While both “The Yellow Wallpaper”, story and movie explores the mystery behind the ‘wallpaper’ the representation of Charlotte (The Wife) differs in certain aspects. Having to watch the movie and also reading the story has led me to see the many differences in the character. However two main contrasts between them are the bedroom she rested in and her child. In addition, you can compare both characters because they became the women behind the yellow wallpaper. At the beginning of the film the husband and wife grieve about the lost of their child from a house fire and they are having a terrible time accepting the fact the child has deceased.
Perhaps his neglect is related to his own feelings of trauma during and after the war. The wife is living in her own private hell because he goes about his business
“Sandy wasn’t expecting such a comment, and was surprised at the stabbing pain she felt at hearing it.” pg 18 After hearing her mother say this, Sandy feels downcast by her older sister Marianne, and younger brother Lawrence. Sandy is also controlled by the people surrounding her. She is controlled by her father, Frank, by not wanting to put a foot out of line in fear of being punished. She listens and abides by everything that he says, because of the control he has over her and her siblings. “”I want you kids in bed in an hour.” “Yes, Dad,” Sandy and Marianne said at the same time.” pg.
He goes into detail of our body mechanisms while producing a sigh and provides metaphors for the action like “your shoulders fall like two ripe pears” (Cooper, p. 62). The boy then talks about his middle-aged mother, a housewife, who is “dreaming at her sink” (Cooper, p. 62). He has the opinion that while she is in deep thought gazing out the kitchen window, she is also mournful about her separation from the world outside wishing she could be happy with her life; perhaps believing that things would be better for her out there. She seems to sigh so heavy that it looks as if it may be her last breath. I know this
Therefore, he prescribes for her a rest-cure. The rest-cure demands her to sit alone without thinking of anything or interacting with society. Instead of that, she should eat, sleep and sit in the upstairs room of a luxurious house which her husband rents. The wife tries to adapt herself, but unfortunately she become very nervous and angry with her husband for not doing anything for her: “I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes” (par.24). The narrator describes the wife’s room, which has four views to refresh the air and a wonderful view the wife can see the beautiful landscape through.
The Yellow Wallpaper In the “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the reader is thrown into the narrator’s journal. The narrator writes almost remedially to release the stresses in her life. For most people stresses are from having too much to do. In the narrator’s case, she is stressing from constant boredom and she is stuck in a routine set up by her husband. Her husband is also her physician and she is prescribed rest.
Mrs. Mallard longed for freedom “There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.” and through that window, was her freedom. Just like Mrs. Mallard, the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper” was confined to a home with no leave. Charlotte Perkins Gilman portrayed an emotional attitude for the story about how the woman gradually becomes insane due to isolation by her husband. Women in this time period knew they would be provided money and shelter for the rest of their lives, and they would be viewed as having filled society's role for woman.
She was struggling with what I interpreted as post-partum depression. To this day physicians are highly regarded members of the community. Since her husband and her brother were physicians Jane was regarded as even lower on the class system. She was afraid to tell him things she was feeling because John disregards what she thinks about things. She was held in that room and forced to try to work through her “state of mind” basically
Through the narration of “The Moon on the Water” Kyoko becomes her husband’s caretaker due to his illness and together they transform their view of the world. Kyoko’s husband was bed ridden until his death and suffered greatly from the isolation that it forced upon him. Kyoko had a great desire to maintain their relationship and his happiness and found a way in which her husband could vicariously take part in her activities, such as gardening which as Kyoko stated allowed her to “indulge her love for her husband”. Kyoko gave her husband a hand mirror that had been part of a set in her trousseau so that he could see the reflections of Kyoko and the world around him. The usage of the mirrors permitted him to feel as if he were with Kyoko, while providing a voyeuristic sensation for the couple.
We know this as Agnes is reliving the tension she has built up. We can see there is an absence of male as the sisters throughout the play stick together as a unit “We both do” gives us the impression of stability of the mundy sisters however from the quote ‘Paint the house’. Sweep the chimney. Cut the grass. Save the turf’ this shows us how the Mundy sisters are trying to envelope the fact that they are not stable as in that society it was patriarchal and needed a man to run the household as Jack is unwell they are unable to rely on him so he is more of burden on them .