Conform To Society

Great Essays
Everyday we conform to society and do what is expected of us. In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the unnamed author who might be known as Jane had to conform in more ways than one, but also took a stand at times. She suffered from depression. For many years society has a hard time accepting mental illness especially in love ones. Jane was forced to live in a symbolic bubble that family expected and figured was right for her. Does its helps or makes the situation worst to conform to other people's reality? No it does not! The story tells of an unnamed writer that pours her heart to her diary she was ordered not to have due to the treatment. She was suffering from a mental illness after recently have a child that perhaps could have just been postpartum depression. Her husband not wanting to believe his wife is suffering from temporary insanity and need psychiatric help, ordered her “the rest cure”in a room at the top of a mansion they moved to for the summer for this purpose. The rest cure was invented by Weir Mitchell, a 1800 American physician. He ensured that women remained in isolation for a period of time according to author and science expert Anne Stiles. Jane's husband has full control over everything she does, she conforms to his demands believing he only wants the best for her. Jane would sometime feels ungrateful to second guess her husband's decisions. “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction” said the author. Her husband placed her in the room he saw suitable where she can get air and rest. The author's husband, a physician by the name of John was sure this would be the best cure for his wife and so did her brother whom was also a physician. The author confessed to herself that she does believe that her illness is being lengthened due to her husband's occupation. He thinks he knows it all and his rest cure treatment is all she needs. Though the author feels this way, she agrees with her husband's demands, but still hide and writes to free her mind. Her husband insist she's only having nervous depression, but she knew she was ill. She explained she would cry for no reason and had little control over her emotions. “I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time. Of course I don't when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone,” Said Jane. After she was placed in a room, she voiced her concern and discomfort about the yellow wall paper on the wall. She could see things in the wallpaper no one else could see, but her husband explained if it's not the wallpaper it would be something else so she should just rest. Jane saw so much expression in the wallpaper that it consumed her. She wrote about her emotions but will constantly come back to talking about the …show more content…
The wallpaper is not just any paper, but instead symbolizes an escape, a understanding, a look inside herself. With all the desperation to be free, she decided to free the woman she sees trapped in the wallpaper. She begins to start tearing away the wallpaper convincing herself she was once trapped behind there. She then became the woman in the wallpaper. Confinement has drove her to complete insanity. “I don't like to look out of the windows even, there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did?” Said jane. She then started to creep on the floor, believing she was a woman who was being trapped behind the wallpaper who has now escaped and gaining her freedom from not just John, the husband, but also from Jane. When her husband entered the room, Jane was crawling on the floor. "For God's sake, what are you doing! " Said John, as he tried to figure out what was going on with his wife. She explained to him she have got out of the wallpaper and pull it off the wall so she cannot be placed back in. John fainted and Jane stepped over him freeing herself of his

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The wallpaper is a, “smoldering unclean yellow... A dull yet lurid orange”. The woman sees a desperate woman in the pattern of the wallpaper constantly looking for an escape from the wallpaper which resembles the bars of a cage. This represents the narrator herself being trapped in the life of a typical housewife. When the narrator becomes increasingly interested in the woman I can conclude that the by her being so bored and hopelessly insane she imagines that there is a woman in the wallpaper.…

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Soon after, the wallpaper of course begins to resemble bars and the woman is stuck behind them. The narrator describes the woman as “subdued, quiet” (pg. 533). She is clearly using the wallpaper to describe how she really sees herself. Shaking and trying to get out, feeling trapped by the pattern. The pattern in this case is representative of society and her marriage, trapping her in.…

    • 1017 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Literary Devices in “The Yellow Wallpaper” Throughout life, there are many people who go through depression, which can change a person’s whole life. In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, focused on the main character Jane, also the narrator deals with depression. Due to her depression, she is isolated in a room with “yellow wallpaper” so she can recuperate. There are many literary devices used in the story to explain what the narrator is going through.…

    • 1202 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Many people assume that to fit in you have to be like everyone else. Most people think that you have to dress like each other and talk like each other to be accepted in today's society. People are losing their humanity by conforming an enormous amount , they are trying to become someone they are not. What happens to all the brilliant people that do not want to engage in society because they fear the will get out down or shut out with their different ideas? We as humans need to be aware of how much conformity can change us.…

