The wallpaper however begins to take a toll on the woman’s life. Throughout the short story the woman mentions how she cannot stand the yellow wallpaper. The husband ignores the obsession his wife begins to have with the wallpaper and believes she is just getting worse. The yellow wallpaper constantly sickens the woman just by looking at it, but John refuses to change it. The wallpaper begins to take over the woman’s mind.
Zoë Wickham May 5th 2008 6th Period The Woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper” Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a feminist writer and in her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” she creates a women going crazy because of her husband’s firm hold on her. The woman trapped in the wallpaper is a symbol of how women are trapped by men. Written in first person, this short story contains a series of entries the woman writes in secret. The husband controls every move his wife takes, every hour planned with the pills she needs. Once the woman character in this short story develops her own sense of control apart from her husband she can plan her flight to freedom.
The central character’s analysis of a fictional woman trapped behind the bars of the horrid yellow wallpaper that encased the room she was confined to, severed her identity as she suppressed the anxieties of her experiences and ultimately led to the demise of the boundaries between herself and the imagined woman. In the beginning, the woman in the paper was merely the protagonist’s own shadow. The yellow wallpaper was a constant source of angst for her and she spent much time studying it. At first, the many different patterns in the paper are simply never-ending without any conclusions. However, as her mental illness advances and the constant isolation from everyone continues, she starts obsessing over the wallpaper and an actual form begins to take shape among the patterns.
She speaks about the “hedges, and walls, and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners, and people” (266). As the story continues, the narrator speaks only about the nursery, and the wallpaper. The nursery is a big open room, with the bed nailed to the ground and there were rings hanging from the walls. “The color is repellent, almost revolting: a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight,” explains the lady from the story as she describes the nursery, and wallpaper (267). Charlotte Gilman suffered from postpartum depression and as she writes her famous story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the main character suffers from the same disorder.
As a result of her husbands control, the woman develops and obsessive attachment to the wallpaper which masks the walls of her bedroom. Gilman composed the short story to make determined statements about feminism and individuality to oppose the male authority that ruled over her during her lifetime. Gilman does this by describing the narrators decent into madness, which is caused by many factors, all being linked to her husband. It’s immediately apparent in “The Yellow Wallpaper” that the woman allows herself to be inferior to men, in particular her husband, John. This ultimately leaves the reader with many questions about 19th century male-female relationships and perhaps insanity.
The unnamed narrator of the story is advised to abstain from any and all physical activity and intellectual stimulation. May it be reading, writing, or even to seeing her new baby. To ensure the narrator receives the full effect of this form of treatment, the woman’s husband takes her to a country house where she is kept in a former nursery decorated with yellow wallpaper. Over time she becomes obsessed with the wallpaper in every aspect whether it be the look or even smell of it. She eventually becomes so absorbed by the wallpaper that she sees a woman trapped inside of it and then tries to free her by peeling off the wallpaper.
Kamara Bellis Buckner English 1301 25 JUN 09 The Victorian Woman’s Insane Treatment in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” During the Victorian era, woman were to be dependant and obedient of their husbands. They were not allowed to pursue careers or interests. Gilman, being a woman of this time experienced this oppression first hand. She had been diagnosed with a nervous condition and was ordered to bed rest after the birth of her child. This ill-fated treatment prescribed by her physician Weir Mitchell, whom she referenced in her story, drove her to the brink of insanity.
Why, friend, that’s most unlikely.” (Kesey, p.54,55) With this type of thinking throughout the novel, that the patients were misguided with what they lack in their lives. By Miss Ratched’s manipulation. When McMurphy comes in the ward with his bolstering personality and laugh, and it instantly breaks up the monotony of the ward.With the Novel progresses. Then McMurphy challenges the Big Nurse to break her down and get under her skin, give the patients their manhood back. Then the guys they need to go into the world since they are an only volunteer and not committed as he is.
In 'The Handmaid's Tale', Atwood creates a very bleak future for the human race, portraying a world destroyed by corrupted morals in which women have had all of their rights removed. One of the fundamental ways that Atwood constructs the dystopia is by showing the manipulability of human nature. The women of Gilead have been stripped of their freedom, yet have simply grown to accept it. The way that Offred refers to her bedroom as "mine" shows how despite her attempts to rebel against the system, society stands no chance against the Gilead republic. The citizens' morals are becoming more re-shaped all the time, painting a very bleak future for the next generation as before long there will nobody to fight against the government oppression.
In “A Sorrowful Woman” Godwin’s unnamed wife character, starts off in depression and only worsens as the story progresses. Faye is upset because she does not have a child and desperately wants to give one to Kai; Godwin’s unnamed wife is upset and is desperately trying to escape from the child and husband and her mother duties that she already has. Faye’s attitude towards her family is making everyone in contact with her unbearable. As Van Der Zee states “She was making life unbearable for everyone around her.” (5). It was because “Everybody worried about her.