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Yellow Wallpaper Symbolism

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When thinking of doctors most think of a kind, warm, helpful individual. However, this was not the case in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. In fact, readers are introduced to the psychologically harmful techniques that the doctor’s prescribed to the patient. The doctor’s thought they were helping, yet the treatments caused more damage than good. In this story the doctors treating the main character is her husband and brother. The husband does not believe anything is wrong with his wife, except a case of “temporary nervous depression -- a slight hysterical tendency”(Gilman 648). In this quote the reader's experience how a doctor undermines the patient's condition, treating it has a slight hysterical tendency. This breaks the image most have of caring …show more content…

This symbolizes a deep message, the main character describes the room “for the windows are barred for little children”(Gilman 648). Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses this symbol to describe what sort of depression and illness the main character is going through; postpartum depression. Within this passage readers understand the main characters illness in the story far better and what the bars symbolize. The bars may symbolize the boundaries with the character and the child she just had, keeping a distance away from the child. Furthemore, the window itself is a great usage of symbolism. Windows are one of the most common uses of symbolism in literature. The window symbolizes a passage for the main character to go through and change, and the window being barred is highly significant in literature. Near the end of the story the main character states “ I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try.”(Gilman 656) In this passage readers may see the symbolism behind the window and bars, the main character is at a point of desperation, looking for a point of escape. The window would be the ideal escape point that would be symbolic transformation, yet the bars are too strong. The bars show once again the entrapment a woman faces from society as a wife, mother, and woman. The window and bars is one of the

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Irene has become convinced that Clare and Brian are having an affair, and she spends most of the party sulking in the corner before opening up the window (110). Up until this point, each time a window has been mentioned it has been closed. The opening of the window symbolizes Irene’s anger towards Clare reaching a boiling point because on the next page Irene becomes infuriated by the sight of the Clare smiling once John discovers that Clare is indeed Black (111). This mention of Clare by the window is the only time we see Clare next to a window. Each time Irene has been next to a window she is reflecting on how experiences have impacted her life negatively, but for Clare, she’s smiling next to the window even though her lie has fallen apart.

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1445 Words | 6 Pages

The windows are a representation of what Esperanza does not want to be. Her goal is to leave Mango Street and become something better. She does not want her life to be sitting by a window wishing for something better. She wants to be able to live her life without being tied down to something.

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588 Words | 3 Pages

Treichler starts off her article by grabbing the attention of the reader adequately by presenting the controversial ideas of improper diagnosis by a domineering husband taking advantage of the time periods stereotype of hysterical women. She then persuasively depicts the setting of the story and adds some sympathy for the narrator who is being forced to accept her diagnosis. The introduction she gives is excellent because it provides the background information to the story and adequately prepares the points that she wants to get across to the

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1568 Words | 7 Pages

As Geyh argues in her essay, the window is the boundary of the house, which simultaneously separates and connects the inside and the outside (111). By turning the light on, it goes dark; “[f]unctioning as a mirror, it creates a circle of inwardness” (111). It sustains the illusion that what is inside is the only reality that exists, since the outside is no longer visible. The window then emerges as a separation tool from nature outside rather than a means of

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683 Words | 3 Pages

This book has lots of window and mirror because there are things in the book that show me new perspectives and other things that are relatable. The reason this book is a window is that it shows a town that is doing through a tough time. “We call this period ‘the hungry season.’ In the countryside, people are working the hardest they work all year to prepare their fields, but doing so with the least

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886 Words | 4 Pages

Through this quote, it is evident that Mrs. Mallard experiences confinement in the sense that, everything is moving forward without her. She feels as though she is confined to grieve over the loss of her husband, yet everything outside of this window is free to do as they please. To move along in life, not worrying about the past, but continuing on in the present. By making this realization, this now transforms the room into an imprisonment and less of an escape, which it was initially intended to be. Moreover, this further progresses the theme of confinement within the story, as the window, acts as a buffer between worlds; the one in which Mrs. Mallard would like to join and the room she now wants to remove herself

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189 Words | 1 Pages

After this encounter, she looks out of the window to attempt to see who was knocking at the door. Cieraad (1999) describes the importance of the window, and what the window represents to the home. Windows can be portrayed as a transparent border that separates the inside and outside realms, disconnecting the private home to the public world. She notes how houses in the 18th Century had large sash windows. These act as a visible barrier between the home and the outside world.

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2006 Words | 9 Pages

The use of enclosures, particularly walls, windows, and mirrors serves as a metaphor for the state of freedom of the heroine. While both stories are about freedom and how the women gain it, there is a key

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157 Words | 1 Pages

“The Window” is the first part of the novel. Here we get to know the characters with in the novel. James, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey wants to go to see the nearby lighthouse. Mr. Ramsey says it will not happen because of the weather does not allow it. James desperately wants to go to the lighthouse and gets mad at his father for saying they can not go.

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640 Words | 3 Pages

Because Esperanza is capable of finding love as she says, the window acts as a device that she can direct her hope through. While fantasizing about a different life, “away from Mango Street”, Esperanza describes a house that she would find nice, a house with “flowers and big windows … [that] would swing open, all the sky [coming] in” (Cisneros 82). Esperanza isn’t content with her current life and wishes for a life with something more, a life with a house to call home. The windows that bring in the sky in Esperanza’s dream home act as a symbol for significance in life, the windows are big because they are part of Esperanza’s hopes that she has been dreaming of through windows and the sky coming in represents Esperanza being wild and free from the bounds of her current unsatisfactory environment. Windows symbolize the novel’s theme of struggling to attain a gratifying life by acting as an object for the characters to direct their hope

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488 Words | 2 Pages

The open window represents freedom and new possibilities that for Mrs. Mallard now that her husband has died. Her sorrow is replaced by a

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1145 Words | 5 Pages

Actually, the windows are like the division of violence and silence. Moreover, because of being too thin and defenseless for bullets, they also symbolize very thin lines between violence-peace and individually-society. The second symbol in the movie is “doors”. Firstly, it symbolizes sexual discrimination within Corleones family. In the movie, while these doors is separating one room from another ,actually divide the home two pieces ; male stuff like business and domestic female world in family.

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1291 Words | 6 Pages

The "windows are barred" (648), and the unmovable bed "that is nailed down" add to her feeling of imprisonment. (650). Thirdly, the narrator suffers from oppression.

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1202 Words | 5 Pages

Symbolism is one of the literary device used in The Yellow Wallpaper. Symbolism is the use of symbols, in this case objects, to represent ideas or qualities, by giving them symbolic meaning that is different in a literal sense. Some of the symbols used are the nursery, the wallpaper, the yellow color and the greenhouses. Firstly, the nursery symbolizes the way her husband John treats her like a child

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725 Words | 3 Pages

Eveline, a young lady who has been raised by a loving mother and an insulting father. She is from a world of trying to take care of everybody to trying to please herself. If she decides to explore the world with Frank she will be at the start of pleasing herself because she will no longer have to worry about pleasing anybody else from her hometown. She is leaving the world of looking back over her childhood memories to the world of considering independence. The window values a place where Eveline can reminisce about the past and get a form of relaxation.

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