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Yellow Wallpaper Symbolism

900 Words4 Pages

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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