Entrapment In The Yellow Wallpaper And Wide Sargasso Sea

The story takes the form of a journal of the main character. Therefore, the reader’s view is limited to the impressions of a single character, Jane. Considering some background information on Gilman, one can easily draw the conclusion that the story is

Firstly, it can be argued that the prevalence of socially accepted patriarchal credo in the novella ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ attributes to the manifestation of the narrator’s mental breakdown. This is particularly evident through the narrator’s intimate stream of consciousness in which she aligns the reader to her sense of resignation towards patriarchal rule; ‘John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage’. The narrator’s use of the phrase ‘of course’ reinforces her sense of expectation in that she is an object of ridicule and aptly illustrates the relative powerlessness of women as a result of intransigent, patriarchal dogma. Perkins Gilman creates a subtle ironic tone within the novella through the female voice’s inability to challenge the ideology of the men who are closest to her, significantly her

Herndl analyzes Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, in comparison to the typical “hysterical” writing of the time period. Herndl defines “hysterical” writing as a woman’s expression of her conflicting roles under the patriarch. Herndl argues that this type of writing, as well as hysteria itself, arises as a woman’s response to the oppression and confinement of femininity. Herndl constitutes Gilman’s work as the perfect example of the effect of a male dominated society on women. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” begins to accept herself as an object, which in turn is her acceptance of the entire “hereditary estate” of all women of the period.

Gilman expresses dismissal of women’s mental health concerns, even if they’re directly seeking help. This descent into the narrator’s stability is a concern as she begins seeing women in the yellow wallpaper while keeping herself awake in the room at night, eventually believing she came out of the wallpaper. The yellow wallpaper itself does not only signify the awful physical discomfort she experiences after her pregnancy, but the visions that she sees in the yellow wallpaper symbolize her deeper feelings toward her domestic constraints. The obsession with the wallpaper grows as her insanity does. The visions in the wallpaper are of a woman shaking and crawling around behind the bars that are the horrid yellow wallpaper.

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," Gilman showed how women had to listen and obey men. With the use of auditory imagery in, "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage," it reveals how men treated women and women could not do anything about it. Men were superior to women. Men can do anything and if women complained they were the ones at fault. Gilman also used symbolism in

In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman uses an unreliable narrator to show the narrator’s increasing madness throughout her confinement in her room.To show this throughout the story Gilman’s used of the literary element of an unreliable narrator. It started with a plot based loosely on a experience Gilman had. Then with the narrator having an ignored and mistreated mental illness; which was a mix of anxiety and depression. The narrator went through the same treatment as Gilman, for the reason of showing her doctor, Weir Mitchell, how wrong his treatment is. Finally, Gilman expertly exhibited how unreliable the narrator was through these issues. Gilman’s use of an unreliable narrator really helped to convey the narrator’s insanity while making the

In the narrative ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ Charlotte makes correlations between her trials and the character in her story. Charlotte shared many feelings and , even a personal sickness, with the character such as an temporary mental illness and other projections. One of the false restrictions even helped Gilman and her character with their disorder ; writing. It played a huge role in her recovery and assisted her goal for constructing ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’ Relationships also played a huge part in translating Gilman’s goals. Which as the characters associations with her husband converted to Gilman’s treatment towards women. That there should be an equality and or the feminists outlook between men and women alike. These are only a few of her

She is sent into madness by the oppressive gender roles of Victorian England. Gilman’s main determination in writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” is to judge not only a specific medical treatment but also the misogynistic values and resulting sexual policies that make such a treatment achievable. The narrator’s imprisonment and subjugation are strictly based on her femininity. The quote: “It was moonlight. The moon shines in all around just as the sun does.

     Throughout the story, Gilman holds us attentive and sympathetic due to the specific positioning of the narrator; the narrator confides in us and us alone. The whole story is told as journal entries and personal thoughts. In reading the journal entries we fell privileged and intimate. Yet it is the personal thoughts that actually hold us captive in the realm of lunacy, a literal invitation into an insane mind in which we have no other option rather than actually "seeing" the twisted world that she sees, through her own eyes.

To begin with, one can analyze “The Yellow Wallpaper” by examining the aspect of dialogue through the male perspective. Gilman makes a strong statement about males in society during her time period. The men are portrayed to really see women as children more than as individuals. This is made clear when the Narrator says, “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression- - slight hysterical tendency- - what is one to do?” (Gilman). Gilman shows the male perspective through dialogue because the Narrator explains that no matter what she says her husband shrugs away her illness. He strongly believes that his wife is being overly dramatic and that nothing is wrong. The typical male makes his wife a conformist by enforcing his beliefs on her. The husband truly believes that nothing is wrong with his wife so he ignores the problem and adds to his wife’s illness. The Narrator also falls victim to oppression through derogatory names on behalf of her husband. This is made clear when the husband interacts with the Narrator, “The he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and said he would go down to the cellar, if I wished , and have it Whitewashed into the bargain” (Gilman). The key phrase in the quote is “little goose”, the husband treats his wife like a child and speaks to her as such. This shows how much intelligence the husband thinks his wife has. He degrades his wife by using terms that one would typically use to speak to little

“He told me all his opinions, so I had the same ones too; or if they were different I hid them, since he wouldn’t have cared for that” (Ibsen 109). As this quote suggests Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and Henrik Ibsen, in A Doll House dramatize that, for woman, silent passivity and submissiveness can lead to madness.

In the article “‘Too Terribly Good to Be Printed’: Charlotte Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’” Conrad Shumaker explains the genius of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and how its themes reflect the patriarchal society of the time period. Shumaker identifies one theme as the detriment of suppressing the narrator’s sense of self and that “by trying to ignore and repress her imagination, in short, John eventually brings about the very circumstance he wants to prevent” (590). John confines his wife in a yellow “nursery” in order to “cure” her of her illness, banning her from writing and discouraging her imagination. His plan backfires when her mind, unable to find a proper outlet, latches onto the yellow wallpaper that eventually drives her to madness. Another theme that Shumaker points out is that the dynamic of a domineering husband and an obedient wife is a cage that the narrator is desperately trying to free herself from. John constantly dismisses the narrator’s opinions and thoughts and insists that he knows what is best for her. Shumaker points out that the husband, a representation of the patriarchal society, is clearly depicted as the villain and that he “attempts to ‘cure’ her through purely physical means, only to find he has destroyed her in the process” (592). At the end of the story, because of her confinement and inability to express herself, the narrator fully descends into insanity, “escaping” the

The narrator, who is never named, is depicted as a woman who is confined and repressed based on her gender. During the time Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the feminist movement was going through its second surge and was continuously expanding. Gilman was considered “the idol of radical feminists” (Degler 21) and the “most original and challenging mind, which the women movement produced” (Degler 21). One of the major themes found throughout Gilman’s writings is “to show the disastrous and all-pervasive effects upon women and upon society of the continued suppression of her sex” ( Degler 22). This is seen in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, when the narrator

“The Yellow Wallpaper” depicts this by showing that Gilman manages to overcome the constraints of her husband and the doctor in order to be able to write and to become free.

Gilman's use of narrative structure is important in depicting the fragmentation of the woman's mind. Through the course of the story sentences become increasingly choppy and paragraphs decrease in length. This concrete element of fiction illustrates the deterioration of that narrator's psychological well-being and mental surmise to the yellow wallpaper.