A Critical Analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

    "The Yellow Wallpaper" takes a close look at one woman's mental deterioration. The narrator is emotionally isolated from her husband. Due to the lack of interaction with other people the woman befriends the reader by secretively communicating her story in a diary format. Her attitude towards the wallpaper is openly hostile at the beginning, but ends with an intimate and liberating connection. During the gradual change in the relationship between the narrator and the wallpaper, the yellow paper becomes a mirror, reflecting the process the woman is going through in her room.

The woman behind this work of literature portrays the role of women in the society during that period of time. "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a well written story describing a woman who suffers from insanity and how she struggles to express her own thoughts and feelings. The author uses her own experience to criticize male domination of women during the nineteenth century. Although the story was written fifty years ago, "The Yellow Wallpaper" still brings a clear message how powerless women were during that time.

Traditionally, men have held the power in society. Women have been treated as a second class of citizens with neither the legal rights nor the respect of their male counterparts. Culture has contributed to these gender roles by conditioning women to accept their subordinate status while encouraging young men to lead and control. Feminist criticism contends that literature either supports society’s patriarchal structure or provides social criticism in order to change this hierarchy. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts one women’s struggle against the traditional female role into which society attempts to force her and the societal reaction

This gothic horror tale of nineteenth century fiction, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892; during a time that women writers were starting to come out and write about key issues in their treatment. She craftily sets up or spins the story with a setting of isolation and a character who feels trapped, by a husband who chooses not to know her; yet does not listen to her and keeps her trapped on an island, all in her best interest. The tone is filled with desperation, sarcasm, anger, and shows that though she is mentally unstable there is intelligence behind her instability that is kept unseen. The main symbol is the wallpaper which is a constant bane to her.

There are many factors that can create a theme in a short story. Most of the factors are the elements of fiction, which include plot, setting, characters, symbolism, conflict, and point of view. The two stories that will be compared in this essay are “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Story of the Hour” by Kate Chopin. The elements that especially contribute to creating a theme for these short stories are the characters, point of view, and plot.

Life during the 1800s for a woman was rather distressing. Society had essentially designated them the role of being a housekeeper and bearing children. They had little to no voice on how they lived their daily lives. Men decided everything for them. To clash with society 's conventional views is a challenging thing to do; however, Charlotte Perkins Gilman does an excellent job fighting that battle by writing “The Yellow Wallpaper,” one of the most captivating pieces of literature from her time. By using the conventions of a narrative, such as character, setting, and point of view, she is capable of bringing the reader into a world that society

“The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Gilmans is a short story narrated by a woman who is suffering from depression soon after giving birth. The narrator’s husband is a physician who asserts that he knows what is best for his wife’s health and betterment. As the antagonist in the story he brings his wife to a secluded house with strict orders to rest and recuperate, keeping her away from society, physical exertion, and the writing that is her one true form of expression. Ironically, the narrator being placed into this environment only serves as a reminder and catalyst for her “nervous depression” and “slight hysterical tendencies” (473). Throughout the short story you see constant references in this environment to the inner turmoil of the protagonist until the narrator and her surroundings seem to become one and the same. The setting of “The Yellow Wallpaper” not only plays a crucial role in the development of the protagonist, but also acts as a mirror to the narrator’s mental and physical entrapment. As the short story is told first person the reader gets a unique view of the narrator’s description of her surroundings and slow decline into insanity.

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonist symbolizes the effect of the oppression of women in society in the Nineteenth Century. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the author reveals the narrator is torn between hate and love, but emotion is difficult to determine. The effects are produced by the use of complex themes used in the story, which assisted her oppression and reflected on her self-expression.

The way woman were treated in the late 1800’s is totally different than today. At that time woman and men were not equal to each other. Women were confined to particular roles. The men usually played the dominant role which led women to just listen and follow their spouse. During that time woman were at the bottom of the social class. The regular household consisted of a male who handles all the important decision making things while the women were housewives. In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” the author Charlotte Perkins Gilman who is a feminist who purposely shows examples of the roles women played in society in the late 1800’s. Gilman wanted to prove a major point that confining women to only womanly roles of the time, will drive woman crazy. The woman in the short story was forced to follow her husband instuctions. She was not able to make her own decisions and this infantilized her which drove her insane.

