The Yellow Wallpaper Analysis Essay

A Close Reading of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Gilman uses this psychological horror story to criticize the position of women within the constraints of marriage at this time. We see the narrator’s personality and character change throughout the story spiraling even more into her own insanity. When this story was written ideals suggested that a woman's place was in the private domain of the home, where she should carry out the roles of wife and mother.

Instructed to abandon her intellectual life and avoid stimulating company, she sinks into a still-deeper depression invisible to her husband, which is also her doctor, who believes he knows what is best for her. Alone in the yellow-wallpapered nursery of a rented house, she descends into madness. Everyday she keeps looking at the torn yellow wallpaper. While there, she is forbidden to write in her journal, as it indulges her imagination, which is not in accordance with her husband's wishes. Despite this, the narrator makes entries in the journal whenever she has the opportunity. Through these entries we learn of her obsession with the wallpaper in her bedroom. She is enthralled with it and studies the paper for hours. She thinks she sees a woman trapped behind the pattern in the paper. The story reaches its climax when her husband must force his way into the bedroom, only to find that his wife has pulled the paper off the wall and is crawling around the perimeter of the room.

Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ and Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Fall of The House of Usher’ both serve a highly horrific purpose which is both good examples for the gothic. The strongest example of gothic is ‘The Fall of The House of Usher’ as it established the extreme horror intense and shows the gothic scene of the house.

Gilman uses indirect characterization in revealing the narrator’s private thoughts and feelings through the narrator’s secret journal. Since the narrator is diagnosed with nervous depression, – “conventional women’s disease of the nineteenth century” – her husband John, who is also her physician, recommends that her treatment be a rest cure, where she is not allowed to do anything active, especially reading and writing (Treichler, 1984, p.61). Treichler writes that during that time, doctors dictated this therapy because it was believed that too much intellectual stimulation would cause women to experience this illness (1984). But, because the narrator insists that the freedom to read and write would improve her condition, she decides to keep a secret journal as an outlet for her thoughts and imagination (Gilman, 1892).

Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's The Yellow Wallpaper is a commentary on themale oppression of women in a patriarchal society. However, the story itselfpresents an interesting look at one woman 's struggle to deal with both physicaland mental confinement. This theme is particularly thought-provoking when readin today 's context where individual freedom is one of our most cherished rights.This analysis will focus on two primary issues: 1) the many vivid images Gilmanuses to illustrate the physical and symbolic confinement the narrator enduresduring her illness; and 2) the overall effect of, and her reaction to, thisconfinement.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” tells the story of a woman suffering from post-partum depression, undergoing the sexist psychological treatments of mental health, that took place during the late nineteenth century. The narrator in Gilman’s story writes about being forced to do nothing, and how that she feels that is the worst possible treatment for her. In this particular scene, the narrator writes that she thinks normal work would do her some good, and that writing allows her to vent, and get across her ideas that no one seems to listen to. Gilman’s use of the rhetorical appeal pathos, first-person point of view, and forceful tone convey her message that confinement is not a good cure for mental health, and that writing,

In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the idea of “true womanhood” is challenged. The white woman portrayed in the story is prescribed what is known as the “rest cure” due to the overwhelming pressure of being the perfect woman, wife, and mother. Driven mad by the smothering of her husband and her inability to do anything for herself, the woman in this story goes crazy attempting to free herself from the constraints. In stark contrast to the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Sojourner Truth, a former slave, delivers a speech titled, “Ain’t I a Woman,” in 1851 that shakes people to their very core. A little before “The Yellow Wallpaper” was released, Truth shares a message that is astoundingly different from the

