Essay On The Yellow Wallpaper Conflict

The short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, is a first person gothic narrative that explores a woman’s mental experience on her own mental illness and how she is treated based on her demographics by the people around her. The story was placed in the late 19th century, in a time period when mental illness and mutual respect for women wasn’t entirely acknowledged as a whole. The narrator was brought into a new house with her husband, and senses an odd feeling in the home from the start. Her treatment for depression is based on her barely being active. She is placed into a room with no means of interest other than the non-definite patterned wallpaper in which she slowly begins to see patterns of other woman being trapped. The interpretation of the story is a key objective to understanding the main essence of what the conflict in the story is. The main two conflicts that people interpret from the short story are man vs. himself, and man vs. society. Some depict the story as a woman whose mental illness solely made her insane. The main conflict was her own being and how her depression gradually became worse due to the lack of education on treating mental illnesses. As the narrator is locked into a room due to the failing treatment, she progressively begins to over analyze the patterns on the wall. Some who interpret the short story as a man vs. …show more content…
The man vs. himself conflict focuses on the main characters internal thought processes as her mental disability gradually becomes worse. The man vs. society perspective takes a deeper look into the meaning of the story and views it as a symbolic interpretation for the need for feminism and going against patriarchal views. Analyzing the different views of the conflicts within the short story enables the audience to thoroughly understand the overall meaning and also challenges the reader to empathize with what the characters are up