Katy Waggonner
Professor Megan Fischer
English 1302
23 October 2017
Taking a Second Look at Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper
The short story The Yellow Wallpaper was written in a time of women’s suffrage in the late 19th and early 20th century. In this time period, women were deemed to be inferior to the opposite sex; Women were sought to do everything that the man would suggest without refusal. The author of The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, uses various attempts to display the normalization of the subordination of women in a society. In the late 1800’s, Gilman went to see a psychologist in hopes of curing her mental breakdowns. This psychologist had prescribed Gilman to a rest cure, a treatment that consists …show more content…
The yellow wallpaper has a great amount of symbolism in this story as well as parallelism. Lisa Galullo states, “In the story, Jane battles the wallpaper and the mystery of Gilman's narrator represents a battling woman. In the story, she is battling the wallpaper and its mystery; in its historical context, she is battling patriarchal social codes”. Galullo’s statement is a perfect interpretation of the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. At the beginning of this story, the wallpaper has almost no significance as the narrator refers to the yellow wallpaper as “one of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.” As Jane’s case worsens, she becomes more infatuated with the wallpaper and begins to see a woman that is trapped behind bars. At the end of the story, Jane rips away the wallpaper and claims “I've got out at last, in spite of you and Jane!” As the story progressed, Jane began to express herself, while also driving her into madness. Once Jane had ripped away the wallpaper, she had reached freedom from her husband and her inner self that had been listening to what he was telling her. Gilman uses parallelism to correspond the yellow wallpaper to her personal experience with her specialist. Once Gilman began to express her true self, she became free of the disease, Jane was free of the …show more content…
Gilman uses John’s prescription of the rest cure as situational irony in this story to show that while he prescribed a rest cure to help her, he actually drives her into a deeper madness. Another example would be when Jane uses verbal irony in reference to John. In one of Jane’s journal entries, she writes “I am glad that my case isn’t serious.” This statement is ironic because at this point in the story, the reader is certain that Jane’s case is, in fact, very serious. At another point in the story, Jane writes that “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.” This statement is also a source of verbal irony because what is known as a healthy marriage in the modern era, it is not expected or normal for a husband to laugh at their
Professor Megan Fischer
English 1302
23 October 2017
Taking a Second Look at Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper
The short story The Yellow Wallpaper was written in a time of women’s suffrage in the late 19th and early 20th century. In this time period, women were deemed to be inferior to the opposite sex; Women were sought to do everything that the man would suggest without refusal. The author of The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, uses various attempts to display the normalization of the subordination of women in a society. In the late 1800’s, Gilman went to see a psychologist in hopes of curing her mental breakdowns. This psychologist had prescribed Gilman to a rest cure, a treatment that consists …show more content…
The yellow wallpaper has a great amount of symbolism in this story as well as parallelism. Lisa Galullo states, “In the story, Jane battles the wallpaper and the mystery of Gilman's narrator represents a battling woman. In the story, she is battling the wallpaper and its mystery; in its historical context, she is battling patriarchal social codes”. Galullo’s statement is a perfect interpretation of the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. At the beginning of this story, the wallpaper has almost no significance as the narrator refers to the yellow wallpaper as “one of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.” As Jane’s case worsens, she becomes more infatuated with the wallpaper and begins to see a woman that is trapped behind bars. At the end of the story, Jane rips away the wallpaper and claims “I've got out at last, in spite of you and Jane!” As the story progressed, Jane began to express herself, while also driving her into madness. Once Jane had ripped away the wallpaper, she had reached freedom from her husband and her inner self that had been listening to what he was telling her. Gilman uses parallelism to correspond the yellow wallpaper to her personal experience with her specialist. Once Gilman began to express her true self, she became free of the disease, Jane was free of the …show more content…
Gilman uses John’s prescription of the rest cure as situational irony in this story to show that while he prescribed a rest cure to help her, he actually drives her into a deeper madness. Another example would be when Jane uses verbal irony in reference to John. In one of Jane’s journal entries, she writes “I am glad that my case isn’t serious.” This statement is ironic because at this point in the story, the reader is certain that Jane’s case is, in fact, very serious. At another point in the story, Jane writes that “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.” This statement is also a source of verbal irony because what is known as a healthy marriage in the modern era, it is not expected or normal for a husband to laugh at their