ipl-logo

Yellow Wallpaper Symbolism

1777 Words8 Pages

Sidra Bedir Professor Raithel ENG 102 May 2024 The Yellow Wallpaper Literary Analysis Paper The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is written in the secret journal of a woman who suffers from a mental illness that is unknown throughout the story but is predicted to be postpartum depression. The woman’s husband is a physician and forces her to do things, claiming that they would treat her illness. He made her stay in a house far away from the world she used to live in, with nothing to do and nothing to feel. He also forced her to stay in a room that she hated because of its ugly yellow wallpaper. Eventually, due to all of the pressure to follow the rules and the anxiety that came along with it, she was driven into complete madness. …show more content…

Because of the child-like behavior she is receiving from everyone around her, she starts to think and act like a child as well. Since the yellow wallpaper seems to be the only thing she can control, she researches and discovers things about the wallpaper at an intellectual level to replace the work that has been forbidden to her. In the literary analysis “Environment as Psychopathological Symbolism in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper',” Loralee MacPike states: “Slowly, the wallpaper becomes something more than an object for the narrator. She begins to see in it a movement and a purpose she has been unable to realize in her own life.” (MacPike 7). Proving that the yellow wallpaper is occupying the narrator’s mind completely, leaving her no space to think logically like an adult. Connecting these symptoms to the symbol only leads to the conclusion that the narrator’s mental state has worsened. Her out-of-control behavior that can be compared to a child’s behavior; her obsession with the yellow wallpaper on a crazy level; and her loneliness that she attempts to cure using her toxic imagination are all proof of her worsened

Show More
Related

Similarities Between The Yellow Wallpaper And Lamb To The Slaughter

935 Words | 4 Pages

Together the themes of manipulation and mental illness will trigger a series of events that change their lives. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the protagonist becomes increasingly obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom and seclusion from human contact. This was a cure that her husband John prescribed that proved detrimental to her mental health. As she spends more time alone in the room, she becomes fixated on the patterns and images, slowly becoming convinced there is a woman behind the wall that is trapped and that she must free, "The front pattern does move—and no wonder!

Read More

Comparison Of Macbeth And The Yellow Wallpaper

939 Words | 4 Pages

During her time in the room she felt the room “at night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars!” (Gilman 304). The narrator of the yellow wallpaper descends into madness to escape the cruel dominance of her society. As the story progresses the yellow wallpaper becomes a constant companion. She first dislikes the color and despises the pattern, but after closely studying the pattern “a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design” and after obsessing over the painting she finds bars hidden.

Read More

Literary Analysis Essay On The Yellow Wallpaper

612 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More

Stetson's Point Of View In The Yellow Wallpaper

682 Words | 3 Pages

Within the mind of the Narrator, she would always admit to the reader that she has a mental illness. Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Stetson explained the story in First Person, as if it was a diary, and it showed how she was slowly going insane with the wallpaper in the baby’s room. With the narrator’s opinion about the wallpaper, she found the whole thing to be disgusting and vile, which can be figured to imagery, foreshadowing and the point of view that is presented in the story. First of all, Stetson did not grow very fond of the yellow wallpaper as it may have represented her troubles, such as her marriage, family and even her own life. She had described it directly and firmly that the color is “a smoldering unclean yellow”(Stetson)

Read More

AP Literary Analysis: The Yellow Wallpaper

1024 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More

Role Of Darkness In The Yellow Wallpaper

749 Words | 3 Pages

At night, her intense observation of the paper seems to change her very personality. She watches it as the patterns come to life to form the bars of her postpartum and her longing to be liberated. Darkness has the power to release the mask disguising human nature. In the story of "The Yellow Wallpaper", the main character is trapped by her sickness, constantly feeling as though she has no power to change the course of her life.

Read More

Essay Comparing Story Of An Hour And The Yellow Wallpaper

798 Words | 4 Pages

It's yellow color symbolizes the way the narrator feels about her situation. "Unclean", "dull", "sickly" is how she may have felt deep down about her relationship with her husband and the life she lived under him. The wallpaper itself becomes a symbol for her. She uses it as a coping method and projects her feelings onto it and the woman she sees in it. The windows symbolize how she is trapped in this marriage and she can only view the beautiful outside through the many windows, reminding her of what she cannot have.

Read More

Argumentative Essay On The Yellow Wallpaper

1096 Words | 5 Pages

The narrator is a woman who is imaginative trying to make her mind think and realize the meaning of the yellow wallpaper. She describes the wallpaper as, “repellant, almost revolting; smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow turning sunlight” (Gilman 641). This specific wallpaper makes the narrator feel a certain way. At first, she does not like the color or how it looks. But then not having anything else to do in the room, she starts examining the wallpaper.

Read More

Essay On The Narrator's Madness In The Yellow Wallpaper

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

Read More

Identity In The Yellow Wallpaper

1008 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More

Literary Criticism Of The Yellow Wallpaper

802 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More

The Yellow Wallpaper Symbolism Essay

1202 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More

Theme Of Mental Illness In The Yellow Wallpaper

562 Words | 3 Pages

(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!”

Read More

Personification In The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

779 Words | 4 Pages

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!”

Read More

Feminism In The Yellow Wallpaper

810 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More

More about Yellow Wallpaper Symbolism

Open Document