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Yellow Wallpaper Identity

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The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman seems like a story about a woman suffering from Post Partem Depression, and a popular but extreme cure at the hands of her husband who is also her physician. However, this story is truly about a woman facing an identity crisis when she is forced to ‘rest’ in a room that literally makes her crazy. The narrator sees an imaginary figure within the wallpaper that encompasses her room and believes that the bars in the décor are holding the figure, or shadow, in place. This is symbolic of the narrator’s experiences with her diagnosis and treatment at the hands of her husband. Her fascination with the wallpaper ultimately leads to a complete collapse of her own identity and merges it with the figure …show more content…

The narrator writes “I didn’t realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a woman” (Gilman). As the author of The Blume Blog points out, “she does not seem to waiver at all in thinking that the ‘thing’ behind the wallpaper is specifically a woman,” indicating that the narrator is, perhaps unconsciously, starting to recognize herself in the woman behind the bars of the wallpaper. It’s no longer just in the wallpaper that the narrator sees this other woman either. She sees her in the garden “on that long road under the trees, creeping along” and hiding “under the blackberry vines” (Gilman). The narrator even starts to act as the woman in the wallpaper does by ‘creeping’ around the room, and the hallucinations of seeing this woman outside suggests the narrator’s own desire to escape and “be free of the reformatory she has been living in” (The Blume). Near the end of the story the narrator writes that “she has a rope so that if the woman does get out, and tries to get away, she can tie her” (Gilman). This is a dramatic turn where the identity of the protagonist has switched to that of the woman that the narrator saw behind the wallpaper. It appears she is in the mind of the very hallucination that led to her insanity (The Blume) and she worries that

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1002 Words | 5 Pages

The woman in the wallpaper is trapped just like she is. The narrator creates a figure that she could relate to and then spends all her time focused on the figure and trying to figure out how to help the woman in the wallpaper escape her cell. As the story continues and she remains isolated, it is obvious Jane views herself as the woman inside the wallpaper. As a result of being trapped in her room, she begins to lose her sanity. She believes she is trapped in the wallpaper and must escape its holds.

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581 Words | 3 Pages

As she understands that the women trapped in the wallpaper is a reflection of herself she free herself mentally. Resulting in her going

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611 Words | 3 Pages

This observation also serves as the narrator recognizing the paper’s, or boundary’s, relevance to herself; she sees a “woman”--a reflection of herself--trapped behind the paper, confined by that thin line that separates herself from total insanity. Her behavior becomes obsessive: she keeps a constant vigil of the wallpaper at night, and claims that the woman behind the wallpaper “is all the time trying to climb through” (348). And the narrator aids her escape--as soon as she is given the opportunity: “I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper” (349). The destruction of the wallpaper is symbolic of her fully delving into the world of insanity. From this point

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796 Words | 4 Pages

Women have also been the most likely to experience a form of depression. And this patient is no different. Today’s case will be centered around “The Yellow Wallpaper”, a book by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that tells the story of a woman gone mad for being trapped in a small room filled with yellow wallpaper. This story will be told like any report, and the protagonist will be referred to as a patient in the future. The patient, after research, suffers from postpartum as a result of childbirth and anxiety.

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410 Words | 2 Pages

The Wallpaper becomes a "living", narrating character which tells this story from the perspective of an it-narrative, mainly because of its intensive relationship with the main narrator. Physically, it cocoons the main character, and gradually, over the course of the character's descent into madness, also nears its own destruction until what has been trapped behind the wall, and within the main character, frees itself. Psychologically, the wallpaper in the story, has the role of conversation partner for the nameless character and becomes another narrator, one mirroring and narrating the character's inner life, which can then aids in the narration of what the woman can not say but what needs to be transmitted to the reader in order to make the character understandable (Tischleder 2014: 36).

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1113 Words | 5 Pages

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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1232 Words | 5 Pages

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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797 Words | 4 Pages

She becomes obsessed with the patterns of the wallpaper, but she mainly notices a woman that she thinks is trying to free herself from the confines of the wall. During the day this woman is still, but when night time comes around, it seems as though the woman creeps around. Towards the end of the story, the narrator has a breakdown and thinks that she is this woman inside of the wallpaper, and begins to perform similar actions like creeping around. This meaning of this scene is simple cause and effect. Not only did she already have postpartum depression, but she is basically trapped in this house for a whole summer with nothing to do so she can heal.

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1008 Words | 5 Pages

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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585 Words | 3 Pages

The story “ The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short but, very interesting storying demonstrating a Gothic Fiction. As you read the story you realize the narrator is someone who claims to see specters, spirits and even believes to seeing ghost. Not only is that a characteristic of a Gothic Fiction but, she is also seen to be a women in distress which also falls in the category of a Gothic Fiction story. With a very rocky introduction the story catches the reader's attention as you find out the wallpaper is to blame for the woman's possession. The story is written as a sequence of diary writing for a woman who is suffering from depression.

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814 Words | 4 Pages

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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498 Words | 2 Pages

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story written by Charlotte Perkin Gillman in 1892. Initially, reading this piece I was very intrigued as the title made me very curious and was very difficult to understand what was really going on. In reading this story, it’s hard not to notice just how close this piece relates to everyday life. The main character has an obsession with the wallpaper in her room that slowly, but surely develops into a fixation represented by uncontrolled emotions. She begins the story hating the wallpaper, but eventually after looking staring into the wallpaper she sees a figure of an imprisoned woman just like herself.

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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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484 Words | 2 Pages

The woman was obsessed with the wallpaper she begins to hallucinate that something was creeping on her. She had locked herself in the room and would not let anyone in the bedroom with her because she was trying to trap the creeper that she thought she saw. The narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” say,“‘Open the door, my darling!’ , ‘I can’t,’ said I. ‘ The key is down by the front door under a plantain leaf’”

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658 Words | 3 Pages

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the story of a young woman who is battling severe depression. The protagonist is essentially locked away for the summer as a cure for her psychological disorder(s) (Craig 36). Being locked in the house with the yellow wallpaper worsens her mental state and eventually drives her to insanity. Throughout the course of the story, the protagonist’s mental state noticeably declines; she claims there are people in the wallpaper and believes it is haunting her. Several Gothic themes are scattered throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper”; however, the protagonist’s isolation, the presence of insanity, and the occurring idea of supernatural elements are most prominent and can be used to justify “The Yellow

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