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The Yellow Wallpaper Literary Analysis

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In The Yellow Wallpaper, the cruel and disdainful nature towards women, especially women who don’t quite agree with convention, is displayed by several main characters and by the yellow wallpaper itself. My stance is that through symbolism and characterization, the yellow wallpaper represents the abstract concept of oppression, especially for women in a general sense, and John represents the concrete concept of oppression--the oppressor. Gilman pushes the yellow wallpaper throughout the story as the central figure of blame for the narrator’s descent into madness. The narrator becomes blindingly obsessed with this one key element of the setting, and makes this her prime instigator of insanity. In the beginning, she constantly refers to the wallpaper, …show more content…

However, the yellow wallpaper is also her liberator, as the narrator sees and understands to an extent the woman and the patterns in it. When staring at the paper, she muses, “There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will” (119). The yellow wallpaper in this case represents oppression that forms in conceptual ways, such as laws, culture, and general emotions or ways of thought. These are methods of oppression that the narrator cannot physically see or maybe even comprehend. The narrator stares at the wallpaper, thinking, “I know a little of the principle of design, and I know this thing was not arranged on...anything else that I ever heard of”(118). She focuses on these abstract systems to shift blame away from the actual physical being who instilled these laws and upholds the standard patriarchal culture of this time. “Dear John! He loves me dearly and hates to have me sick,” is a repeated mantra throughout the story, as she digs for excuses and for blame to be placed elsewhere. This prevents her from having to confront an ugly truth, but at the same time, her

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The yellow wall paper represents the oppression of women by the male dominated society at the time. Evidence 2 Another metaphor is the women behind the paper the main character sees. This represents the trapper soul of the narrator and the abused souls of women in society at the time. Effect Overall, this use of metaphors serves as an effective tool to convey an overall message or image.

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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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Though she is unaware of it, she was responsible for the damages to the bedstead. In addition, her changing perspective on the wallpaper indicates her becoming increasingly unreliable. At first, she states that” This wallpaper has a kind of sub-pattern…a particularly irritating one.” (The Project Gutenberg eBook of the Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman). As she spends more time in the nursery as part of her treatment and less time partaking in more stimulating activities, she starts to see the pattern as a living woman.

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Passage Analysis #1 Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman, in this particular passage of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” explores the theme of female oppression through imagery and symbolism of the wall-paper. These elements of literature make the wall-paper come to life for both the narrator and the audience. “The front pattern does move”(55) personifies the wall-paper to be so animate and physically restraining that the woman behind it must shake it to attempt to escape. The italicization of “does” serves to further affirm that the wallpaper exhibits restrictive human-like behaviors - particularly those of dominant men in society. The narrator states that there are “a great many woman behind”(55), extending the metaphor to all Victorian women in the United States and others around the world who are oppressed.

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Oppression is defined as prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control. Cruel and unjust punishment is just the beginning for the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Charlotte Gilman while writing the “The Yellow Wallpaper” deciding to make it into a series of diary entries from a woman who is suffering from post-partum depression. The narrator begins by describing this large home that she and her husband have rented for the summer. Their summer house stands away from the road and contains many locks and little houses.

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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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854 Words | 4 Pages

“The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins, represent the oppression women faced, for a long period of time. The story goes into intense detail, to explain the struggles women faced to gain intellectual, social, and political freedoms. One of the things Charlotte Perkins, tries to convey to the audience is patriarchal power and oppression, and how harsh it really is and was. There are multiple times the male characters showed dominance over the unnamed narrator. They did this by treating her in a child like manner,they stripped her of all intellectual freedoms, and coerce her into believing what they believed.(that she was not as intelligent as they were.)

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In the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman represents how wretchedness is overlooked and changed into blended sentiments that eventually result in a significantly more profound enduring incongruity. The Yellow Wallpaper utilizes striking mental and psychoanalytical symbolism and an effective women's activist message to present a topic of women' have to escape from detainment by their male centric culture. In the story, the narrator's better half adds to the generalization individuals put on the rationally sick as he confines his significant other from social circumstances and keeps her in an isolated house. The narrator it's made out to trust that something isn't right with her and is informed that she experiences some illness by her own significant other John.

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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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It 's here where she discovers the yellow wallpaper that leads to her mental demise. What is the symbolic meaning of the yellow wallpaper and how do her interactions with the wallpaper represent the change in her feelings towards her husband and society. The yellow wallpaper symbolizes women 's suffrage and the struggles women went through, and her interactions with the wallpaper represent the problems woman had with their husbands and society. The main symbolism present in the story is how the yellow wallpaper represents woman suffrage and the problems they endured during the 19th century.

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She wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” in an effort to open the public’s eyes to the unfairness of this treatment. By infusing Jane’s narrative with childish language and actions without ever actually calling “Jane” by her name, Gilman creates a universal experience any woman of the time could insert herself into. This allowed women to fully realize the injustice they faced. John’s belittlement of Jane also serves to create both a universal and eye opening experience for the women reading it. Additionally, for those who were willing to read into the symbolism, the nursery and the meaning underlying it added to the injustice Gilman conveys.

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However, in stories such as “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator’s point of view is what truly helps define the setting and symbolism. Without the narrator’s distinct point of view on how she

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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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1155 Words | 5 Pages

Nonetheless, the narrator continues to pen her ideas about the wallpaper as it transpired from being perplexing to gaining clarity each day. Amidst arriving at a full conclusion of what the wallpaper depicts, the narrator says she sees “a woman stooping down and creeping about behind the pattern” (Perkins Gilman, 50). As the days passed,

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She identified the yellow wallpaper as a metaphor for women’s discourse. The narrator’s underlying feelings of confusion, depression, and frustration was covered by the yellow wallpaper which she rips from the walls at the very end to reveal “what is elsewhere kept hidden and embodies patterns that the patriarchal order ignores, suppresses, fears as grotesque or fails to perceive at all” (35). The yellow wallpaper is interpreted as the conflict of gender inequality and the struggles of women in a patriarchal society. The imagery reflects on how women feel toward sexual inequality and the situation with

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