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The Yellow Wallpaper Symbol Analysis

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Symbols found in “The Yellow Wallpaper” Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a riveting story about a young woman who becomes depressed, after having a baby.Her husband believes he has found a remedy for her abasement, which is known in the story as the “rest cure”. Which entails her staying in a bed in a room, where the only thing to look at is the yellow wallpaper. Charlotte Gilman, who is known for her regular use of symbols, fills this tale with several underlying meanings. Gilman shows the protagonist feeling trapped, depressed, and damaged through symbols. Gilman uses symbols to show the main character feeling trapped. The first example of this is the garden that narrator can see just outside the windows(McClinton-Temple 484). The garden is something that the narrator has loved ever since she moved into the house, and the fact that she cannot touch the garden or go outside shows that she is trapped. The second example of the narrator feeling trapped is the bed …show more content…

The first example of this is the state of the wallpaper (Gilman 3). The wallpaper is described as dull and damaged in several different ways, just like the narrator who is also dull and damaged. The way the narrator's husband treats her is also a huge symbol (Gilman 10). The main character's husband treats her as if she is damaged, and he is also very oppressive to her. The “Rest Cure” that John, her husband, gives her is a huge symbol (Gilman 10). She is given a treatment plan because she is seen as damaged by her husband John, who thinks that this “Rest Cure” will fix her. This “Rest Cure” only drives the woman to insanity. Symbolism,which is a key literary element in Charlotte Gilman’s work , is used to portray many different messages throughout the story. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman, it is very evident that Gilman symbolically shows the narrator feeling trapped, depressed, and damaged throughout the

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Literary Devices in The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman is an American novelist, author and feminist. Born July 3, 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut, she died August 17, 1935 in Pasadena, California. She is best known for her short story 'The Yellow Wallpaper', the story of a young couple, John and Charlotte, who also happen to be new parents. The wife not only suffers from postpartum depression, but she also slowly descends into a state of psychosis due to the yellow wallpaper from her room in the summer house where they were staying. This short story is rich in literary devices such as imagery, symbolism, and personification, which will soon be explored in depth.

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In literature, authors used symbolism to improve on their writing, putting a deeper meaning into the words or phrases of the novel. Symbolism is when a word or phrase is portraying something else or has a deeper meaning of the word where the reader has to use clues near it to figure out the meaning of it. In the novel The Great Gatsby,F. Scott Fitzgerald uses symbolism. The author’s employment of symbolism through the Green light contributes to the unequivocally clear message of the American dream and how the dream is there but not always reachable for some.

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One of the three main symbols used were the grandmothers clothing. This was shown by in the beginning she cared solely about how others saw her whereas towards the end she didn't care for her apparel and truly on cared for finding grace and redemption. Another main symbol used was the weather. The weather in the story started off with no clouds and no sun during the day and ended clear with no clouds showing that the grandmother, in the end, was able to find grace and redemption through a tough time. The last main symbol shown in the story by Flannery O'Connor was Bailey's shirt.

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The most important way in which people perceive the world is through vision. Humanity’s reliance on vision has lead people to correlate specific colors with specific emotions or concepts. Authors have exploited people’s natural perception of colors to use them as powerful symbols in literary works. These symbols help convey profound ideas in a graceful and easily-interpretable way. Symbols are heavily employed by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the quintessential American novel: The Great Gatsby.

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It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of English places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people”(Gilman). This quote is showing people at the beginning of the story how she views her situation. She 's in love with where she is and what she has.

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In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is suffering from postpartum depression. The narrator 's husband John, who also happens to be her physician, prescribes the rest cure to help lift his wife of her depressive state and ultimately heal her depression. However, the rest cure does not allow the narrator to experience any mental stimulation. Therefore, to manage her boredom the narrator begins obsessing over the pattern of the yellow wallpaper. After analyzing the pattern for awhile, the narrator witnesses a woman trapped behind bars.

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Throughout many brilliant works of literature, a common item is placed amongst them: symbols. Symbols are often a key to further understanding a point the author is trying to convey to their readers. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel, The Great Gatsby, he utilizes the literary tool of symbols to illustrate a larger picture for his themes and characters within the novel. For example, the color green plays a prominent role in The Great Gatsby throughout the duration of the novel. However, the color has can have various interpretations.

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The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story full of imaginative symbolism and descriptive settings. However, without the narrator’s unique point of view and how it affects her perception of her environment, the story would fail to inform the reader of the narrator’s emotional plummet. The gothic function of the short story is to allow the reader to be with the narrator as she gradually loses her sanity and the point of view of the narrator is key in ensuring the reader has an understanding of the narrator’s emotional and mental state throughout the story. It’s clear from the beginning of the story that the narrator’s point of view greatly differs from that of her husband’s and other family in her life.

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The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story told through diary entries of a woman who suffers from postpartum depression. The narrator, whose name is never mentioned, becomes obsessed with the ugly yellow wallpaper in the summer home her husband rented for them. While at the home the Narrator studies the wallpaper and starts to believe there is a woman in the wallpaper. Her obsession with the wallpaper slowly makes her mental state deteriorate. Throughout The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses many literary devices such as symbolism, personification and imagery to help convey her message and get it across to the reader.

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The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892 shows mental illness through the narrator first hand. The theme in this story is going insane verses loneliness as well as being trapped. These themes are shown through the main character (the narrator of the story) as she works through her own mind, life, and surroundings. First, the theme of the woman’s state of mind is the main focus in this story.

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To be trapped in one's own mind may be the worst prison imaginable. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper", the narrator of the story is constantly at battle with many different forces, such as John, her husband, the yellow wallpaper that covers the walls of her room, and ultimately herself. Throughout the story the narrator further detaches herself from her life and becomes fixated on the yellow wallpaper that surrounds her in her temporary home, slowly driving her mad. The narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a major and dynamic character as she is the main character of the story, and throughout the story her personality and ways of thinking change drastically.

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator, Jane, has postpartum depression. In order to cure this depression, John, Jane’s husband and a doctor, administer the rest treatment on her. Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” through her personal experience. Along with writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” she wrote an explanation for why she wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

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For instance, there is an understanding of the woman’s feelings as she describes “a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down” and the pattern looking at her “as if it knew what a vicious influence it had” (Gilman 437). The personification is symbolic in displaying how the woman felt as she was stuck in the lonely room with allowance of her husband and Jennie, their child’s nanny, keeping their eyes on her with the dependence of her healing. Additionally, the woman specifies that behind the yellow wallpaper she can see “a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to sulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design” (Gilman 438). As the appearance of the wallpaper is personified, the author taps into the hidden meaning that the woman’s sickness is taunting her as she is attempting to heal. In the end, readers are given the most significant piece of personification in the statement, “and then when the sun came and that awful pattern began to laugh at me, I declared that I would finish it today!”

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Alice Walker uses imagery and diction throughout her short story to tell the reader the meaning of “The Flowers”. The meaning of innocence lost and people growing up being changed by the harshness of reality. The author is able to use the imagery to show the difference between innocence and the loss of it. The setting is also used to show this as well.

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The yellow wallpaper is not just the dreadful décor the narrator is stuck within the story but the most important symbol in the story. It symbolizes how women were not allowed to change or free to make their own decisions. The narrator once said that the wallpaper "sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it" (Gilman). She felt like the wallpaper stuck and not able to succumb to change she demonstrates this as well when she says "The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out" (Gilman). The narrator herself became the women she saw in the wallpaper that she felt trapped in a life without change which manifested itself into the wallpaper further increasing the symbolism and importance of yellow wallpaper.

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