“The Various Conflicts in “The Yellow Wall-paper"
“The Yellow Wall-paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story about a woman who is suffering from severe depression following the birth of her child. The narrator’s husband John is a well-respected physician who prescribes a rest cure for his wife. A rest cure is when someone does minimal physical activity and has very little mental stimulation. John rents a summer home and confines his wife, the narrator, to a large, airy upper room with yellow wallpaper, bars on the window, and scratches on the floor. She is isolated from everyone except her husband and her sister-in-law Jennie. While in confinement the narrator finds relief and comfort in writing in her secret diary. “The Yellow Wall-paper” perfectly depicts emotional, intellectual, and physical conflicts throughout the story.
The emotional conflict seen in “The Yellow Wall-paper” is between the narrator and her depression. The
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After being confined to the upper room, the narrator begins to obsess over the yellow wallpaper and conjure up of the idea that there is an imprisoned woman behind the wallpaper waiting to be freed. The narrator seems to relate to the woman behind the wallpaper as she feels as though she is imprisoned also. The narrator becomes plagued by the woman behind the wallpaper and she begins to peel off all of the wallpaper to free the woman. She starts crawling around the room and the narrator is convinced that she is trapped and was once herself in the wallpaper. The narrator’s descent into complete madness escalates and the narrator is creeping along the walls of the room and her husband arrives. John, her husband realizes that his wife, the narrator has completely lost it and he faints with horror. The narrator continues to creep around and around the room, walking over her fainted