KV RAMA RAO The Yellow Wallpaper- A Dynamic Symbol: A Study of Charlotte Perkins Oilman 's Story [ 'The Yellow Wallpaper ' was originally published in the January 1892 issue of Afew England Magazine. In 1973 the Feminist Press issued a reprint of the 1899 version. Both versions have become popular. The present study is based on the original text, contained in the Gilman MSS ']. As a short story 'The Yellow Wallpaper ' is multidimensional. A sensitive woman 's struggle for liberty and freedom becomes in the end a powerful symbol of the feminist struggle for individuality, recognition and equality. "The story was wrenched out of Gilman 's own life, and is unique in the cannon of her works," says Elain Hedges (37). As a …show more content…
Without such choice, says Elain, the woman has been emotionally and intellectually violated. In fact, her husband instills guilt in her. I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus - but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel badly" (39-40). Yea, there 's the rub. The very worst thing a woman can do is to 'think ', to think about her condition. It makes her a rebel, doesn 't it? So, the husband forbids her thinking. "He is very careful and loving", says the wife, "hardly lets me stir without special direction. I have a January 2006/ 39 KV Rama Rao schedule prescription for each hour of the day..." One cannot miss the irony. At another place Charlotte pays another tribute to her husband: John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he openly scoffs at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures. John is a physician, and periiaps, -1 wouldn 't say it to a living soul of course, but this is dead paper, and a great relief of my ntind, - perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. Gilman 's style is uniformly laconic and suggestive, the above words suggest Oiarlotte 's estimate of her husband, how their temperaments are poles apart and how she is afraid of the people about her and of her mistrust of him. She
A Critical Analysis of Formal Elements in the Short Story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
She's trapped in a sort of external realm, watching herself, aware of her circumstance, and yet not being capable of moving forward.
husband’s domination, she only needs more rest in a quiet place with fresh air and that
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman takes the form of journal entries of a woman undergoing treatment for postpartum depression. Her form of treatment is the “resting cure,” in which a person is isolated and put on bed rest. Her only social interaction is with her sister-in-law Jennie and her husband, John, who is also her doctor. Besides small interactions with them, most of the time she is left alone. Society believes all she needs is a break from the stresses of everyday life, while she believes that “society and stimulus” (pg 347, paragraph 16) will make
According to Gilbert and Gubar she is “mad” only by society’s standards, and, more importantly, that she is, in fact, moving into “the open spaces of her own authority” (91). This interpretation seems to just touch on the many social issues the narrator experiences. Keeping the narrator anonymous is one of the key themes to show the reader who the woman really is, because of the assumption at the beginning of her status in society and in her marriage to a prominent doctor. Her husband John does not even acknowledge his wife may have any mental problems and all attempts for the woman to tell him fail. For as she in desperation states “John laughs at me about this wallpaper” (Gilman 803). Thus, if the woman can expect to get laughed at in her marriage, it would be impossible for her to actually talk to her husband, much less convince him to change his diagnosis of her, especially because he is “so wise” and a physician (Gilman 806). Indeed, male-dominant opinion becomes even more prevalent when it seems that all three different men in the story are all close to her and all prescribe the same “rest cure” for her. However, she seems to “disagree with their ideas”, for as she lucidly states, “Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change would do me good” (Gilman 801).
The narrator is being completely controlled by her husband. The narrator's husband has told the her over
The Yellow Paper is a symbolic story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It is a disheartening tale of a woman struggling to free herself from postpartum depression. This story gives an account of an emotionally and intellectual deteriorated woman who is a wife and a mother who is struggling to break free from her metal prison and find peace. The post-partum depression forced her to look for a neurologist doctor who gives a rest cure. She was supposed to have a strict bed rest. The woman lived in a male dominated society and wanted indictment from it as she had been driven crazy by as a result of the Victorian “rest-cure.” Her husband made sure that she had a strict bed rest by separating her from her child by taking her to recuperate in
We see a silence in several women today by looking at their swollen eyes and their cold and startled behavior that they are traumatized by their own husbands. Solnit expresses, "Every woman knows what I’m talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard,
There is a reason for the narrator’s “madness” and that is partly due to the fact that she had lost her child earlier in her life. The irony about this whole thing is that the room she is locked in is an old child’s nursery. The husband
Kessler emphasizes the point that this one short story seemed parallel and mirror the views of Gilman in regards to the oppression of women in her society. Comparing the two, Kessler writes, “This once she was able to join her public and private expressions in a work of devastating impact” (Kessler 1991 p.159). Gilman, who was a leader and crusader in the women’s rights movement, tried to expel away the gender bias that plague women, just as the narrator in her story tries to pull off the wallpaper in her room to free the trapped women behind it. The patriarchal society at that time period was Gilman’s wallpaper. She had to work hard at trying to force through societal changes. Just like the resistant old wallpaper in her story, ridged and yellow with age, Gilman and her counterparts had much difficulty in pushing through the wallpaper of tradition.
"There comes John, and I must put this away -- he hates to have me write a
people often too caution, but it is also evident that she wished to be free and to live her life despite her
Throughout history and cultures today, women have been beaten, verbally abused, and taught to believe they have no purpose in life other than pleasing a man. Charlotte Perkins Gillam uses her short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper" as a weapon to help break down the walls surrounding women, society has put up. This story depicts the life of a young woman struggling with postpartum depression, whose serious illness is overlooked, by her physician husband, because of her gender. Gillman 's writing expresses the feelings of isolation, disregarded, and unworthiness the main character Jane feels regularly. This analysis will dive into the daily struggles women face through oppression, neglect, and physical distinction; by investigating each section
My perspective of Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wall-Paper" is influenced by a great number of different and diverse methods of reading. However, one cannot overlook the feminist theorists’ on this story, for the story is often proclaimed to be a founding work of feminism. Further, the historical and biographical contexts the story was written in can be enlightened by mentioning Gilman’s relationship with S. Weir Mitchell. And I can’t help but read the story and think of Foucault’s concept of Panopticism as a method of social control. Lastly, of course, there’s the psychological perspective on the story, although in my readings of psychology, particularly the psychological knowledge surrounding both women and queers, I find the
approach is to draw a parallel between the narrator's illness and Gilman's own breakdown and subsequent