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The Yellow Wallpaper Analysis Essay

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Lots of people know what it feels like being trapped, but how many people can actually say they've been trapped both physically and emotionally? Charlotte Gilman depicts a womans uneasy mentality in the short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper." Gilman takes readers inside the mind and emotions of a woman suffering from a slow mental breakdown that progresses over the plot of the story. The story suggests that all women are imprisoned by masculine authority, which imposes itself despite its detrimental effects. The yellow wallpaper symbolizes how women felt trapped to highlight the structure of the household, the domestic life in which women were oppressed, and womens lack of voice during the 19th century. The woman, who seemingly suffers …show more content…

Assumed as mentally weak and fragile, metal bars were kept in the womans room. Without any form of leisure, the narrator stuck to the practice of her diary entrys and had more than enough time to observe almost every aspect of the wallpapers design. Before she observes a moving figure in the paper she states, "John is so pleased to see me improve...I had no intention of telling him it was because of the wallpaper" (142). The women is merely not improving but actually gradually losing her self control. Gilman uses irony to convey what the narrator states and what happens to be true. The narrator wanted to figure out its code and special meaning. After having to hide her journal from both her husband and sister-in-law because they'd disobey, she wanted to keep this one outlet of sanity to herself. She was no longer bored because she had something to look forward to every morning that she awoke, mistakenly believing that she was getting better. This further exemplified the role women played as people of this time period. Through the progression of the narrators illness, she becomes even more sick to the point of total madness. After she continues to inspect it and figures out the woman trapped inside the paper, the derilium added on. The more the narrator studied the woman in the wallpaper, the more the woman in the wallpaper became her. The wallpaper symbolizes society in which the women was trapped not being able to move or speak freely, adding to the deterioration of her

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