...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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...creativity and freedom from domestic duties. Therefore, Austens examination of privacy serves as a critique of limitations on female intellectual growth. The issue of female privacy is perhaps most associated with feminist works published long after Pride and Prejudice, but Austens depiction of the matter can be seen as a precursor to these later arguments. Both Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Virginia Woolf published works pertaining to the physical and mental privacy needed for women. A Room of Ones Own, for instance, clearly establishes a link between female creativity and physical privacy. In fact, Woolf directly states that without a private room, a woman cannot effectively engage in the mental task of writing (Woolf 52). Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper presents a similar argument about mental privacy by depicting a protagonist whose mental functioning is handicapped by an abrasive, belittling male character, to the...
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...The Yellow Wallpaper The narrator starts off the story by talking about a large old house. She and her husband John are on a summer vacation for three months at this house. The house is a large estate that has been empty for many years, she describes it as haunted. She goes on and says she is sick with temporary nervous depression, one of the reasons they are staying at this house is to help her feel better by getting her fresh air. The house is standing alone far back from the road and three miles from the village. There are gardens, small houses for grounds keepers, and old greenhouses surrounding the house they are staying in. The narrator’s treatment requires her not to do any physical activity including writing. The narrator feels that activity, freedom, and writing would help her condition and says that she has been writing her secret journal in order to relieve her mind. She continues to describe the house, but more specifically the room she is staying in. There are bars over the windows, “rings and things” on the walls, an old mattress that has been through the wars, and a horrid yellow wall paper that has been ripped in spots. Her husband John is very controlling of the narrator and what she does because of her illness. He is a doctor and is limiting things that his wife wants to do. The narrator likes using her imagination but her husband discourages it. She continues describing the bedroom; she thinks it was a nursery for young children. She describes...
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...Analysis on “The Yellow Wallpaper” Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born on July 3, 1860, in Hartford, Connecticut. Gilman was a writer and social activist during the late 1800s and early 1900s. She had a tough childhood. Her father, Frederick Beecher Perkins, but he abandoned the family, leaving Charlotte's mother to raise two children on her own. Gilman moved around a lot as a result and her education suffered greatly for it. Gilman married Charles Stetson in 1884 and the couple had a daughter named Katherine. Sometime during her ten year marriage to Stetson, Gilman experienced a severe depression and suffered a series of uncommon treatments for it. This experience is believed to have inspired her to the short story "The Yellow Wall-Paper" (1892). The story takes the form of undisclosed journal entries written by a woman who is supposed to be recovering from what her husband, a physician, calls a "temporary nervous depression”. This haunting psychological horror story chronicles the narrator's descent into madness, or perhaps depending on your interpretation, into freedom. The author’s use of setting, conflict and point of view, provide this short story with the drama needed to capture the reader’s attention. The author begins the story using the key element setting to keep the readers mind in a constant roam. The narrator's view of the setting is colored by her limited and troubled perspective. She sees the yellow wallpaper in the room as a mostly evil and troubling...
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...Charlotte Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a feminist’s tale of a woman who is spoken to like a child, ignored like a piece of furniture, and treated medically in a way that is horrible to most sensibilities. The horror she tolerates starring at the dreadful wallpaper day after day is really just a side effect of her abuse, and her frustrating lack of fulfillment, which was forbidden by a fool-hardy psychologist and enforced by the patriarchy of her husband. The short story was published in a New England magazine in 1892 and was received with mixed reviews. “Such a story ought not to be written” said one Boston physician. “Another physician, in Kansas, I think, wrote to say that it was the best description of incipient insanity he had ever seen” Crazy, or not, Gilman’s work was quickly recognized for its feminist message. “Gilman's story quickly evolved from a relatively obscure and subversive magazine piece of the late nineteenth century to a formative feminist classic” (St. Jean, 2002,). There are several examples of Gilman being spoken to by her husband the way a parent would speak to an anxious four year-old. “What is it little girl?” he said, “Don’t go walking about like that – you’ll get cold” (Gilman, in Kirszner, 2010, p. 465). “Bless her little heart!” said he with a big hug, “she shall be as sick as she pleases…[go] to sleep, and talk about it in the morning” (p. 466). Thrailkill confirms that The Yellow Wallpaper is indeed a feminist manifesto by...
