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The Yellow-Wallpaper Analysis

Decent Essays

The Yellow Wall-Paper Literary Analysis Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses her short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” to show how women undergo oppression by gender roles. Gilman does so by taking the reader through the terrors of one woman’s changes in mental state. The narrator in this story becomes so oppressed by her husband that she actually goes insane. The act of oppression is very obvious within the story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and shows how it changes one’s life forever. The story begins with the narrator’s use of dramatic irony which already tells the reader that something is suspicious about her. “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage” (508 Gilman). The narrator, which is unknown, states …show more content…

The key words in this line are “three months”. These words mean the narrator has to stay in the room with the barred windows and hideous, yellow wallpaper for a total of three months. These keywords might be missed if read over too quickly. The quote needs to be read slowly to realize what is happening. The reason they are only there for three months is because the treatment John has given her is going to take three months. The narrator does not realize this. Under his rule, she cannot stop the treatment. With the ending near, the narrator gradually descends into madness. While examining the wallpaper closely at night she narrates, “The woman behind it shakes it!” she writes, “and she crawls around fast and her crawling shakes it all over.” “And in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard” (Gilman 516). The woman that the narrator sees is actually herself. It is a projection of her because she cannot escape John’s control just how the woman cannot escape the wallpaper. Her illness has become so great she thinks a woman is shaking the wallpaper around the entire room. The problem here is John’s treatment. It has caused her to believe in ghostly objects that do not exist. The phrase, “her crawling shakes it all over” shows how John’s treatment has affected her. The narrator crawls and creeps around the room. She goes

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