She untangles its chaotic pattern and locates the figure of a woman struggling to break free from the bars in the pattern. Over time, as her insanity deepens, she identifies completely with this woman and believes that she, too, is trapped within the wallpaper. When she tears down the wallpaper over her last couple of nights, she believes that she has finally broken out of the wallpaper within which John has imprisoned her. The wallpaper's yellow color has many possible associations - with jaundiced sickness, with discriminated-against minorities of the time (especially the Chinese), and with the rigid oppression of masculine sunlight. By tearing it down, the narrator emerges from the wallpaper and asserts her own identity, albeit a somewhat confused, insane one.
Gilman uses symbols to explain the how women are trapped in domestic life. The symbol that Gilman uses the yellow wallpaper in the room she is confined in. At first, the wallpaper is just awful as she says “The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow.” She is disgusted by it and understands why children, who have been in this room, would want to tear it down. Then, the wallpaper becomes a point of curiosity as she wants to discover the organization of the pattern. She said, “...and I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion,” as if the wallpaper was made with symmetry in mind.
The narrator describes the wallpaper as such, “The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing” (351). The yellow wallpaper itself signifies women being suppressed by the men in their lives and the inability to break their dominance. She also eventually sees a figure behind the wallpaper in the form of a creeping woman. The woman actually portrays the narrator herself. After staring at the wallpaper long enough, she finds that the pattern moves because of the woman behind it trying to get out.
Her current self, that is removed from her previous, more sane state, is becoming confortable in the room and feels she can do what she wants in it, however her recollection which still hangs with her drives her to feel the need to rip down the yellow wallpaper. This wallpaper which she feels symbolizes her prison when she was first shut off in the room, hypothetically imprisoning her former self. I really have discovered something at last.Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, Ihave finally found out.The front pattern DOES move--and no wonder! The
ENG110 As it would appear The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a narrative describing the trials a woman faces when battling PPD (postpartum depression). However, under further investigation it is clear that the meaning Gilman imposes on her audience is the concept of entrapment to amplify the absurdity of male dominance in the 17th C. Opposing characteristics of the female main character and her husband, in conjunction with imagery and the metaphor of “the woman in the wallpaper” collaboratively work to express the standards expected of a woman and the feeling of isolation evoked by powerlessness. The central character of The Yellow Wallpaper is our narrator who serves as both mother and wife. Her role in the story is contrasted by the leading male character her husband, John, a physician. However their union seems less like a marriage and more like the relationship one would see between parent and child.
The narrator’s obsession with the wallpaper that surrounds her bedroom begins merely as intrigue and climaxes to a point where reality and what she imagines within the wallpaper becomes blurred. This climax represents her journey from rationality to insanity as the wallpaper becomes more twisted and alive around her. This wallpaper ultimately represents the oppression of her mind that is being caused by her post partum depression, as well as her husband’s ineffective healing methods. At first she finds the wallpaper being “one of those sprawling, flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” (Gilman 988). This could be a representation of the beginning of her depression which was initially just an annoyance to her which she does not fully understand.
Merely Teasing Charlotte Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” both demonstrate how society, at the turn of the century, seemed to make women feel enclosed or trapped. The narrator in “Yellow Wallpaper” and the main character in Chopin’s story, Louise Mallard share many of the same desires and characteristics. Their desire to get out and be independent eventually gets them punished. In both stories, it is clear that the narrator or character is a female. From the way the narrator talks in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” describing her husband and house and the decorations, it is obvious she is a female.
A campaign for women’s suffrage Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 6000 word short story about a woman who slowly descends into madness locked in her room by her well-meaning husband addresses the many gender issues women have been subject to throughout history. Gilman’s Yellow wallpaper is a reflection of the oppression that many women have endured over centuries; playing a smaller role compared to men. In the end of the short story, the name-less main character descends into complete madness due to the unintentional subjugation by her husband who only means well. Gilman artistically coveys the troubles of women through disturbing imagery and literary devices; using her literature to address societal issues such as male oppression. Women of the
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is driven by the narrator’s sense that the wallpaper is a text she must interpret, that it symbolizes something that affects her directly. Accordingly, the wallpaper develops its symbolism throughout the story. At first it seems merely unpleasant: it is ripped, soiled, and an “unclean yellow.” The worst part is the ostensibly formless pattern, which fascinates the narrator as she attempts to figure out how it is organized. After staring at the paper for hours, she sees a ghostly sub-pattern behind the main pattern, visible only in certain light. Eventually, the sub-pattern comes into focus as a desperate woman, constantly crawling and stooping, looking for an escape from behind the main pattern, which has come to resemble the bars of a cage.
Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most famous and frightening female characters. In Act 5, it is evident that Lady Macbeth is experiencing somnambulistic attacks, or sleepwalking. She wants to be relieved of her guilt because several suppressed ideas of an emotional nature enter into this scene and are responsible for making her act this way. Lady Macbeth is desperately trying to wash away invisible bloodstains on her hands as it is a reminiscence of her experience with the murder of Duncan. She also refers to the murder of Banquo and Lady Macduff while in her somnambulistic state.