The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wall-paper was written by, Charlotte Perkins Gilman first published in the Forerunner of October 1913. This story is about a woman who is diagnosed with “nervous depression” by her physician. The physician is a high standing doctor, John who is also her husband. Her brother is a well-known physician also of high standing and he too gives her the same diagnosis “nervous depression”. With this diagnosis she is prohibited from any work and never to touch pen and pencil again as long as…

In the short story of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gillman writes an intriguing story that brings to light how women were identified through domestic roles in the Victorian era. She shows through a haunting experience and progression of the “resting-cure.” Through dark symbolism, descriptive and repetitive diction, and setting of events taken place, readers are able to understand how those roles denied women their freedom and independence. Throughout the story, Gillman shows…

The Yellow Wallpaper Even the thought of being stuck in a room with nothing to do is horrifying let alone actually experiencing it. This is exactly what happened to the narrator of the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. I can somewhat relate to this due to the fact that I’ve been sick many times and it sucks to be lying in bed for those couple of days being able to do nothing. But being placed in a room for three months with absolutely nothing to do is a whole different story. The narrator…

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, is about a sick wife who suffers from mental illness or depression. The wife narrates the story in first person. The husband and wife move into a mansion and the wife’s illness worsens. The husband, a doctor, diagnoses her sickness and prescribes her rest. While in bed the wife becomes bored with free time and writes in a journal about her opinions on the house. After a while the wife becomes obsessed with a particular room in the house. She…

The house in this story seems to have an eery feel. The narrator is told that this room was used as a “nursery”, and she assumes that it was later turned into a gymnasium due to the rings hanging from the walls and the bars on the windows. But I think something a little more cynical may have taken place in this room than the narrator is led to believe. Throughout the story the narrator gives you a lot of insight into her illness. She states that her husband doesn't like her writing because it…

In the end the societal constraints the narrators are being forced to adhere to cause them to seek and carry out drastic means of escape. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” escapes by mentally leaving her society. The reader sees this development when the narrator is descending into madness and is tearing at the wall paper; she muses that if she had the strength she could remove the bars on the window and be physically free; however, she immediately rebukes the idea. As the narrator states,…

In the “Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman writes about a summer house they are temporarily owning, which is full of symbolism throughout the story. Well, this awful wallpaper and this nursery upstairs, where they draft is heavy, Gilman has to stay up here to cure her disease. All of these things, the wallpaper, the nursery, and her disease, are all symbolism used in the story. The disease is symbolic because it shows that there is definitely something wrong with her, but they are just ignorant and won’t…

the room that are described are the metal bars, a bed bolted to the floor and the yellow wallpaper. All these things show how she is held back by her husband. The metal bars represent how she is held back by norms and expectations. The bed bolted to the floor shows that she is viewed as a sexual object in which she is used for sexual pleasure. What she hates the most about the room is the yellow wallpaper. The yellow colour represents disease and…

An important role in the narrator’s acting out of her creativity plays the yellow wallpaper. In the course of the story Jane develops an obsession with the wallpaper and projects all her imagination on it. The wallpaper is used as a metaphor for the patriarchal system, but also a representation of the narrator’s mind (cf. Treichler 64). At first it should be analysed how the wallpaper is described by the narrator in the story. From the beginning on, Jane characterizes it as the worst paper she…

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator is living her life with a lot of anxiety and depression. Not only is she living with “nervous depression” (Gilman 29), but she is also living with her husband, John, who is constantly belittling her about her illness, and her thoughts in general. The narrator is slowly getting crazier as the story goes on, and yet no one believes her that her illness is real and she should get help. Johns tells her that doing…