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...“Black Swan” - “Yellow Wallpaper” Why can one only lose their self entirely or free oneself by creating an alternate reality in their own mind? If we compare the “Black Swan to the “Yellow Wallpaper,” maybe then we can begin to answer this question. “In the film 'Black Swan', Nina, always a white swan, begins to explore her Shadow (her black swan) for her lead role in 'Swan Lake'. I'm struck by the factors and presences pushing and pulling Nina into and out of her Shadow: namely, her creepy, infantilizing mother and her abusive, seducing director.” (Tally) Nina doesn't get to explore her notorious dark side in any remotely safe or healthy ways. Her mother has trapped her inside a pink, endless childhood--her bedroom full of stuffed animals, her mother physically dressing and undressing her, with Nina calling her 'mommy' in a needy, babyish voice which is the only thing, it seems, that will talk her mother back from the extreme edge of her bouts of rage.” (Tally) “Nor can Nina explore her Shadow in the world of the ballet--dominated by the forceful and dangerous director and a cut-throat group of ballerinas, many of whom seem to share Nina's eating disorder and her willingness to do anything to be on top in the company.” (Tally) “So from the beginning, is there any chance for Nina? At the end of the ballet, the swan queen can only find freedom in death: a fate that Nina shares.” (Tally) When Nina crosses over to...
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...Yaqi Wan Instructor: Joshua Weathersby EN 210 September 20, 2015 Feminist For the first paper, I want to talk about a fiction called “The Yellow Wall-paper” which made a profound impression on me. This short novel is written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman who is a well-known American novelist and wrote so many works about feminist. She also made a huge contribution of feminist movement from 19 to 20 century. If we want to know well about a fiction, the first thing we need to do is to understand the experience or background of the author. According to the introduction of Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the book “The Norton Anthology American Literature”, she was born in Hartford, Connecticut and had an unfortunate childhood. When she was young, her father divorced with her mother. Then, she lived a hard life with her father. Maybe because of this reason, she showed a high degree of autonomy and independence in her young age. Gilman got married in 1884, and had a daughter. However, her marriage is not so lasting and it ended in 1888 (484). Housework always troubled her and made her almost breakdown. As for this fiction which called “The Yellow Wall-paper”, it was published in 1892 and this novel was written based on Gilman’s life experience. At the beginning, the heroine was send to a villa which was in a remote suburban for recuperating by her husband, because she suffered from mild postpartum depression. She was forced to accept medical treatment in this villa, and lived like...
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...The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells the story about a woman named Jane, who writes in her journal about a summer home her and her husband will be staying at. Her husband John, who is a physician assures others that she only has temporary nervous depression. Because of her illness she is not supposed to do anything active, including writing. She feels that writing and having freedom can help her get better, so she begins to write in a secret journal. Particularly when she writes in her journal she describes a disgusting yellow wallpaper she sees in her room. She becomes fixated on the wallpaper and instead of hating it, grows fonder of it. She becomes more and more obsessed with it that she starts to see a woman trying to escape. As the summer goes on she continues to write about the yellow wallpaper, and the woman trying to escape from the paper. She has completely gone insane when her husband breaks down the door and faints at the site of her creeping around, and peeling off all the wallpaper. The theme behind this story is that lack freedom can lead to insanity. Throughout Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the elements of fiction conflicts, symbolism, and characters all represent the theme, that lack of freedom can lead one to insanity. The first element of fiction that connects with the theme that lack of freedom can lead to one’s insanity is the conflicts Jane faces throughout the story. The first main conflict...
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...Consider “The Yellow Wallpaper” As A Feminist Text Before the 20th century, women were mostly controlled by men. Men chose the women’s role for them. Most women suffered from this, but a majority of it came from the lower and middle classes. Men controlled women and made them feel like they were trapped, or in prison. In present time this would be an issue, but in the 19th century and before, this was so common that it was seen as normal. Women were to be home serving their families. The men made them into servants. Women were led to believe that their duty in this world was to serve their man. Many women were unable to breakaway from this lifestyle because of the strong religious beliefs they had. If they had any desires to leave or not do as they were told, they would think they were sinning and letting down God. When the “Yellow Wallpaper” first came out, many were surprised and thought that such a story shouldn’t have been shared. It was described as insane and crazy and wasn’t an accurate description of society. Some Men refused to allow their wives to read it, thinking that it could lead them to start believing in other things. People were shocked by the story but quickly played it off as a fictional story. Some women who read it started envisioning a different life. "The ideal woman was not only assigned a social role that locked her into her home, but she was also expected to like it, to be cheerful and gay, smiling and good humored" (Lane, To Herland 109). At the...
