The yellow wallpaper theme. [48+] The Yellow Wallpaper Theme 2022-10-29
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The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, published in 1892. The story is about a woman who is struggling with mental illness and the lack of understanding and support from her husband and physician. The theme of The Yellow Wallpaper is the detrimental effects of society's rigid gender roles and the suppression of women's intellectual and creative potential.
The main character in the story is a woman who is not named, but is referred to as "the narrator." She is a talented writer who is not allowed to pursue her writing because it is seen as a hobby rather than a serious occupation. Her husband, John, is a physician who believes in the traditional gender roles of the time, which dictate that a woman's place is in the home and that her primary role is to be a wife and mother.
The narrator is suffering from a condition that is described as "temporary nervous depression" and is prescribed a "rest cure" by John. However, the treatment only serves to make her condition worse, as she is confined to her bedroom and not allowed to engage in any activities that might stimulate her mind. The only outlet she has is the wallpaper in her room, which she becomes increasingly obsessed with.
The yellow wallpaper becomes a symbol of the narrator's own confinement and the restrictions placed on her by society. She becomes fixated on the wallpaper and begins to see a figure trapped behind it, which represents her own feelings of entrapment and frustration. The narrator's obsession with the wallpaper serves as a metaphor for the suppression of women's intellectual and creative potential.
The story ultimately ends with the narrator's mental breakdown, as she is unable to cope with the constraints placed on her by society. The Yellow Wallpaper is a powerful commentary on the way in which society's rigid gender roles can have detrimental effects on the mental health of women. It is a poignant reminder of the importance of allowing individuals to pursue their passions and interests, regardless of their gender.
Gender Roles and Domestic Life Theme in The Yellow Wallpaper
Even in her hallucination, the narrator cannot escape the Victorian ideals enforced on women. She cannot think or write about anything besides the wallpaper and the woman trapped within it. The story is told as a series of secret journal entries that are kept hidden away from her husband. In the nineteenth century, these roles were Gilman was an active contributor to feminism at the time, and her works on the role of women were quite famous. In her mind, the wallpaper symbolizes everything unpleasant there is.
However, she is constantly obstructed by the top pattern of the wallpaper. The literary devices help to enhance the struggles of women during the nineteenth century. Learn More Altogether, the restrictions make the narrator feel trapped and powerless. I don't want to go outside. This story demonstrates the struggle women everywhere had in terms of being heard and respected. She seems to get happier as she goes along this process because her break from reality allows her to express her imagination in creative ways. Just like her, the Woman behind the wallpaper is trapped behind the pattern.
Analysis of 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by C. Perkins Gilman
John tells her not to think of her condition. To cure, she needs to stay in a poorly furnished room of an old colonial mansion in the countryside. First, she lacked human contact. Learn More A woman has no place to do mental labor in the patriarchal setting because her primary function is that of a wife and a mother, a servant to the family, and the husband. This containment leads the main character to lose her identity.
The Yellow Wallpaper Questions and Answers for Discussion & Assessment
At the end of the story, faced with the complete madness of his wife, the highly logical and rational John faints as he cannot comprehend rationally what is happening to his wife. Creating this symbol in the story is key to show how men in this era oppressed women. It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please! The picture contrasts with the idyllic descriptions of the house and the surroundings. This made it impossible for her to get better. Why is writing so important to the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper? Rather, we see how his ability to communicate effectively with his wife is constrained by the structure of their gender roles. But it proves to be wrong by the end. The narrator has no say in even the smallest details of her life, and she retreats into her obsessive fantasy, the only place she can retain some control and exercise the power of her mind.
The Yellow Wallpaper Themes & Symbols: Gender Roles, Freedom, etc.
. She seeks to express the things she cannot share with anybody through writing a secret diary, which, of course, is not nearly enough. During the late 19th century, serious cases of hysteria were treated in this fashion. This, of course, makes her feel worse when she does think of it because of how brainwashed she is by John. She feels no longer trapped and can now thrive as a young woman.
Her reality is first changed when she has a baby, possibly leading her to postpartum depression. She begins to believe the wallpaper is alive, seeing movement and eyes. The narrator keeps telling herself how her husband loves her and how her feelings are uncalled for. She is forced to hide her anxieties and fears in order to preserve the façade of a happy marriage and to make it seem as though she is winning the fight against her depression. Her escalating Madness without any creative outlet makes her create an entirely new narrative in her mind.
Eventually, her need for creative expression creates delusions where she starts seeing things and patterns within the wallpaper. She would likely continue to live in isolation and doctors would continue mistreating her ailment. He laughs at me so about this wallpaper! The windows in the room are barred, which gives it a prison-like quality. It seems to be peppered with distorted heads with bulging eyes—the heads of other creeping women who were strangled by the pattern when they tried to escape it. Her husband, John, prescribed her treatment for postpartum depression.
What is the literary theme of The Yellow Wallpaper?
He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. In the case of the unnamed narrator, the isolation, loss of control, and boredom cause her to gradually descend into madness. The last date is today's date — the date you are citing the material. Clearly, the wallpaper represents the structure of family, medicine, and tradition in which the narrator finds herself trapped. When the expectations go astray, and the reality kicks in, one might expect a massive failure. He is unable to understand the therapeutic reasons for her desire to write and as a man of logic and rationality can not understand her imaginative inner world. Insanity is the only way to battle this.
And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back! She believes that she has become one of the many women she now sees in the wallpaper. We must ask ourselves, as readers, if she was truly mentally unwell, to begin with or if the circumstances her husband placed her under have made her become mentally ill. I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard! She is finally convinced that he only "pretended to be loving and kind. John, her husband, is a physician and believes she just needs to rest to be cured; he rents a mansion for 3 months in the summertime and puts her in the nursery. Her husband, John, is extremely controlling and determines what she can do in her free time, where she can sleep, and who she can see with little regard to her opinion. While the husband, John, has complete agency. The yellow wallpaper is what the narrator gets unwillingly fixated on to give herself the mental exercise she is deprived of.
Her recovery will be measured by how cheerfully she resumes her domestic duties as wife and mother, and her desire to do anything else—like write—is something that would interfere with that recovery. To silence the narrator, John often resorts to coddling her and calling her pet names. John does not know how much I really suffer. What is the moral of The Yellow Wallpaper? While John tries to break in, she tells him exactly where the key is and simultaneously rips down the wallpaper. Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper.
