Analyzing Whitman's The Yellow Wallpaper

We began our year reading so many great pieces of literature, but there is so little to do and so much time. Wait. Reverse that. We have floated the river with Twain, Chopin coming awake, Whitman becoming a poet, and Washington and Dubois arguing on what to do with something we take great advantage of in modern day; freedom. These works have all had an amazing impact on modern day society and even the years promptly after they were written. All of the authors were deeply in tune with their society and culture that even the common eye didn’t encompass as a problem. These writers saw so many faults within society and took a large piece of the puzzle trying to fix it. Sadly, our piece of the puzzle doesn’t always fit perfectly with what society …show more content…
however, I believe that we should have made time to read The Yellow Wallpaper. Upon reading the work in my free time, I feel in love with the beauty of romance in the story. This writing is another fantastic example of how woman were treated and disrespected in the post-civil war era. In reading we watch as the narrator keeps her journal a secret so well, for so long. Her life seems to be represented threw the journal, not only in what she wrote but also with the symbolism. It seems as though this journal represents her hiding, her wanting to be heard, her wanting so much more than what woman could be back then. We watch as John just keeps pushing her down. This poor woman 's dreams are being made out to be something she should fear rather than achieve. That’s how men were in this time period though, very oppressive. Even when the narrator is simply tired, John is trying to get her to either perk up and do “woman things” or to go visit the doctor. The symbolism of the wallpaper that looks like the woman stooping down, resembles so much of the narration feeling. This poor woman wants to be able to leave the house, to explore, but John pushes her back and continues to make whittle her down to nothing. The secondary pattern resembling a woman trying to escape is clearly what the narrator wants. She wants to go out and live her …show more content…
This time period was such a true turning point within American history that it is curtails to include as many works as possible. In my opinion, reading for these times would be influenced because of how deep you have to dig in order to really discover the story. This work would help influence minds by being a change of view from all of our works that we have read in third person. To also expand a students horizons I believe that The Yellow Wallpaper will also help for woman to see where we have come from, what we have accomplished and what still needs to be done. Maybe, American History is all just one giant puzzle, only with millions of pieces and not a simple 1000. By reading these stories we learn what has been done, what has worked and what has gone terrible wrong, knowing that will be the key to