After staring at the wallpaper long enough, she finds that the pattern moves because of the woman behind it trying to get out. She describes the woman as “all the time trying to climb out. But nobody could climb through that pattern – it strangles so” (353). This is another reference to how the lives of women are restricting. The barred windows represents the world of possibilities, but the narrator says, “I don't like to look out of the windows even – there are so many of those creeping women and they creep so fast”(353), because of how the women must “creep” around without being seen or
Zoey Crain Comp 1302 Prof. Dodge February 9, 2012 The Yellow Wallpaper The psychological thriller, The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story about a woman with postpartum depression. The narrator’s husband and brother concluded it was a nervous depression. Her husband and she move out to a rather suspicious house, so she can better herself. She isn’t aloud to do any kind of work and is given strict instructions to get air and relax her self.
Nyle’s Grandma allowed two evacuees, a mother and her very sick son, to settle in her house until the boy got better. The boy’s name was Ezra, and in the beginning Nyle was not happy with him staying at her house. She was sure he was going to die, so she swore she would not let herself get too close to him, she was to afraid she would lose him. Pity overcomes her and they become great friends. Towards the end of the novel Leukemia overcomes Ezra and Nyle is forced to live with the thought that Ezra might be dead.
Even the hardest of people need somebody to talk to every once in a while. Over the next few paragraphs of the letter, the writer indirectly indicates her loneliness; personifying her cat and going over her day and her work routine and her daily surroundings with extraordinary details. “I, too, walk to work, through the fudgy air and over clumps of moss. The first month we were here I couldn't walk without stopping to touch the fallen clumps. They looked like wig hair, damaged and knotted, but felt like duck feathers.” It is typical for a fiction story to describe surroundings with such detail, but since this was written as a letter to someone, the use of detail is used to emphasize the loneliness of the writer, since she probably has nobody else to listen to what she has to say.
She somehow sneaks a rope into her room, without John knowing. The thing is that she really didn’t have a place to do it. The bed is nailed to the floor and the windows are barred. So the fact that she is very dangerous to herself and who knows is she is a danger to anybody else. Another thing is it’s not like the baby isn’t being cared for, John sister is taking care of the baby.
In Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the 19th century female narrator experiences societal restrictions but does not yet have the confidence within herself to break free and fulfill her ambitions, giving the world all she has to offer. Through the use of the symbols, the wallpaper and the nursery she is confined in, the restrictions on this woman’s ambition are exemplified. Especially in the 19th century before the feminist movement, society restricted many types of people from satisfying their dreams; consequently, these oppressed groups were forced to submit to this dominating force. Gilman writes, “Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard.” describing the sub pattern, a woman, of the wallpaper. While this woman depicted in the wallpaper is in the light, the view of society, she doesn’t move or rebel; equally, when the woman is in the dark, alone, she resents society and the “bars” it places in front of her.
The wife from “The Yellow Wallpaper” is obviously mentally ill. She might suffer from depression, schizophrenia, or a personality disorder, but we are never for sure. Throughout this literary work, the wife is shuffled around and not given much freedom. Her husband, a doctor, advises her of what to do and what not to do. For the majority of the piece, the wife is stuck in a room consisting of few objects and horrendously disturbing yellow wallpaper. Not only does her husband manipulate her into staying in bed and thinking she is completely helpless and ill, but the yellow wallpaper also manipulates her into having strange thoughts.
It was said that Cowell would sometimes speak to unseen presences in the house. Bundy described his grandmother as a timid and obedient woman who periodically underwent Electroconvulsive therapy for depression he said she feared leaving the house and even more so toward the end of her life. Julia Cowell told reporters of how she assumed that Ted was disturbed at a young age, as one day as she had been taking a nap she awoke to find all the kitchen knives surrounding her on the bed whilst Ted looking sinister at
He had been playing around a dead cat for a while. I thought she would have gave him a bath, but she let him sleep with her that night. I could not handle that, so the next morning I got up and scrubbed him really good with powerful soap. The second type of person I have lived with was very disrespectful. Kayann would come in around three or four o'clock in the morning.
An example of someone pursuing a relationship for companionship is Rachel. She is the main characters wife who becomes promiscuous after their son, Carlton, dies. To describe this season in her life, she leaves a poem on Julian’s, the main character’s, pillow which has a line that reads, “a season of folly was all that I needed. Where is the love that once I called mine” (Phillips 140). Rachel is unable to deal with her life after Carlton dies, and she abuses sleeping pills to cope with her pain (Phillips 191).