Clinical psychologist and writer, Kay Redfield Jamison once said, “I think one thing is that anybody who 's had to contend with mental illness - whether it 's depression, bipolar illness or severe anxiety, whatever - actually has a fair amount of resilience in the sense that they 've had to deal with suffering already, personal suffering.” In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator has severe depression, at the very least, and knows that she can get better if she is given the right treatment. While trying to get better, she can’t help but be fixated on the yellow wallpaper in her room. The yellow wallpaper in this story is a representation of the narrator’s relationship with her disease.

People who are insane don’t usually wake up being that way one day. There has to be a reason behind their mental disorder, whether it was caused by an accident, a traumatic event, a genetic mutation, or etc. The wife in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, originally suffered some form of depression, which she is treated with by the Rest Cure. The Rest Cure was supposed to cure her condition; however, the treatment practiced on her does the opposite of its purpose. The treatment she went through caused her to lose her mind completely and go insane because she was forced to stay in a room (by herself), her husband treated her indifferently, and she wasn’t allowed to use her mind creatively.

Throughout history, our perception of different topics has changed drastically. For example, our view on slavery or government has changed from accepting the culture normal to accepting almost the exact opposite of the traditional idea. Currently, as a society, we work diligently to alter the ancient view we possess on women and mental illness. Charlotte Perkins Gilman represents a type of person who led her time period in revolutionary ideas. In her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman illustrates the internal battles of both being a woman in a society controlled by men and a person who suffers from mental illness, at a time when that topic was not commonly discussed. As Mason Cooley says, “every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.” Cooley used this statement to draw attention to the seriousness of mental illness. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman utilizes the diary of the protagonist to illustrate the deeper thoughts of someone suffering from mental illness, while John, both a husband and physician, ignores his wife’s symptoms and believes that she just needs to rest. The ever-changing role of women in society plays an important role in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” By using descriptive imagery, ambiguous scenes and a first person point-of-view, Gilman creates a short story that utilizes setting to critique the gender roles of the nineteenth-century.

The gender roles of the 19th century formed the foundation of societal norms for marriages. The prescribed idea of what marriage should look like focused on the wife’s obedience to her husband and family. This obedience that the speaker has for her husband, John, in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” undermined the woman’s mental health, refusing her the ability to express and speak for herself. The speaker’s diagnosis and treatment of her “nervous condition” was completely in her husband’s control, taking away her independence as a person.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's career as a leading feminists and social activist translated into her writing as did her personal life. Gilman 's treatment for her severe depression and feelings of confinement in her marriage were paralleled by the narrator in her shorty story, "The Yellow Wallpaper".

Throughout history the female gender has been considered the lesser sex, where they had little to no power over anything. Eventually they got tired of their mistreatment and those who wanted it to end became known as feminist. They hold the idea that both men and women should be treated as equals. Many feminist were authors who contained the feminist literary theory within their works. The theory mainly focuses on critiquing how women must comply with gender roles and how they have been denied their rights by men. The feminist literary theory has many forms, one of them would be cultural feminism, which focuses on the stereotypical women who is only meant to look pretty and take care of minor jobs such as cooking, cleaning, and watching the children. The feminist literary appears in the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which is about an unnamed female narrator who suffers from a nervous condition during the late 1800s, and is locked within her bedroom. The feminist Kate Chopin has written many works containing the feminist literary theory, such as her short story “The Story of an Hour” which revolves around Mrs. Mallard, who has lost her husband in a train accident, so she starts to shed tears of sorrow, however her tears of sorrow transform into tears of joy. One of Chopin 's novel, The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier a woman who starts to realize the truth of society. Feminist literary theory can be viewed in many different