In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a couple had moved into a house to relieve her sickness that her husband had diagnosed. The woman is not named because it is directed to all women and not just one. Her husband is a physician and in the story she praises him dearly. She writes, "He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction." It shows that she speaks of his total control over her without meaning to and how she has no choices whatsoever. This control is perhaps so fixed in our main character that it is even seen in her secret writing; "John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition...so I will…
The protagonist in “The Yellow Wallpaper” struggles throughout the story due to her controlling husband and a woman’s role in society during this time. Her husband John is a physician and it is clear they are upper-middle class as they are able to afford a summer house and have help to cater to their needs. Even if the main character was not suffering from what her husband calls a nervous disorder, her main function would be to maintain a household and raise her children. Since she is deemed unable to do that due to her condition, she ends up being somewhat useless. In addition, during this time period, nervous disorders and similar mental illnesses were virtually unknown conditions. For these types of conditions, doctors often prescribed a ‘rest-cure’ method in order to ‘cure’ the ill woman. The rest-cure method required physical and creative inactivity and virtual isolation from society and the outside world. Since her husband is a ‘brilliant’ doctor who continuously tells her she is sick, the narrator complies with his every instruction and end up completely dominated by her husband. “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.” (Gilman, 1899, p.2) This story touches on several aspects of a woman’s struggle with society. There is the struggle against being an independent woman in society, a woman’s oppression within her own marriage, and how a woman is treated when suffering from a mental illness such as depression.…
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an inspiring author, poet, and social activist. Gilman was born on July 3, 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut. Charlotte’s father, a relative of the famous writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, left her and her family when she was young. The absence of her father resulted in Charlotte’s mother raising two children on her own. Due to the fact that the family moved around frequently, Charlotte’s education was sporadic.…
“The Yellow Wallpaper”, is a journal written from a very imaginary, inventive character. Jane, the narrator, is avoiding all her actual problems throughout this journal. Her inner thoughts and motives triumph her external illness. In this story, the narrator is the paradox. She has illusions that will not let her understand the extent of her illness.…
“The Yellow Wallpaper” follows a series of diary entries written by a woman who is suffering from postpartum depression. The women’s husband, John, is “a physician of high standing,” misdiagnoses her with hysteria and treats her with rest. This treatment “confines her to a room in an isolated country estate,” that John rented for the purpose of her treatment. John “expressly forbids her to do any work in the form of writing, her chosen occupation,” even…
The narrator in, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” suffers from depression, although her husband, who is a doctor, does not consider it an illness. Therefore, he keeps her on a strict rest cure. She is not allowed to do work of any form, not even care for her baby. All she allowed to do is rest in her room and breath in the air as prescribed by her husband. Because she spends most of her time in her room, she becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in the room and it drives her to insanity. The lack of creative stimulation and relationships with others causes the narrator’s obsession with the yellow wallpaper which leads her to believe she is trapped behind bars in this yellow wallpaper.…
The short story 'The Yellow Wallpaper' is written in the perspective of the narrator as her journal where she reveals her deepest most personal thoughts about herself and her life, yet she still remains a very mysterious character. Her name is never revealed, and the reason the author does not reveal her name is so the story of her struggle could represent the struggles of many other going through the same situation. It is clear from the beginning of the story that she is an unreliable narrator because it is mentioned that her husband who is a doctor has diagnosed her with temporary nervous depression with slight hysterical tendencies. She seems to be a very creative and sensitive person who is a writer, but she is forbidden from writing in her journal by her husband who thinks that too much mental stimulation will only make her condition worse.…
On the surface, the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper simply shows an insane woman who began suffering from depression after the birth of her child. The narrator was placed into a house, which was in the middle of nowhere, where she received dangerous treatment and often gets belittled by her husband, who is also her doctor. Her treatment required her not to do anything active, especially writing. Although some would conclude that the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper is just about an insane woman struggling with post-partum depression and isolation, it shows the protagonists struggle with trying to break out of the mental constraints she has been placed under and her need for self-expression through her journal.…
The ‘yellow wallpaper’ in this story symbolizes sickness and an ill state of mind. It is driven by the narrator’s sense that the wallpaper is a passage she must interpret and it also symbolizes that it is something that affects her directly. The wallpaper develops its symbolism throughout the story. At first it seems merely unpleasant: it is ripped, soiled, and an “unclean yellow” (Gilman, 2). The worst part is the presumably shapeless pattern, which captivates the narrator as she attempts to figure out how it is organized. After looking at the paper for hours, she sees a strange sub-pattern behind the main pattern “like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern” (Gilman, 5) visible only in certain light. The woman represents a desperate woman, constantly crawling and stooping, looking for an escape from behind the main pattern which has come…
The short stories; ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Gilman and ‘On Her Knees’ by Tim Winton both have Female Protagonists who both suffer. Jane, the main Protagonist in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ Suffers from not only inner struggles but also external forces. In ‘On Her Knees’ Carol Lang, also comes across challenges and struggles in her life. The similarities in their struggles are plenty. They both have men controlling what they do, whether or not is intentional, they are both suffering from houses and materials around them and they are trapped by their gender and their class and role in society as women.…
In "The Yellow Wallpaper", the main woman character of the story did not even have a name. She was introduced as "John's wife". This illustrates that women in nineteenth-century was insignificant in society. They had no self-control and they were powerless. Throughout the novel her husband controlled every movement of his wife and restricted her life. He did not believe that his wife was sick, while she was really suffering from depression. He also restricted her life and told her that she was not allowed to write. Basically she was not free to use her will and she lived under her husband's control.…
In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, talks about a woman who is newly married and is a mother who is in depression. “The Yellow Wall-Paper” is written as the secret journal of a woman who, failing to relish the joys of marriage and motherhood, is sentenced to a country rest cure. Though she longs to write, her husband - doctor forbid it. The narrator feels trapped by both her husband and surroundings. The woman she sees behind the wallpaper is a symbol of herself and the Victorian women like her.…
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator must deal with several different conflicts. She is diagnosed with “temporary nervous depression and a slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 221). Most of her conflicts, such as, differentiating from creativity and reality, her sense of entrapment by her husband, and not fitting in with the stereotypical role of women in her time, are centered around her mental illness and she has to deal with them.…
"The Yellow Wallpaper" begins with the arrival of narrator, her husband John, their new born baby, and her sister-in-law to summer house which John have rented. The narrator is suffering from post-partum depression, and the summer house will serve, according to her husband, as a place for her to get better.…
The Yellow Wallpaper is a story which is told in the first individual by the Narrator, a young lady. The Narrator and her husband, John, have leased a substantial, empty colonial estate for the midyear. The Narrator portrays the home as haunted, or possibly feeling extremely odd, and relates that her husband John, a refined physician laughs at her notions. The Narrator, on the other hand, furtively wants to stimulate the thought that the house is haunted. The Narrator is experiencing anxious misery and furtively accepts that on the off chance that her husband was not a doctor she may recoup all the more rapidly. Notwithstanding, both John and the Narrator's sibling, additionally an expert physician, have advised her that she is fit as a fiddle…