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The Yellow Wallpaper Insanity

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Have you ever wondered what you would do if you were trapped in a room with nothing to do? In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the main character Jane tells her husband about her unstable mental state, her husband John who is a doctor requires her to stay locked in a room with hideous yellow wallpaper, and not do anything she would normally do or what she would like to do. John had good intentions and believed that Jane being locked in a room will give her time to reflect on herself and get better. But, this just made Jane’s mental state even worse to the point where she thought that there was a woman moving in the yellow wallpaper and it drives her insane. John’s decisions were actually considered normal in the late 1800s, …show more content…

Jane has become so insane that she thinks the yellow wallpaper in the room that she is locked in has a woman trapped inside it who is moving around. “The front pattern does move—and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!” (Perkins 654). Over the time that Jane has been in the room the women trapped inside the yellow wallpaper that keeps moving drives her more and more insane. This leads to her losing touch with reality and it makes her slowly go crazy throughout the story. This shows that when you are locked in a room with nothing to do you will go crazy, it shows how inhumane it is to lock someone in a room so they can try and “fix their problems.” This may seem crazy how Jane was locked in a room and it lead to her becoming insane. But, this was surprisingly very common and a realistic thing in the 1800s and many women were treated in unfair, inhumane ways. This shows realism because lots of how many women used to be locked in a room with just their thoughts, and most of the time it just made their mental state and problems

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To the same idea, the narrator, Jane, in The Yellow Wallpaper is physically sheltered as she is on bed rest per her husband's orders. Jane describes her room; the room has “...windows are barred for little children” (The Yellow Wallpaper”, 76). The bedroom Jane is trapped in resembles a prison cell. To further shelter Jane, her husband does not allow her to see other people; Jane hopes to see her cousin Henry and Julia but “...John says…he would soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let me have those stimulating people about now” (The Yellow Wallpaper, 78).

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No one could see that the narrator is completely unstable because she is withdrawn from everyone as an effect of her depression. By the time the husband notices her state of mind, it is too late. The narrator is mentally gone and stuns the husband. As the husband faints, Jane is too withdrawn to respond; therefore, she continues her routine although her husband’s body is lying in the way. She loses her sanity because she has to find companionship in wallpaper since she could not associate with any living beings.

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It is a story that could actually happen. In the story, Jane expresses concerns about her mental health to her husband, John, a doctor, who through good intentions and believing that he is doing the right thing, requires that his wife stays in bed all the time, and not do any of the things she would normally or would like to do. Due to being bed ridden, Jane becomes worse until she reached the limit and goes crazy. John’s behavior and decisions at this time were considered to be completely normal. The Yellow Wallpaper is considered to fall in the genre of realism because it represents the way life was for women during the nineteenth century.

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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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Jane's being kept under isolation treatment by her husband created a phenomenon of her being obsessed with the wallpaper that caught her interest. Truly revealing the flaws of her treatments while breaking down the wallpaper as a whole. "There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern, the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous.

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(Perkins GIlaman 14). Jane's hallucinations got so bad she caved and tore off all the wallpaper. Now that the woman in the wallpaper is out Jane is free from the hallucinations. Although the caretaker has hallucinations they aren't as bad as Jane’s where she does not even identify with herself making her more

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Throughout the generation, women have always been trapped in some way or another. In the short story, ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’ and the novel ‘The Awakening’ highlights the struggle of women in the late 1800’s and the early 1900s in society. The Yellow wallpaper is a short story about women giving birth and being imprisoned in a room with a weird view of the yellow wall-paper. This resulted in her hallucination lead to the development of mental illness. By the end of the story, she rips off the yellow wallpaper and kills her husband.

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This differs greatly from Jane, who begins to sympathize with the plight of all domestic women through her experience with the woman behind the yellow wallpaper. Although she initially frowned upon the woman’s efforts to escape, the more her mental health deteriorated, the more she began to relate her plight to that of the trapped woman, both prisoners desperate for escape. With her newfound revelation, she sought to save the trapped woman from her prison, subconsciously freeing herself in the process. “As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her…I wonder if they all came out of that wallpaper as I did?… “I’ve got out at last,” said I, “in spite of you and Jane!

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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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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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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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