When modernist literature appeared around the 1910s, it was fairly different than the romantic literature that was popular before it. Instead of focussing on nature, this new form of writing now focussed on inner self and dwelled on the decline of civilization instead of progress. These stories often included characterics of irony, a stream of consciousness, symbolism, told in first person, and society alienating the characters, leading them to loneliness. The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” published in 1892 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, includes many of the modernist literature criteria. This eerie story revolves around a sick women who is constantly forced to lay in her bed by her oppressive husband. While in her room, she becomes obsessed
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She believes herself to be the woman in the walls creeping around the room and causes her husband to faint at the sight of her destruction, continuing to slink around the room while he lays on the ground. This mysterious story holds many of the characteristics that modernist literature includes. As the story is told in the form of a woman’s diary, it fits the criteria of this genre usually being in first person and a stream of consciousness. The women essentially writes down everything she is thinking and writes it fast to make sure no one sees her journaling. As she writes, she often asks questions, descriptively describes her surroundings, and bounced from different subjects, which are all common characteristics of a stream of consciousness. She tells the story from her perspective, which gives the story a unique view, since she is the one going insane, the reader sees her decline throughout the story. Another characteristic is society alienating the individual, which leads them to loneliness. This is present all throughout her diary; the woman is confined to her room because her husband and doctor believes that she is sick, and to get better, she needs to do nothing. This causes her to become secluded and left only with the yellow wallpaper that perplexes
She believes herself to be the woman in the walls creeping around the room and causes her husband to faint at the sight of her destruction, continuing to slink around the room while he lays on the ground. This mysterious story holds many of the characteristics that modernist literature includes. As the story is told in the form of a woman’s diary, it fits the criteria of this genre usually being in first person and a stream of consciousness. The women essentially writes down everything she is thinking and writes it fast to make sure no one sees her journaling. As she writes, she often asks questions, descriptively describes her surroundings, and bounced from different subjects, which are all common characteristics of a stream of consciousness. She tells the story from her perspective, which gives the story a unique view, since she is the one going insane, the reader sees her decline throughout the story. Another characteristic is society alienating the individual, which leads them to loneliness. This is present all throughout her diary; the woman is confined to her room because her husband and doctor believes that she is sick, and to get better, she needs to do nothing. This causes her to become secluded and left only with the yellow wallpaper that perplexes