...Marggiori Salas Professor Cordell Composition II 7/26/12 The Meaning Behind “The Yellow Wallpaper” Charlotte Perkins Gilmanʼs “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story of a woman who is not only trapped in a room but is trapped in her mind by her seemingly loving and patient, husband John. He is a physician and believes his wife’s nervous condition is curable by isolating her in a room without any mental stimulation including: exercise, work, reading, writing or any kind of excitement. This was called a “rest cure” at the time the story was written. Gilman herself was treated in this way and the story is a fictional version of her own experience. Gilman removed herself from the treatment when she realized it was not working. The wife in this story secretly writes in a journal like Gilman regardless of what her husband might say. Gradually, she starts to write more and more about the yellow wallpaper since this is the only stimulating thing in the room. The wallpaper increasingly fascinates her until it seems to her to have a life of it’s own and she ends up losing her sanity. This story is an example of how a wife and mother was perceived in the turn of the century as a fragile, helpless creature, without a voice beyond her husbands and how this woman ultimately proves how ineffective this treatment is in the worst possible way. The narrator starts out saying the house her husband has rented is haunted,...
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...As Gilman loses touch with herself and the outer world, she starts to realize her reality of her life. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a women suffers from postpartum depression and is prescribe the resting cure. As she is doing what her husband, an outstanding doctor, has told her to do, she becomes increasingly depressed and soon this results in her losing her insanity. As she losses her way of expressing herself and is doing what the doctor says, she is expected to conform to the doctor and the world around her. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Gilman she illustrates women’s struggles through this story by using symbolism, theme, and irony. The wallpaper is a symbol used throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The author states, “The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight” (649). The way this is worded can...
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...“THE YELLOW WALLPAPER” BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN Introduction In the late nineteenth century, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1973) wrote “The Yellow Wall Paper”. This story can make a readers' mind think just by the way this story presents the main character of a woman and her ordeals as she lived a secluded life, as well as how her relationship with the man in her life is dealt. Some readers might think she is crazy and some may think she is depressed. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's, "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the story of a woman's descent into madness as the result of being isolated as a form of "treatment" when suffering from post-partum depression. The author, who is believed to be narrator as well, talks about her personal travel in to the world where an illness has brought her. All her thought and feelings are written in a journal and as she goes down in to the world that she has created in the confines of the room where she was kept. The story line presents that the narrator's mental condition is getting worse, leading to psychosis. Gilman explains the complexities of woman nature as she uses symbolisms to define the psychological realms of the plot. “The Yellow Wallpaper” The unnamed woman in this story (believed to be the author herself) fantasies about the yellow wallpaper are driving her mad. The protagonist experienced hallucinations and persistent thoughts over things. Crawling women, colorful artwork and a moving pattern depict the narrator's increased anxiety...
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...The Yellow Wallpaper: A Woman's Struggle Pregnancy and childbirth are very emotional times in a woman's life and many women suffer from the "baby blues." The innocent nickname for postpartum depression is deceptive because it down plays the severity of this condition. Although she was not formally diagnosed with postpartum depression, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) developed a severe depression after the birth of her only child (Kennedy et. al. 424). Unfortunately, she was treated by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, who forbade her to write and prescribed only bed rest and quiet for recovery (Kennedy et al. 424). Her condition only worsened and ultimately resulted in divorce (Kennedy and Gioia 424). Gilman's literary indictment of Dr. Mitchell's ineffective treatment came to life in the story "The Yellow Wallpaper." On the surface, this gothic tale seems only to relate one woman's struggle with mental illness, but because Guilman was a prominent feminist and social thinker she incorporated themes of women's rights and the poor relationships between husbands and wives (Kennedy and Gioia 424). Guilman cleverly manipulates the setting to support her themes and set the eerie mood. Upon first reading "The Yellow Wallpaper," the reader may see the relationship between the narrator and her husband John as caring, but with examination one will find that the narrator is repeatedly belittled and demeaned by her husband. On first arriving at the vacation home John chooses...
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...In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, just like group 3 mentioned in slide 2 that the mood gets sadder throughout the story, which I happen to think the same, I think the color that symbolizes this mood is the color brown. The person telling us this story lets us know that all she wanted to do was to change the wallpaper because it was driving her crazy but kept on being rejected by her husband, and it upsets her that he does not take her seriously. At first, the wallpaper was seen as “ugly” by the narrator but in the end, the wallpaper is seen as a symbol of the narrator’s oppression (group 3). Of course, the readers would sympathize with the narrator because she was “imprisoned” by someone who supposedly loved her, which makes the...
