The Yellow Wallpaper Compare And Contrast Essay

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper” has important themes of the cruel treatment of women, and how marriage causes unhappiness, and lacks freedom for women. The short story was made into a movie in 1989 by the British Broadcasting Company. Both forms tell a similar story, although there are many differences as well. The book better presents the message of the story then the movie does. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman tells the story of a confined woman who is controlled by her husband, John. This confinement causes her to fall deeper and deeper into a fantasy. The story revolves around the room that John has chosen to be their master bedroom in the home that they have inhabited for the summer. The narrator believes that …show more content…
Her eventual breakdown is seen as the story concludes with her crawling over the body of her passed out husband. This storyline is, of course, carried through completely in the film version. John is still controlling, she is still sneaking to write in her journal, and the wallpaper is still an incredibly overwhelming thing. The mood intended by Gilman is present in both settings. However, there are many differences as well. One of the most important, yet seemingly small differences, is the name given to the narrator in the movie, Charlotte. She never names herself throughout the written story. The choice not to name a main character of a story was very well thought out by Gilman. A no-named character gives the readers the ability to relate because they could just as easily be this person as to anyone else. The writers of the film not only chose to name the narrator, but they chose the name of the author of the original story. This immediately takes away the idea that this is an everyman story and makes it appear to the viewer as the story of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Another difference includes names again, but this time names of other characters. The baby,