Exploring Patterns and Molds as a Creative Person
Most readers would argue that the conflict in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is created by the incorrect diagnosis and cure for the narrator’s nervous depression. A surface understanding of the story might suggest that the conflict comes from the physical state of being that the narrator finds herself in- she is often overly weary. However, when taking a closer look at the time period and the implications in the text into account you will discover that the cause of her depression is not caused by her fantasies and her sensitive mind. I believe that the underlying cause of her depression stems from the fact that she cannot express herself as a creative person due to the …show more content…
In “The Yellow Wallpaper” things are no different, all of the female characters in the short story are expected to act in a way that is typical or “normal” or women. The narrator struggles with fulfilling those roles. She says she is “absolutely forbidden to ‘work’” (648) until she is well again. This remark by the narrator informs us that she is already restricted form the “work” she is normally permitted to do. The quotation marks around the word work even illustrates how the typical work for her – as a woman, is not truly work. The idea of a woman working at the time was totally out of the question. And she is not even talking about that type of work, she is talking about her daily obligations as a mother and wife. For the narrator, the type of work she desires writing. We learn right away that she is a creative person, she says “This [writing] is a great relief to my mind” (647). Her husband John forbids her from working, specifically writing; the narrator says, “I did write for a while in spite of them” (648). However, the work that would normally relieve her exhausts her because she constantly has to sneak it. Through these contextual details we see that the protagonist, as a creative person, feels the intense need to express herself though writing, but that is atypical of women at the time. When she is stopped form creating and forced into the mold we see that she becomes fatigued and “sick” as John might call
Most readers would argue that the conflict in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is created by the incorrect diagnosis and cure for the narrator’s nervous depression. A surface understanding of the story might suggest that the conflict comes from the physical state of being that the narrator finds herself in- she is often overly weary. However, when taking a closer look at the time period and the implications in the text into account you will discover that the cause of her depression is not caused by her fantasies and her sensitive mind. I believe that the underlying cause of her depression stems from the fact that she cannot express herself as a creative person due to the …show more content…
In “The Yellow Wallpaper” things are no different, all of the female characters in the short story are expected to act in a way that is typical or “normal” or women. The narrator struggles with fulfilling those roles. She says she is “absolutely forbidden to ‘work’” (648) until she is well again. This remark by the narrator informs us that she is already restricted form the “work” she is normally permitted to do. The quotation marks around the word work even illustrates how the typical work for her – as a woman, is not truly work. The idea of a woman working at the time was totally out of the question. And she is not even talking about that type of work, she is talking about her daily obligations as a mother and wife. For the narrator, the type of work she desires writing. We learn right away that she is a creative person, she says “This [writing] is a great relief to my mind” (647). Her husband John forbids her from working, specifically writing; the narrator says, “I did write for a while in spite of them” (648). However, the work that would normally relieve her exhausts her because she constantly has to sneak it. Through these contextual details we see that the protagonist, as a creative person, feels the intense need to express herself though writing, but that is atypical of women at the time. When she is stopped form creating and forced into the mold we see that she becomes fatigued and “sick” as John might call