She has been confined to the former nursery in her family's colonial mansion to cure her of hysterical tendencies, a medical condition she was diagnosed with after the birth of her son (Gilman 1997: 1f.). The woman confides in her secret journal how her contact with the outside world has become strictly limited on account of her Doctor's recommendations, and how the treatment forces her to spend her days in a barely furnished room with only her own mind and the objects around her as companions (Gilman 1997: 1f.). One of the main objects she actively engages with during this period of isolation, other than the nailed down bed and her secret journal, is the old yellow wallpaper covering the walls around her (Gilman 1997: 1f.). While the woman's condition worsens gradually over the course of the entries she makes in her secret journal, her growing isolation and inactivity make her start to see movement in the patterns and holes of the old wallpaper (Teichler 1984: 61, Gilman 1997: 1f.). The character becomes absorbed by what she thinks she sees, and begins to directly interact with the things she sees in the paper, until she rips the paper to shreds, and violently frees what she sees, and subsequently, also herself from captivity (Teichler 1984: 61, Gilman 1997:

As I started reading this short story, it clearly introduced who the characters are and where it took place. The narrator is a woman; she has no name, remains anonymous throughout the story. She lives with her husband John in a house. This house is isolated from society, since the short story indicates that it is far from village, roads or any means of communication. It also contains locks and gates throughout. The woman is ill and this illness has placed her in a weak position with her husband and everything around her. We know that she likes to write, but her husband doesn’t let her, so she does it in secret. Although this type of writing is mainly to show mild personality disorder in dealing with life,

She’s obsessed with trying to free the woman in the wall; she realizes that the person within the wallpaper was herself the entire time. She begins to break through the wallpaper and calls the other woman “Jane.” She won’t allow her husband or “Jane” to cause her harm anymore, she feels in control of her life now. Writing down in her diary how she felt every day, helps her break free from what feels like a

Throughout history and cultures today, women have been beaten, verbally abused, and taught to believe they have no purpose in life other than pleasing a man. Charlotte Perkins Gillam uses her short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper" as a weapon to help break down the walls surrounding women, society has put up. This story depicts the life of a young woman struggling with postpartum depression, whose serious illness is overlooked, by her physician husband, because of her gender. Gillman 's writing expresses the feelings of isolation, disregarded, and unworthiness the main character Jane feels regularly. This analysis will dive into the daily struggles women face through oppression, neglect, and physical distinction; by investigating each section

“The Yellow Wallpaper” a short story about a mentally ill women,written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman at age 32, in 1892 is a story with a hidden meaning and many truths. Charlotte Perkins Gilman coincidentally also had a mental illness and developed cancer leading her to kill herself in the sixties. The story begins with Jane, the mentally ill woman who feels a bit distressed, and although both of the well respected men in her life are physicians she is put simply on a “rest cure”. This rest cure as well as many symbols such as the Yellow Wallpaper, her journal, and her inevitable breakdown are prime examples of the typical life of a woman in this time period and their suppressed lives that they lived even with something as serious as a

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.

The wallpaper is beginning to take on the role of controlling her life. As the days proceed on and she continues to sit in this isolated room, she begins to notice objects incorporated throughout the patterns. Every day the shapes become significantly clearer to her until one moment it appears to be a figure trapped within the walls (734). This aversion to the color completely shifts at this point toward hallucination. The wallpaper now has complete control of the narrator’s mind and sanity.

The mood of the story shifted from nervous, anxious, hesitant even, to tense and secretive, and shifts again to paranoid and determination. Her anxiousness is evident whenever she talks to John. She always seems to think for lengthy time when attempting to express her concerns about her condition to him. The mood shift from anxious to secretive is clear when she writes “I had no intention of telling him it was BECAUSE of the wall-paper.” (9). She wants no one to figure out the affect the wallpaper has on her and she wants to be the only one to figure out its pattern. The final mood shift to determination is obvious when she writes “But I am here, and no person must touch this paper but me – not ALIVE!” (11). She is steadfast in attempting to free the woman from the wallpaper. She even goes as far as to lock herself in the room to make sure that she is not interrupted. The major conflicts of this story are the narrator versus John over the nature of her illness and its treatment and the narrator’s internal struggle to express herself and claim independence. During the entire story her and John’s views about her treatment conflict with each other, especially when it comes to her writing. He even makes her stay in the room upstairs instead of in a prettier room downstairs that she would prefer. She often keeps her views to herself or writes them down in