked by the “imaginative power and habit of story making” by “a nervous weakness” like hers (Perkins Gilman, 46). Essentially, he believes that her sickness is worsening and the depth of her disease is the cause of the unexpected paranoia.

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