Analysis The Yellow Wallpaper

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The Yellow Wallpaper: The Catalyst of Postpartum Psychosis Flag Close"It is the strangest yellow, that wallpaper!" (87). In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," the protagonist is driven insane by moldy, decaying and vile yellow wallpaper. The protagonist, though never named, is loosely based on Gilman herself. The wallpaper symbolizes the bars on her proverbial prison cell that her husband, John, has trapped her in. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a story about a woman's escape from what she believes is the domineering and chauvinistic world in which men dominate and women are expected to be subservient into a postpartum delusional land of grandeur filled with wild nightly escapades and eventual freedom from an oppressor that does not exist. Charlotte Anna Perkins was born in Hartford, Connecticut to Frederick Perkins and Mary Westcott. Her father abandoned their family in 1866, leaving Mary to move the children from relative to relative. (Liukkonen 1) She was largely self-taught. She married her first husband, Charles Stetson, in 1884. Throughout her childhood, Gilman suffered periodic bouts of depression. After the birth of their daughter, Katherine, she suffered from postpartum depression. She sought treatment with Dr. Silas Weir. He instructed her to stay in bed and not write. Gilman's reaction to the doctor's advice inspired her to write her most prestigious short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper." Gilman and Stetson separated in 1888, and officially divorced in 1894. Her next marriage was to cousin George Gilman, a New York lawyer. For the next two decades, Gilman gave lectures on women's issues. "Gilman refused to call herself a 'feminist'- her goal as a humanist was to campaign for the cause of women's suffrage. Gilman saw that the domestic environment has become an institution which oppresses women" (Liukkonen 1). "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a satire
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