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...The unnamed female main character in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is put in an isolated mansion by her husband, a doctor, to help with her “nervousness” or hysteria. She is infantilized by being kept in a nursery and treated like a child by her husband. In addition to being patronized, she is also forbidden to work or even see her baby as it is believed she must solely rest. Her perceived as well-meaning husband gaslights her feelings and experiences, in an attempt to help reduce her “nervousness.” The main character’s disjointed, secretive journaling of her feelings represents her spiral into psychosis due to her isolation and treatment by her husband. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” reflects on the treatment of women’s mental health and how marriage and gender roles reinforce this treatment. At the beginning of the story, she describes how she is staying in a colonial mansion that is being let to them cheaply. She describes her husband’s disdain for all things that are not logical and...
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...When Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” was first published in January of 1892 in the New England Magazine, it was considered a dark chronicle that was protested by a Boston physician (name unknown) in “The Evening Transcript”, a popular newspaper in Boston between 1830 and 1941. This doctor wrote; “such a story ought not to be written, he said; it was enough to drive anyone mad to read it.” It wasn’t until later that the story was realized for the depiction of societal values in an age when women were making their mark in society, both intellectually and politically. The character Gilman portrays is caught between her own artistic expression and that of expected wifehood and motherhood being regarded as the sole role of women. The time was ripe for such a story with women making their way towards equality and the Suffrage Movement. Here was a woman propelled into a stereotypical role of the time who could not conform to the servile and ancillary qualities of how a marriage was supposed to be. A woman listened to her husband, held her hanky properly and carried a tussie-mussie. The convergence of Gillman’s character as being sequestered by her physician husband as a cure for her illness in a room with yellow wallpaper lays the foundation for what becomes an obsession with the Yellow Wallpaper. It is often said that artists and writers are touched by unusual qualities of the mind, perhaps even a bit of madness. The wallpaper in the story is representative of a creative...
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...Freud, Jung, and Hippocrates in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Tentative thesis: In "The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator suffers post-partum depression, which has been proven to be a legitimate ailment. However, the narrator's disease is made worse because her husband and brother are not aware that the narrator's condition is a medical one, thus "The Yellow Wallpaper" is to make readers aware of this illness through her various psychological issues. Freud’s Theory of “Id” o The narrator’s Id is her journal, and fixation on the wallpaper and haunted aspect of the house. She get pleasure out of this and ends up obsessing over the one aspect of her life that she gains pleasure. o Sigmund Freud said you could hallucinate...
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...The Yellow Wall paper One of the most fascinating things about growing older is that the older you get, the more observative you become. You begin to see things as time itself, a collage of memory and projected ideas. The essence of things becomes a quest, an adventure, even. The conquest is not minimized by the lack of strength of the victory; instead it is relished for the strength of the victor. Personal conflict can lend itself to improvising any number of scenarios to escape the reality, or at least to make it more tolerable. In the story of The Yellow Wallpaper, we read of one desperate woman’s struggle to endure an undisclosed and possibly fatal illness. Her tale echoes across the ages, and the many billions who have succumbed with only their heart and intellect still intact. Written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, this short story is an interesting one which allows the reader to become so involved, so captivated in the author’s thoughts and feelings that you literally delve into her mind and become what she is, if only for a short time. As apparent as it may be that some believe this story should have never been written it is clear to see that there are many things we go through in our daily lives that this could become something that we might, at some point, have to deal with ourselves. We all know that there are things we could admire and things we could justly do without. In the story “The Yellow-Wallpaper” the actual wallpaper becomes a tormenting...
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...The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” focuses on a woman who is struggling with post traumatic syndrome after recently having a baby. Her doctor, who is also her husband, gives her the diagnosis to stay in bed all day and eventually thinking she will get better. From lying in bed all day she starts studying the yellow wallpaper, thinking she sees something in it. By the end of the story, it has driven her crazy and realizes the woman she sees in the wallpaper is really her and breaks free. The setting where the story is takes place in the nineteenth century in a large, summer home. The narrator is primarily stuck in one of the bedrooms within the house with yellow wallpaper. The story never gives her a name, but that she is a young, upper-...
