A Slight Hysterical Tendency – An Analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper Fiction by standard definition is a body of literary work that is not real, or is imagined. So what do you get when you have a story that is in fact fiction, but is so personal to the author that is could almost be considered autobiographical? You get the fictional story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The story about a woman who is suffering from postpartum psychosis is parallel to the difficulties that Gilman faced in her own life. At a time in history when women were thought to be hysterical and not taken seriously especially in the area of mental health, Gilman bravely brought the topic to the surface in a dark, but truthful manner. Her use of imagery and personification throughout the writing draws the reader into the sick mind of a young mother struggling to find herself again and broaches the issue of feminism.
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 dramatic and situational irony found over and over throughout the text in both narrative content and style are what in effect finally show the reader this story is not to be taken at the narrator’s word: a husband and wife lease a mansion for the summer so she can ‘rest’ to cure her ‘nervous condition’; family and servants tend to her, her baby and her duties- while she quietly obsesses about wall paper. It is the ironic language Gilman uses to illustrate the dire consequences of misunderstood mental illness and the misused ‘rest cure’ that was popular at the time. The effect intensifies the story as we can appreciate the narrator’s experience from her disillusioned perspective. Initially we take the words as they come, and listen to the description of the colonial mansion, and her doting husband John. It doesn’t take long before things just ‘don’t seem to fit’, and it is within
Bertha Mason: object of terror, or object of pity? Discuss Charlotte Brontë’s depiction of Mr Rochester’s first wife. Brontë depicts the character of Bertha Mason in such a way that we can perceive her as an enigma of sympathy, but also one of terror. When reading the novel, it is apparent that the relationship between Jane and Bertha goes much further than their mutual relations with Mr Rochester. Throughout the concerning chapters, Brontë allows the reader to explore their own interpretation of Rochester’s former bride, Bertha, through both the eyes of Jane and the description of the environment in which she inhabits.
The very first descriptions illustrate her initial animus by describing it as “one of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” (Perkins 41-42). This is significant for it reflects the narrator’s own presence—she is committing an artistic sin during her marriage by having her engaging imagination and her need to compose. Her husband, John, dislikes this, and as a result, the narrator deliberately feels stifled and has to obscure her writing so that her husband will not know. The narrator is characterized as having a nervous state and is overly protected by her
and therefore plays a large part in initiating the reader's anticipation- a key criteria of a gothic text. Carter uses the metaphor "her walls as black with tears of pearl" to describe setting in The Lady of the House of Love." Here, Carter clearly juxtaposes the two in order to create ambiguity- another clear gothic convention. Through contrasting the black walls against the tears of "pearl," Carter forms a duality within our gothic protagonist. As pearls are usually white, the contrasting of the two suggest that the Countess is suffering from multiple personalities, as seen in other gothic texts such as The Monk and Northanger Abbey.
The yellow wallpaper In the story, wallpaper, a usually feminine, floral decoration on the interior of walls, is a symbol of female imprisonment within the domestic sphere. Over the course of the story, the wallpaper becomes a text of sorts through which the narrator exercises her literary imagination and identifies with a feminist double figure. When John curbs her creativity and writing, the narrator takes it upon herself to make some sense of the wallpaper. She reverses her initial feeling of being watched by the wallpaper and starts actively studying and decoding its meaning. She untangles its chaotic pattern and locates the figure of a woman struggling to break free from the bars in the pattern.
Short Story Analysis Have we ever read a story that just didn’t make sense at all when first read? That the descriptions in the paper just create vivid pictures in our mind that are kind of disturbing. That is exactly how this short story was constructed. In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author uses symbolism, imagery, irony, and theme to show the subordination and trapped role of women in domestic life. Gilman uses symbols to explain the how women are trapped in domestic life.
Through representation of symbols in their stories Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Margaret Atwood describe what madness feels like and how symbols can make the invisible visible. Symbols in literature serve as representation of something by association or resemblance. Symbols can further mean, in psychological terms, an object or image representing thoughts, feelings or impulses. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s main character is a young married female, circa the late 1800’s telling the story of her depressive state. The first description she gives of her environment “A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house…” suggests a gothic-like setting seemingly dark, gloomy and old (73).
Vincent Wu Hurston 19 October 2017 AP Literature Critical Lens Essay Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow --A Psychoanalytical Critic of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a campaigning feminist writer in the early 20th century, was primarily concerned with showcasing the societal bonds that imprisoned most women in their marital contracts. Since its publication in 1891, The Yellow Wallpaper has created a huge stir over this often neglected issue. Generally, there are two major psychological critical lenses to examine this work: one that blames the illness of the narrator on the patriarchal structure of the society; and one that looks at medical causes for the depression the narrator suffers from. However, these