preview

Critical Analysis Of The Yellow Wallpaper

Decent Essays

“The Yellow Wallpaper” was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. He takes the reader on a journey through the mind of the narrator with a mental illness. Some readers may think the story is rather creepy or scary. This is due to the plot and main theme. Was there a reason why Gilman never revealed the name of the woman? How might have the story changed if the woman left the house? Did the husband of the woman make the right decisions? To build a cohesive argument, the three basic steps of Scholes’ read, interpret, critique will help answer these questions.

The short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” starts off by describing the house John had rented for the summer to the reader. John is the narrator’s husband and a physician. The narrator is believed to be ill. John believes her illness is no big deal and says she just has “nervous depression”. To treat this “nervous depression”, she is not allowed to write or go outside.

The structure of the plot is formed when she ignores her husband’s orders and begins to write in a diary. She believes writing will help her heal. The story’s setting takes place in a room. She starts talking about the room she is in. How there are “rings and things in the walls.” John eventually catches her writing in her journal and tells her to stop. When he leaves, the narrator continues to write about the yellow wallpaper and soon becomes overly attached to it. She began to notice a pattern behind it. It looked like a woman “stooping down”.

Jenny, Johns sister, is later introduced in the story as the housekeeper. She had been caught touching the wallpaper by the narrator while cleaning it. The wallpaper began to be the only thing the narrator could think about and she did not want anyone else to look at it but her.

She determined that the women she saw in the wallpaper was stuck and was trying to get out. The story concludes with the narrator completely insane and with her husband on the floor after fainting due to what he saw in the room.

After reading “The Yellow Wallpaper”, I have discovered that there is a deeper meaning behind the text. Like any piece of literature, it is up to the reader to read the text and interpret the text by finding the hidden message within. In order to find

Get Access