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...by SULTAN QABOOS UNIVERSITY (29 Dec 2014 03:14 GMT) The Pedagogical Possibilities of Covering Gilman’s Wallpaper Karla J. Murphy In his introduction to The Pedagogical Wallpaper, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock notes how the pedagogical diversity of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” prompted him to collect essays for this book. He goes on to explain that “given the ubiquity of the text within various academic settings, I was also struck by the absence of attention to the text within pedagogical contexts. Despite the large (and steadily growing) body of criticism to the story, very little of it explicitly addresses its importance as a tool to facilitate learning or various ways in which to make use of the text in the classroom” (3). As a collection, Weinstock’s The Pedagogical Wallpaper contains informed, detailed, and diverse analysis that attempts to shore up the absence of “pedagogical possibilities” concerning Gilman’s transgressive short story (9). Among the contributors are a MOO space specialist, a Gilman scholar, a queer theorist, an existentialist, a formalist, and several reader/student-response theorists. Because each essayist presents a distinct critical perspective on Gilman’s text, each essay is likewise concerned with “how the narrative teaches and how to teach the narrative” (5). Thus, it seems to me that Weinstock’s The Pedagogical Wallpaper resonates with Pedagogy’s conviction that teaching is central to our work as scholars and educators, no matter...
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...abstract idea. An action, person, place, word, or object can all have a symbolic meaning. For example, when you are looking at the literature piece “The Yellow Wallpaper” the most obvious symbol in this piece is the yellow wallpaper. In the literature piece, “The Story of an Hour” one symbol in this piece is the open window. Lastly, in the literature piece “A Good Man is Hard to find” one symbol in this piece is the grandmother’s hat. All these symbols in the different literature pieces are key to telling the story. It lets the reader know the author wants you to understand a certain mood or emotion by hinting it and not just flat out saying it. The narrator and her husband...
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...Rachael Paige 6/14/15 Introduction to Literature Writing Assignment 1 “The Yellow Wallpaper” Analysis After reading the short story again, my views of “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman have stayed mostly consistent with a few deviations from my original reaction. I’ve read the story with a more focused desire on understanding it much more in depth than the first time. I tried to pick up on some more literary details like the tools Gilman uses to tell the story; theme, irony and the symbolism. I’ve also looked into the character John, the narrator’s husband, once more to better understand him. “The Yellow Wallpaper” was a short story that showcased the troubles of women in marriage, the evils of depression, and the importance of independence. The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses theme and symbolism in great volumes to portray her ideas. First, to break down the meaning of the title and essentially the room the narrator is “caged” into, the author uses great symbolism and imagery. The yellow of the wallpaper is very dingy and gross, the color yellow even symbolizes decay, rotting, violence, and approach of death. Choosing this color not only characterizes the way the wallpaper already appears, but foreshadows the way the narrator feels by the end of the story. The walls of the room are barriers both physically and emotionally for the narrator; walls are typically symbols of barriers between people or barriers that shut out the world. Together...
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...Philipps-Universität Marburg FB 10: Fremdsprachliche Philologien Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik Class: Academic Writing | Instructor: Dr. Johanna Heil The House in “The Yellow Wallpaper” Ambivalence or Brilliance? Name: Anas Asmaeil Module: Literary Studies: History Semesters Studied: 1 Address: Adam-Krafft.7, 35039, Marburg Email: Shoqarqwa@hotmail.com Date of Submission: February 29, 2016 Student ID: 2739275 Table of Contents: 1. Introduction 1 2. [Main Part I] 2.1 Gothic Element 2.2 Feminism 3. Conclusion 1 [Bibliography] 1. Introduction: “All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.” By Georg Eliot It goes without saying that the more one ponders upon the masterpiece written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the more compelled one finds themselves to, not only reverence what she brought forth, but to also acclaim the diverse interpretations one can come up with of a text written well over a century ago. The story talks about a woman who is diagnosed with "temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency" (Gilman 1) and thus is sentenced by her physician to a rest cure. Following her husband’s and doctor’s orders, her suffering grows worse and worse and signs of depression, anxiety and dissociation manifest, quite the opposite of what was supposed to happen. Having the ability to scare and horrify the reader, this unique story had been considered as a classic...
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...write this paper is to compare and contrast two very great short stories which are "The Yellow Wallpaper." by Charlotte Perkins Gilman which was written in the year 1892 and "The Story of an Hour." by Katie Chopin which was written in the year 1894. Both stories will be discussed with details in the preceding paragraphs. To look at the stories in comparison one can identify that both of the females lived during the same era. It was a time when women whose husbands had a decent income were expected to be demure and fragile. Women were considered to be delicate creatures that should take to their bed and rest. The husbands controlled the entire destiny of the woman and family. In both stories the women are fragile women who have become psychologically ill due to the pretenses they were expected to demonstrate. The differences were that one woman is living in the city, her husband has gone off to work, she has a heart condition, and she had believes him dead. The husband appears and she dies because her chance at freedom is lost. The woman with the yellow wall paper is in a country house on vacation. She is forced to play sick and is told she must rest by her husband and doctor. As a result she descends into madness believing the wall paper has come alive. The most intense level of comparison between both is the idea of a woman seeking to define her own narrative. The woman in "The Yellow...
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