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...the way that they do throughout the stories. The character's feelings are shown within their minds, it shows how they are changing throughout the story. In “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Stetson, the main characters’ words and actions help the reader understand the plot and theme clearly. The main character of this story has a journal in which she records how she is feeling during her “sickness.”One can conclude from her journal especially as one reads further and further into the story, that she is going out of her mind, from this yellow wallpaper.In the story it states,“The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight... I’m really getting fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper”(649). The main character is giving us insight to the fact that she is becoming angry with this yellow wallpaper that is haunting her in her room. It gets to point where she starts seeing shadows and figures in the wallpaper staring at her through the night. Another example from the story, “ I tried to lift and push it until I was lame and then I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner but it hurt my teeth. Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor”(655). Our character is growing so angry with this wallpaper, that she is starting to peel it off of the walls of the room. She has even thought of jumping out of the window to get away from...
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...Judy Champion Mrs. Patty ENG 252 17 April 2014 The Struggle for Equal Rights Throughout history women have fought against the stigma of being considered fragile creatures incapable of rational thought and in need of male guidance and protection. Women continually fight for common rights not controlled by gender guidelines. In fact, groundbreaking progress has been made over the past one hundred years. It is not always a winning battle but women continue to witness the growing acceptance within many of the previously male dominated professions, such as author, poet, and journalist. One noted writer, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in her short story “The Yellow Wall-paper”, told of the insensitive treatment of women’s mental health by medical professionals during the 1800’s. Some of the most notable examples of inequality are vividly evident in the basic rights and privileges we enjoy in the 21st century. Rights that were denied women in the US in the 1800s such as the right to vote, the right to retain ownership of her property upon marriage, and competent medical treatment. Women’s right to vote was a long, difficult battle. Early leaders of women’s rights like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony began their work as abolitionist with the intention of stopping slavery and obtaining basic rights for the Negros. Likewise, they began to realize how few rights women actually had and decided to take on the challenge to change things; “This growing understanding of...
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...Kimberly Powers Analysis and Theory on “The Yellow Wallpaper” March 25, 2014 Professor Langston The Yellow Wallpaper was published in 1892 by Charlotte Perkins is a short story of one woman’s decline into madness. It can also be viewed as an accusation of shrewdness over creativity or the horrifying inequality in marriage back in the 1890’s, it depicts that back in the 1890’s the societal pressures were placed on women. Charlotte writes this short story so that the reader can see the dangers of rest as a form of cure. She is trying to prove that the method does damage to a person. A woman suffering from post-partum depression is driven mad by her over baring husband who allows her to do nothing more than to merrily exist. Her husband treats her like a child and confines her to a house in the country. Her husband doesn’t think there is anything wrong with her and that it’s all in her mind, she tries to write but it exhausts her to hide it from everyone, she is forbidden to “work”.( pg 1 The Yellow Wallpaper) Her husband is a physician and leaves her alone so often to “work difficult cases in town”. They chose a bedroom that is at the top of the stairs and takes up most of the floor and the wallpaper that was hideous. She keeps starring at it day in and day out until it looks as if there is someone was moving behind it, the wallpaper drives her insane and she finally tears it down. Unfortunately her husband does not give her any support. Also she isn’t allowed to go visit...
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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 Baby Yellows “The Yellow Wallpaper”, a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is an unnerving tale about a woman and her spiral into psychosis. Mirroring the author’s actual experiences with depression and the “resting cure”, the story criticizes medical care that ignores patient concerns and deprives them of emotional outlets that could have been beneficiary towards a healthy mind. Set in the late nineteenth century, “The Yellow Wallpaper” illustrates the psychological effects of the popular “resting cure” and how the narrator is influcenced by it. While the illness the narrator has is never actually said, it is very heavily implied that she is suffering from postpartum depression. Eventually, her husband’s reliance on the “resting cure” and denying her healthy mental activities is what causes her depression to grow into postpartum psychosis. Postpartum depression is a form of depression typically affecting women after childbirth. Symptoms of postpartum depression include hallucinations and delusions, extreme agitation or anxiety, overwhelming fatigue, bizarre behavior, mood swings, inability or refusal to eat or sleep, and over worrying about the infant. The narrator showcases all of these symptoms, leading to the heavy assumption that she is suffering from postpartum depression. The narrator regularly experiences hallucinations, seeing a woman trapped behind bars in the pattern of the wallpaper. Gilman writes, “The front pattern does move- and no wonder! The woman...
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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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