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the late 1800’s, the dynamic of men and women made it so women were inferior to men. Women were looked upon as having no impact on society other than to have children and take care of the home. It was difficult for women to express themselves in a world controlled by men. The men held the jobs, received educations, and ruled society. In "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator experiences this kind of control from her husband, John.…

    • 1001 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    As time progresses being locked in this room has caused for the women to begin to hallucinate and see figures within the wall paper. She begged her husband to redecorate or allow her to go to another room. However, he felt compelled to tell her no and she was getting better every day in the room she was in. She became so paranoid, she ripped the wall paper off the…

    • 1351 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    While John is in town, she tries to tear down the wallpaper and hides it from her husband, but the wallpaper, the yellow wallpaper is what helped her. The woman stuck in the wallpaper is what helped her get through “an illness” that wasn’t an illness in the first place. Towards the end of the writing, the narrator says, “I’ve got out at last, despite you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back” (Gilman…

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    " Jane kept a secret diary, but only wrote in it when she knew for sure she was not going to get caught. John and Dr. Mitchell kept her from writing, which was a factor in her deteriorating mental health. Eventually, Jane becomes jumbled in her thoughts and eventually starts to see a woman in the wallpaper, who appears trapped inside the yellow…

    • 850 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is told in first person by the narrator through her journal entries. The main character, who is the protagonist, is sent to a mansion due to an illness and her husband’s need to heal her. She is alone and stuck in her own mind, and creates these fantasies to try and overlook her reality. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, describes a woman who has been driven to insanity due to postpartum depression. However, due to her treatment, a time period full of women's inequality, and a husband who clearly is her oppressor, the narrator was not driven to insanity through post partum depression, but rather by her husband and her need for an identity.…

    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    So the narrator stays in the yellow papered room. As time passes, the narrator sees something in the wallpaper, a woman trying to get out from the wallpaper. It means the aggravation of her illness. Finally she rips the yellow wallpaper out when her husband was not at home and creeps on the floor just like the woman in the wallpaper that she saw in the wallpaper. “Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor.…

    • 1359 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Women have been for a long time, and are still today, considered to be inferior to men. Since the first official feminist movement in the 1960s, women’s conditions have gradually gotten much better. However, when the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” was published in 1892, women were most often seen only as their husband’s wife and nothing more. Still, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author of that same story, decided to do something bold: through her use of irony, through her allusions to prisons when describing the house, and through her use of the yellow wallpaper as a symbol, she is openly criticizing the oppression of women.…

    • 746 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Social norms and values are implicit or explicit rules of behavior that are considered acceptable in our society. I see them as “guidelines” that influence us how should we behave, what should we say and how we suppose to live our lives in order to feel accepted, loved and have the approval of others. Therefore, individuals who do not meet society’s’ expectations often experience difficulties in their lives. For example, society often expects people to educate themselves and work in order to give back to society. For this reason, homeless people are often seen as lazy and uneducated people, who only want to take money from the government.…

    • 228 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Conformity In Society

    • 863 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In society there is a standard to what is known as normal. When a person does not meet that expectation of the overall standard, the ideal is to conform to what is agreeable. It is not the people who conform to the norm that are seen as the problem, it is the people who cannot accept the standard. People who are criticized as abnormal are those who question the way of society and are seen as different compared to everyone else. These people become labeled as insane and get attacked and manipulated by the Combine of society.…

    • 863 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Society has affect my views though conformity, I believe that every day I get dressed and ready, I am experiencing conformity through the clothes I wear and the hair and makeup I apply. I do not go shopping for clothes often, although, when I do, I tend to look on Pinterest, or other social media sites, to see what styles are popular and what clothes I should try on. I do not personally see this as an issue, I don’t have a lot of time to figure out my personal style and I like what others have put together. It makes for an easy shopping trip, and I know that I like that look. Somethings that I feel I’m pressured to comply at work.…

    • 414 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Conformity to me means no diversity, no contrast and no variety. Conformity to me also means obliterating creativity, originality and individuality. If Individuality was a person, they would wear the mom jeans with a fanny pack, a pair of crocs with a pair of socks and a T-Shirt that doesn’t even match. They would skip down the sidewalk while others simply walk. They would roller skate themself to school, and hear the others talk.…

    • 239 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays