Category: The Yellow Wallpaper

Introduction

The short story The Yellow Wallpaper describes problems of the middle-class women and the low status of women in society. The Yellow Wallpapers was first published in 1892 (Shawn, p. 237). In this short story, Gilman depicts a life of a common woman whose destiny is housekeeping. The protagonist suffers greatly because her role in life is limited and disregarded. Using different symbols, Gilman unveils hardship and grievances faced by a common woman, misunderstanding, and indifference towards her. For a long time, the husband does not take into account the psychical state of his wife supposing it is nothing more than a fake. Using unique symbols, Gilman symbolically depicts the low role of women in society and in the family, misunderstanding, and apathy of family members towards possible illnesses and emotional problems faced by women.

Main body

The yellow wallpaper is the main symbol of the story. This symbol represents the lunatic asylum where the main character is put. It becomes a prison for the protagonist limited her social life and physical activity. The narrator describes the yellow wallpaper, the central symbol of this triumphantly suffocating domesticity, with elaborate and self-conscious artistic precision (Hume, p. 3). Gilman uses such important details as the smell of the wallpaper and shades of color to depict her feelings: the only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell (Gilman n.d.). The yellow wallpaper is used as a symbol of depression and loneliness. It uncovers the inner state of the heroin and her psychological distress. Literary critics (Hume, p. 3) explain that the choice of this unique symbol is not accidental, because many doctors of those times used yellow wallpapers as a treatment for mental illnesses. Although, because the social role of the wife is predetermined, Gilman underlines that the woman feels miserable and depressed. She states: It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! (Gilman n.d.). This symbolic meaning helps readers to grasp the idea at once and shapes the atmospheres of loneliness and insanity. Also, this symbol contemplates nature, both the natural world around the narrator and her own inner nature. The protagonist is depicted as a sympathetic and compassionate wife and mother, but she lacks the inner strength essential for survival (Delashmit and Long, p. 32).

The yellow color itself is a symbol of insanity and mental illness. Personal feelings and experiences have a great influence on the narrator and her associations and allow readers to interpret the symbol (Fleissner, p. 79). Gilman gives a detailed analysis of this unique color: The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulfur tint in others (Gilman n.d.). Also, the story records the changes of the heroin nature and her desire to overcome male oppression and become free from social norms and stereotypes. Also, a specific detailed description of the color and feel of the narrator forces readers to go beneath the surface and interpret this symbol. Probably, insanity is an indicator of what happens to peoples thinking about themselves when they can no longer hold on to the old beliefs (Hume, p. 4). The narrator seems to have approved of the burning of them, not on the ground that they made people go on crazy movements, but because they were idealistically poor. The exasperating effect of pattern wallpaper on invalids was a medical commonplace of Gilmans time (Roth 145). Using the effect of yellow on the mind, Gilman shows that this color occupies and expands readers interpretation and perception of the plot. With this emphasis on the irrational, Gilman creates social conflicts between the gentility of old values and the brute force of new: Charlotte Perkins Gilman states she did not intend to drive readers crazy with the Yellow Wall-Paper but only to expose a serious and extreme lapse in medical judgment, or wisdom, regarding the treatment of neurasthenia. Gilman uses the theme of the yellow wallpaper to demonstrate the hopelessness and futility of womens dreams and hopes.

Through the symbol of the family mansion, Gilman describes family relations and atmosphere, relations between spouses, and their marriage life. Through this symbol, Gilman unveils complicated relations between a husband and wife, feeling of indifference and apathy. For instance, the woman feels there is something strange about the house associated with loneliness. Gilman writes: a colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house and reach the height of romantic felicity but that would be asking too much of fate! Still, I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it (Gilman n.d.). This symbol unveils poor family relations between husband and wife, and the inability to understand and support each other in difficult life situations. Hume explains that Gilmans narrator posits an indirect alternative to the psychologically discomfiting ambivalence she displays not only toward herself but for others (including both her husband and her child). On the other hand, doubt and anger are inappropriate responses to the narrator. But there are times when these things are almost inevitable.

The profession of a husband (a physician) can be interpreted as an important symbol of family problems and a lack of mutual trust. Gilman ironically portrays that a physician is unable to recognize mental illnesses and psychological disorders limited by social stereotypes. John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition (Gilman n.d.). From the very beginning, the woman describes that her husband, John, does not take into account her complaints and emotional distress supposing that it is nothing more than temporary nervous depression  a slight hysterical tendency (Gilman, n.d.). The attitude of the husband reveals the strong views on the role of women in society and their weaknesses. This symbol underlines that the physician does not treat his wife as other patients supposing that psychological illness is just an imaginary illness of his wife used to attract his attention. The woman explains: John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him (Gilman, n.d.). It is possible to say that the position of women during the period depicted by Gilman was too low. They lived as housewives with no rights and property. In the story, Gilman describes that it is nothing but the courage of the woman to fight against oppression and social norms. Delashmit and Long comment: The wife in The Yellow Wallpaper escapes by denying one self and merging with anotherphysically safe, but insane, at least for the moment, in her nursery-prison (Delashmit, Long 32). This message sustains a special atmosphere in the story. It unveils contractions between old and new things, values, and ideas. This means that the author is endorsing doubt and challenging the hero. It seems to endorse being honest about personal doubts, rather than accepting trite answers.

The symbol of a flight can be interpreted as a symbol of freedom and independence. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try (Gilman n.d.). It is possible to assume that the main character wants to step out into a wider world and becomes independent and free from family oppression and apathy. This symbol reflects the inner state of the woman and gives some hints to readers to imagine her feelings and emotional state. Through this symbol, the short story suggests something of the historical loss for women and their relationships with men. Using this symbol, Gilman prepares readers for something unacceptable. The woman says: I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder. Ive got out at last, said I, in spite of you and Jane (Gilman n.d.). The symbol of a flight supports a conflict in the story and helps the author to give only some hints to readers to comprehend the meaning of the plot.

Conclusion

In sum, Gilman skillfully uses different symbols to inspire the interest and imagination of readers and creates a unique atmosphere of suffering and mental illness. The symbol of the Yellow Wallpaper creates a space for freedom and allows a wide range of interpretations based on the experience of readers and their imagination. Gilman symbolically portrays that the woman could never convince her husband about her emotional sufferings and mental illness, and in this case, the depression slowly pulls her to madness. The secondary role and low status of the woman make her a victim of social norms and stereotypes, values, and prejudices dominated in the society. Illness and mental disorder allow her to escape from the realities of life that she cannot change.

Works Cited

1. Delashmit, M., Long, Ch. Gilmans the Yellow Wallpaper. The Explicator 50, (1991), 32
2. Fleissner, J.L. The Work of Womanhood in American Naturalism. Differences 8, (1996), 57-96.
3. Gilman, C. P. n.d. Yellow Wallpapers. University of Virginia Library.
4. Hume, B.A. Managing Madness in Gilmans The Yellow Wall-Paper Studies in American Fiction 30, (2002), 3.
5. Roth, M. Gilmans Arabesque Wallpaper. Mosaic 34, (2001), 145.
6. Shawn, J. An Updated Publication History of The Yellow Wall-Paper. Studies in Short Fiction 34, (1997), 237.

Introduction

Charlotte Perkins is a famous writer, journalist, and feminist. The Yellow Wallpaper is one of her short stories containing a feminist attitude characteristic of all her works.

In her numerous works, she consistently discusses the hierarchical status of women in society regarding patriarchy. The central theme in The Yellow Wallpaper is a restriction and subordination of women in domestic spheres. That is a consequence of male dominance in marriages. The first persons point of view effectively illustrates this theme. Symbolism also emphasizes the subjugation of women in the story. This essay focuses on how the point of view in The Yellow Wallpaper helps to develop the theme.

The Yellow Wallpaper: Narration

Gilman points out the conventional setup of the nineteenth-century middle-class assumptions and attitudes towards marriages that prevent women from exercising their wishes and desires.

The theme of the short story is real because it is driven by the unfortunate events which occurred in Gilmans life (Delashmit and Long 32).

Loss of identity for women among American households was a common scenario in American society in the nineteenth century. Women who wished to stabilize and express themselves did not get a listening ear.

The male-dominated society considered all female ideas invalid. Gilmans story focuses on male dominance. She brings out her atrocious tale to explain what women face and how their husbands subject them to dictatorship.

Gilman tells her story using first-person narration. Through the means of it, the readers empathize with the Narrator as they follow the progression of the story. First-person narration helps one get a deeper comprehension of the storyline and language.

There is an epistolary style in the story because the Narrator gives the sequence of events as diary entries. The continual use of the pronoun I makes the reader relate to the Narrators point of view.
According to Hochman (89), first-person narration in The Yellow Wallpaper makes this story incredibly different. It distinguishes this story from other creative stories of that time.

Moreover, it is an immensely challenging task for Gilman to bring out the story from her point of view, disregarding possible negative critiques from literary critics and the masses. Gilman forms an insiders perspective to this story, thus giving an autobiographical nature to the text. Hochman further explains that such achievements were significant in America during the 1890s (89).

The Narrators point of view connects with the central theme of the story. The story has a feminist approach that explores feminism and challenges male dominance in society that roots in most households.
Men feel that they have every right to exercise authority over women. For example, Gilmans husband does not accept any explanation from her and always imposes his will over her.

The Narrators point of view gives the reader a mental picture of the setting for the story. Gilmans description of the rental mansion shows the beauty of the place. She uses words such as there is a delicious garden and the most beautiful place to emphasize this beauty.

However, she also contradicts her point of view by describing the mansion as a colonial mansion, a hereditary estate. These phrases indicate that Gilman believes that men have colonized the mansion since time immemorial. It also shows that men dominate a place meant for equal sharing by both genders.

Thrailkill (525) interprets that the luxuriousness of the mansion is heritable (goes by from one generation to the next). The Narrator depicts the relationship between her husband and her from the first-person narration.
She admits that John laughs at her, a statement that indicates that she is a casualty of low self-esteem and exasperation. She is also the object of ridicule to her husband.

The Narrators perspective becomes more explicit when she strongly points out that she is aware of her nervous condition, meaning that she is also conscious as a writer to raise this issue from a feminists point of view.
The Narrators point of view brings out sarcasm and irony as styles in the story. The Narrator says that she is glad that her case is not severe when her husband is away at the hospital for long periods.

This shows how ironic it is that Gilmans husband is busy solving serious cases outside, while his wife is suffering from nervous depression. It is also ironic that her husbands attempts to cure her leave her in a worse mental state even after following distinctive directions.

The yellow wallpaper in Gilmans room metaphorically supports her idea of the effects of male dominance on womens lives. Similarly, her life has turned out unpleasant and unattractive, like an unclean yellow (Quawas 35).

Symbolism is an imperative style in the story. Symbolism clarifies the underlying purpose behind the writing of the story. Symbolism also adds to the perspective that the story builds in the reader and the Narrators minds.

The yellow wallpaper in the story is symbolic of the suppressed emotions of the protagonist. The wallpaper is ripped, soiled, unclean yellow, revolting, and formless sort of figures. These descriptions of the wallpaper are symbolic of the shapeless and suffocating life that the Narrator leads.

It symbolizes a filled with life with harsh memories. Soiled symbolizes the burial act, thus representing the death of her ideal life. Ghostly sub-pattern is symbolic of the haunted life she leads guided by ghosts of the dead.
It shows her desires relating to her fascination with writing and creativity. She wants to fly away from the cage of patriarchy.

Conclusion

The Narrators character undergoes self-realization, developing through the mindset of the reader. The use of the first-person narration in The Yellow Wallpaper shapes the strength of the main character.

The course of action that the Narrator anticipates taking concerning her subdued life develops her character in the course of the story (Subotsky 22).

The deeper she interprets the emotional patterns on the yellow wallpaper, the farther she moves from her own life. Her character develops when she realizes the pain suffered by her fellow women.

Works Cited

Delashmit, M. & Long, C. Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper. The Explicator 50.1(1991):32. Print.

Hochman, B. The Reading Habit and The Yellow Wallpaper. American Literature 74.1 (2002): 89-110. Print.

Quawas, R. A New Womans Journey into Insanity: Descent and Return in The Yellow Wallpaper. AUMLA: Journal of the Australasian Universities Modern Language Association 105 (2006):35. Print.

Subotsky, F. The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), Charlotte Perkins Gilman  Psychiatrists in 19th-century fiction. The British Journal of Psychiatry 195.1:22. Print.

Thrailkill, J. Doctoring The yellow wallpaper. ELH 69.2 (2002): 525. Print.

Introduction

In the short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrators feelings, activities, and general well-being intertwine with the imaginary patterns she sees in the yellow wallpaper in her room. The narrator and her husband travel to a castle home for a summer vacation that will also serve as recuperation for the narrator who seemingly suffers from a mental disorder that may be associated with the recent birth of her son.

She tries to convince her husband John and one of her minders Jennie, to see the patterns she notices in the wallpaper of her upstairs room, which they, of course, cannot see: the narrator has extended her mental disorder to the yellow wallpaper and the illusionary patterns she perceives on the wall are her minds creations. Her general descent into psychosis begins when she requests to have some things done for her that turn out to overwhelm her  for example she insists on a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia, but when she gets there she is barely in the mood and cries for no apparent reason (6).

Her bizarre fascination with the patterns on the wallpaper begins when she spends a lot of time in the room with the wallpaper at daytime, eventually having her conscious state and sense of image inextricably linked to an image of herself that she projects in the patterns on the wallpaper. Therefore, the woman that the narrator perceives in the wallpaper patterns represents her own projected image, and the womans acts illustrates the real, actual and physical acts of the narrator.

Description as an indicator of similarity

The descriptions that the narrator gives for the woman in the patterns portray the similarity of the projected image and the narrators physical state. The narrator states, There are things that paper [wallpaper] that nobody knows but me, or ever will. This description of the wallpaper being as intimate to her as to preclude anybody else ever finding out some details about it reflects her. The personal and intimate details of the heart, mind, and soul that only known to self are what she describes here.

She says confidently that nobody can ever find out about these details of the wallpaper because she is referring to her feelings, desires, and dreams that she would never mention to anyone else  hence the confident declaration that nobody will ever find out these details. She further states that the wallpaper image is Always the same shape, only very numerous, an indication of the form of her physical bodys shape which never changes. The many patterns are only a description of the different angles through which the suns rays project her shadows at various places during the day, and the moons illumination throughout the night, on the wallpaper.

Behavior and character attribute as an indicator of similarity

One of the queer behaviors that have afflicted the narrator because of her mental unsoundness is creeping. She states that the pattern on the wallpaper Is like a woman stooping down and creeping behind that pattern (7). Yet this description fits her because further in the text (10), the narrator states how the woman in the patterns has the peculiar behavior of stooping and creeping during the daytime, and according to her judgment it is very humiliating and unladylike for a woman to creep during the daytime.

She confesses that she cannot creep at night because her husband John would suspect something amiss the very moment she attempts to steal out of the room at night. Her revelation that she cannot stop and creep at night like she would want thus leaves her with little choice but to creep during the daytime when her husband is away in town working and her minder Jennie none the wiser insofar as her creeping acts are concerned.

She states that she sees the woman in her wallpaper through her window, and adds that the woman gets out of the window and creeps out in the trees along the road, hiding shamefully under blackberry vines whenever a carriage approaches (10). The narrator is the very woman creeping because she states that she sees the woman in the patterns on the wallpaper, yet now she can see this woman out in the fields and along the road outside the house  where there are no wallpapers or patterns. The description thus fits the narrators surreptitious actions, and she is the very person who creeps out of her window into the fields and back the same manner without Jennie noticing.

Further certainty that the narrator is the creeper exists in Jennies assessment report to John that the narrator sleeps a lot during daytime  tired from the long walks and creeping she does at different times of the day. Additionally, she states that &outside you have to creep on the ground (12) and also explains that she doesnt prefer the outdoors anymore because everything seemed green as opposed to her room where everything seemed yellow. Her confession that outside one has to creep on the ground indicates that she indeed did creep outside, and thus the woman she projects on the wallpaper is herself.

Physical attachment to the Yellow Wallpaper as evidence of similarity

The narrator spends long hours analyzing, physically enforcing and rubbing her body on the wall, leading to her inability to distinguish her self from her image on the patterns in the yellow wallpaper. She speaks of the strange color of yellow on the wallpaper and subsequently speaks of a strange yellow smell (9). She further states that when they first arrived at the house the smell was not too powerful but after a while, the smell seemed to follow her everywhere she went, and her dislike for the smell almost led her to burn the house to get rid of that smell (9).

She also speaks of Jennie complaining about the yellow wallpaper stained everything it touched (9) and that Jennie found yellow smooches all over the narrators clothes and those of John. The obsessive nature that the narrator physically clings to the design and patterns of the yellow wallpaper to the extent of having marks of the paper all over her clothes, and having the associated smell of the wallpaper  the one the narrator describes as yellow smell  are all indicative of the narrators obsession with the wallpaper.

This extreme preoccupation with the wallpaper has blurred her view and she is unable to draw the line between reality and fantasy. Therefore, though she is the woman who is doing all the activities she attributes to a woman behind the patterns on the yellow wallpaper, she is none the wiser due to her mental condition. That being so, the smell that keeps haunting her is, in fact, the smell of the leftover paint that she rubs her body and hair on every day while creeping along the walls of the room in her vain attempts to analyze the patterns on the wall.

The Vacation House and Room with Yellow wallpaper as a Prison/jail

Tragically, the narrator viewed the entire house she was spending her vacation at, and specifically the room she was in, as a jail  one that she related to the nearing end of the vacation with her day of freedom. On the last night of the vacation, her husband is away and she refuses the company of Jennie, her unsound mind believing that she needed all the possible privacy she in her quest to free the woman trapped in the wallpaper patterns. She, therefore, begins her attempt to free the woman in the patterns, stating, As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her (11).

The narrator thus engages in fantasy efforts of freeing the woman in the patterns, all the while trying to free herself, from her madness, from her confined existence, from the distance she had created between her and her baby, and from the inability of taking control of her fate. She morphs her two discordant images in a possible cure to her madness, and the narrator describes her unified effort with the woman in the patterns to get rid of the wallpaper that represented the imprisonment of women.

The narrator states, I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper (11). This effort that the narrator explains as being carried out by two persons is, in essence, an attempt to exercise the torturous images that have plagued her mind throughout her vacation  these images being the indicators of her mental disorder. Her attempts are however futile, and despite exerting herself the whole night, she is still unable to prevent these images from appearing within her mind. She narrates that the pattern even laughed at her failure to overcome that challenge.

Freedom from the Jail  the end of mental disorder

Finally, in a vicious and determined final effort to free herself from the patterns she sees on walls, she locks herself in the room to plan and strategize. She locks the key and throws it at the backyard so that no one comes in to disturb her, and that she is not able to go out. However, the results of her acts again justify the view that the narrators real, physical and actual acts are the acts reflected in the by the woman she sees in the patterns.

The narrator acquires a rope supposedly to tie up the woman in the patterns so that she does not attempt to flee after she frees her  Ive got a rope up here that even Jennie did not find. If that woman does get out and tries to get away, I can tie her! (12). In a twist of events, she, however, ends up tying herself with this rope. She tells a mortified John when he enters the room that she finally got out, at last, indicating that she was, in the end, successful in freeing that woman  by herself  and had tied her so that she does not run away, but stays on to savor her long-fought victory. John faints to shock of her actions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the analysis has shown that the woman that the narrator perceives in the wallpaper patterns is herself. Additionally, the images that the narrator saw in the patterns, the behaviors she attributed to the woman in the patterns, and the intimacy with which she acknowledges the attributes of that woman all reflect the character of the narrator as mentally disabled. Her efforts to free this woman were indeed efforts to free herself from her madness. She finally succeeds in being free from her madness  a condition the images in the patterns represented.

Works Cited

Gilman, Charlotte. The Yellow Wallpaper. Alabama Virtual Library: Literature Resource Centre, n.d. Web.

A Rose for Emily and The Yellow wallpaper are two lamentable tales of tragic women who were driven insane by their dysfunctional families. In Rose for Emily, the aloof, aristocratic bearing of the Grierson in a time when the old Southern Aristocracy had died out prevented Emily from developing a healthy personality and kept her from reaching out and making proper acquaintances with them. Her choice to remain oddly superior and shut out led to very tragic circumstances in the end. The Woman in Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper was not actually insane in the beginning. Instead, she was driven mad by her enforced imprisonment and her lack of any external stimulus besides the infernal Yellow Wallpaper. However, the true cause of her insanity was the Androcentric views of her husband, which denied her rationality and made him substitute his observations of her symptoms over what she really felt.

I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me. Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy yourselves. Tells Emily haughtily when the Jefferson aldermen come to her house and ask her to pay real estate tax on it. In So SHE vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell. The story says later, after the aldermen failed to reason with her. Truth be told, Emily was the daughter of a Grierson, an old aristocratic family the held itself above the simpletons around them. This was despite the fact that the American Civil War had likely ruined their fortunes, and the changing winds of the Reconstruction were also buffeting the social order in the South. However, her father had insisted that she comport herself as an aristocrat. The effect was the even if the people around her no longer believed in the old order, they still had strange deference for Emily. For example, when she went to buy poison, the druggist was powerless to enforce the law that required her to tell him what the poison would be used for. All she had to do was this Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him an eye for an eye until he looked away. He was completely intimidated.

One of the most severe effects of Emilys upbringing was shown when her father died. She adamantly refused to allow people to grieve and bury him. In her mad raving, she refused to believe he was dead. One reason for this was because her fathers aristocratic tendencies had driven off all her suitors. Another was because of her fathers attitudes, which were ingrained in her personality, she had no friends, and he was all she had in the world.

Later, when Homer Baron came to Jefferson, she apparently fell in love with him and made all the obvert moves to marry him. Including an interview with a minister and purchasing intimate toiletries engraved with his name. However, tragedy struck, and the full measure of her insanity was not known until her death. Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of ahead. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair. She was so afraid of losing him like she lost her father that, in all likelihood, she poisoned him with Arsenic just so he would stay with her for the rest of her cursed life.

The Woman in the Yellow Wallpaper was not insane. In fact, based on her writings, she was a perfectly normal woman who just had a minor nervous breakdown. A Woman in the later 19th century was trapped in an androcentric world. John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage. She writes as if it was fully expected that a husband would completely ignore the opinions of his wife.

She obviously had a lot of love and respect for John, her husband. For example, she says I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already! Despite her husband downgrading her to the level of a thoughtless, inutile child, she still loves him and wishes to be of help to him. She also respects his opinions quite possibly too much; It is so hard to talk with John about my case because he is so wise and because he loves me so. Johns opinions as a doctor a valid in their own right; however, the Woman is obviously lucid and is capable of diagnosing her own malady. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. She says this understanding that she is in need of some stimuli to keep her brain occupied. Sadly, because of the prevailing attitudes at that time, she never has the chance to express this opinion and instead has to struggle with herself and creeping insanity throughout the story.

In the end, she really does go mad. Ive got out at last, said I, in spite of you and Jane. And Ive pulled off most of the paper, so you cant put me back!. In prison with nothing to do, she eventually lost her mind and imagined that she was trapped in the yellow wallpaper. During her progression into insanity, her husband continued to enforce the healing policy that was, in fact, driving her insane, not realizing that the childish, doting treatment he was giving her was the cause of her insanity.

In both stories, the Androcentric attitudes of the late 19th century and the respect the women had for the men in their lives led them to their fateful ends. Emily loved her father and lost him, making her kill Homer so he would never leave. The Woman respected her husband so much she believed him till the end.

Works cited

Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper.

The short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is an example of feminist literature, which explains the choice of the topic and the images the author uses. The narrator is a woman who suffers from the symptoms of depression and apathy after giving birth to her child. She wants to live actively and have social responsibilities, but her husband decides that her mental health is too fragile for it. As a result, the narrator cannot escape from the house and realize her potential and talents. The imagery Gilman uses in the story allows her to show the gradual transition from apathy to insanity and the inability of the narrator to stop this process.

The narrators mental state aggravates significantly during the story, and her apathy evolves into insanity. In the beginning, the narrator writes that her husband is a reputable physician in her diary who persuades others that she suffers from temporary nervous depression  a slight hysterical tendency (Gilman 1). Everyone believes the man because he is a professional, and the woman has no opportunities to contradict him. At the end of the story, the narrator becomes mad and thinks the yellow wallpaper traps her. This image reflects the initial position that the woman describes in her diary, writing that she can do nothing with the reputable diagnosis of her husband.

Thereby, Gilman emphasizes the oppressive impact of the rest cure that male physicians of the end of the 19th century prescribed to women. It reflected the public attitude to females that dominated the American culture of that time. According to these views, women were diagnosed with neurasthenics instead of being them the opportunity to work and develop their potential (Roethle 147). The peculiar detail is the connection between mental diagnosis and stigmatization that Gilman emphasizes in the story. Neuroasthenics becomes the excuse for the bad behavior of the female protagonist and allows her husband to treat her as an ill person, even though her mental issues are not real.

Gilman opposes two images, the mentally stable man, whose opinion is credible to others, and the image of the mentally unstable woman, whose opinion is disregarded. The narrator refers to them as creeping women (Gilman 1). It is the metaphor for the females position in the patriarchal society and the description of the hallucinations the narrator sees on the wall. This opposition determines the conflict in the story, which emphasizes the powerless position of the narrator. It is convenient for the narrators husband to disregard the desire of his wife to work, communicate with others, and even write the diary because he considers her mentally unstable. His paternalistic, oppressive attitude to the narrator is justified by the objective inability of his wife to live as an ordinary woman.

The letters of Gilbert to Susan Gubar illustrate the similar position of the author, which makes The Yellow Wallpaper a semi-autobiographic story. She describes the passive role of females in the traditionalist society as the life of the parasite who cannot integrate into the community and whose opportunities are limited by the domestic sphere. Women are imprisoned behind the paper when they are not able to leave the mansion where she and her husband are immured (Roethle 148). These lines feature the image of the female trapped by the wallpaper and unable to leave the house. This metaphoric description reflects the vulnerable and voiceless position of females in the 19th century United States, a patriarchal country at that time.

Summing up, the isolation of the narrator and the emphasis on her traditional female role in society lead to aggravation of her mental state. The changes in the narrators behavior prove that such an attitude to women destroys their lives. The woman feels apathy from her inability to escape the domestic sphere in the beginning, but the restrictions her husband imposes on her make her a truly mentally ill person.

Works Cited

Gilman, Charlotte P. The Yellow Wallpaper. The Project Gutenberg, 1999.

Roethle, Christopher. A Healthy Play of Mind: Art and the Brain in Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper. American Literary Realism, vol. 52, no. 2, 2020, pp. 14766.

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and published in 1982. The story is a first person narrative with a woman describing her mental health problems and the development of her disease. The story, first criticized by a number of readers for being frustrating and depressive, still made a great contribution to the treatment of neurasthenic people since some of the specialists admitted that their methods of curing patients harmed rather then helped sick people. Most of people on reading The Yellow Wallpaper stated that the narrator experienced a postpartum depression whereas the others expressed the idea that she had far more serious problems with her mental health. Therefore, it is necessary to trace the narrators stages of going mad which would testify to her getting completely insane at the end of the story.

What should be mentioned above all is that the signs of the narrators lapsing into insanity can be observed at the very beginning of the story when she and her husband first arrived to the house they were going to spend their summer in. On entering the house the protagonist felt fear of it which she could not explain: There is something strange about the house  I can feel it (Charlotte Perkins Gilman 4). Namely this feeling of something strange made her look for what exactly was wrong with the house which marked the first stage of her descending into insanity.

The second stage of the protagonists getting mad starts with her analyzing the wallpaper of the room she was living in. Perhaps, this situation was aggravated by the fact that she was not allowed to work and to leave this room without due permission of her husband. Namely staring at the same walls every day made her examine intricate patterns of the wallpaper, consider its color and its smell. With time she felt that namely the yellow color was what contributed into her getting more and more depressed: It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw  not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things (Charlotte Perkins Gilman 12). The progress of her insanity at the second stage may be observed in her imagining a woman who was trapped inside the wallpaper and could not get out because of the wallpapers designs.

And the final stage can be traced when the protagonist starts thinking that it is she who is trapped inside the wallpaper. Her peeling away the wallpaper testifies to the fact that she could not appease with her imprisonment in the room and was trying to free herself. The peak of her insanity may be observed in her locking herself in the room stripping the remains of the yellow wallpaper in the desperate desire to get liberated. Her final stage of insanity is marked by her creeping around the room and exclaiming I got out at last (Charlotte Perkins Gilman 16). By peeling away the wallpaper she hated so much she freed herself and was not trapped inside of it anymore.

Taking into consideration everything mentioned above it can be stated that the protagonist of the story The Yellow Wallpaper experienced nothing else but gradual lapsing into insanity rather that postpartum depression which was proved by the stages of madness she was going through while living in the room she hated so much.

Works Cited

Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The Yellow Wallpaper. Orchises Press, 1990.

Introduction

Being a wife and a mother at the same time can bestow a lot of stress to a woman who is just starting up to fill those shoes. Doing a balancing act of being a mother and wife is sometimes too much too handle for a woman, what more if she is being prevented from expressing herself through writing? This is exactly what the unnamed woman in Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper (2002) is experiencing in the story. Aside from the postpartum depression she is battling with, the yellow wallpaper in this story serves as a symbol of a feminist oppression experienced by most women during her time, as she feels that her creativity has been limited by the mores of society in the 19^th century. Unlike women today who are given more freedom to become self-actualized individuals, women in the 19^th century have not yet attained the same status as they have today and the wallpaper evokes her being caught up, beyond resistance, in her role as a wife and mother during those times.

Main body

At present, it has been already scientifically discussed that many, perhaps even most, new mothers experience mood changes, periods of tearfulness, and irritability following the birth of a child. Commonly called the maternity blues, postpartum blues, or baby blues, women who gave birth recently are said to be hormonally stressed and they can suffer a period of depression usually lasting for a couple of days. Given these turbulent hormonal shifts, it would be abnormal for most women not to experience some changes in feeling states shortly following childbirth. In Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper, readers can immediately realize the shifts of emotions felt by the woman who is narrating the story. At the beginning of the story, for example, the narrator states that: It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer (Gilman 902). However, after that sentence, a feeling of dissatisfaction overcomes the happiness of the narrator: A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicitybut that would be asking too much of fate (Gilman 902). In the next parts of the story, the woman is digressing how her husband, John, is laughing at her because she believes that she is sick. That is why she just opts to talk about the house because she does not want to worry much about her condition. In this part, we can feel her unrelenting depression about how matters are being dealt with around her. It seems she does not want to be at the mercy of others in convincing them that she is not feeling good. Everyone becomes negligent to her needs and what she thinks. Everyone is expecting her, to the point of pressuring her, to fill in the shoes of being a mother right away.

Although the house itself does not seem to bother her much, as she even describes it as the most beautiful place because it is quite alone standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village (Gilman 904). Amidst all the descriptions, however, we can observe again that she always goes back at her frustrations about her husband and her isolation from the world around her. Besides her frustration against her husband and being isolated, she observes the garish yellow wallpaper that is draped all around their room. She then shifts all her frustration at the wallpaper: I never saw a worse paper in my life because it is dull and it has sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin (Gilman 905). Later in the story, after two weeks, she informs that everything seems like the same during their first day at the house. It seems her depression has not faded yet and she increasingly hates the yellow wallpaper. She becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper that she sees every day. Although she obviously hates how the wallpaper was designed, she felt that she is left with no choice but to look at it obsessively to the point of often getting stressed out by its dizzying patterns: Round and round and roundround and round and roundit makes me dizzy! (Gilman 905).

Later on, the narrator begins to have weird imaginations that the yellow wallpaper has another woman trapped inside it:

Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out. The front pattern does moveand no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! (Gilman 907).

Readers can now take a hint that the narrator is having delusions already and it seems her condition is worsening each time. Although the intention of her husband of taking her to that house is to recuperate from giving birth, it seems she is not capable of taking care of her child anymore because she is suffering from this sickness that the people around her ignores at first. The yellow wallpaper becomes a tool to vent out her frustrations and a symbol of being oppressed by her husband who often ignores what she really wanted to do. She is often observing the woman inside the yellow wallpaper and she seems to understand that they have the same fate all along.

Korb (1998) explains that the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper is evidently physically and spiritually trapped by her husband from the beginning of the story. Her choices are constantly being trumped out by what her husband chooses for her. We could see this in the part of the story that though she wanted [a room] downstairs that opened on the piazza& John would not hear of it (Gilman 906). The narrator wanted to choose some space of her own in the house, but her husband John did agree with her because the room she wishes to occupy will not fit two beds and has no other bedroom for him, nearby. Instead, John has put his wife on the top floor, away from the rest of the household (their baby, the nurse, and Johns sister) that intensifies the isolation of the wife. Though she recognizes her captivityJohn hardly lets me stir without special direction (Gilman 907) Korb (1998) noticed that the narrator overlooks other more ominous signs of her confinement: the bars at the window, the gate at the top of the stairs, steel rings on the wall, and the nailed-down bedstead. But it is the yellow wallpaper that makes her uneasy towards the conditions around her.

Readers can then commiserate between the lines that she is a prisoner  although she is supposed to be recuperating, everything around her seems to prevent her from making decisions for herself. All these conditions have worsened the postpartum depression that she is experiencing. During the 18^th century, postpartum depression is still not fully understood that it is a form of major depression in which the onset of the depressive episode begins within 4 weeks after childbirth. Worse, some suicides are linked to postpartum depression. Having postpartum depression also increases the risk that the woman will suffer future depressive episodes. Fortunately, effective treatments are now available, including various forms of psychotherapy and use of antidepressant drugs. Unluckily for the narrator, her depressive syndromes are ignored and this is why we can see she is debilitating with it each day.

We realize later in story that Gilmans writing is not merely about postpartum depression itself or being oppressed by the husband as represented by the yellow wallpaper. It symbolizes what most women may have experienced during those times. The story has feminist undertones because it implicates how the narrator was prevented to express her creativity and passion. Korb (1998) explains that Gilmans narrator is so cruelly trapped both by the conventions of nineteenth-century American society, which says that a womans function is to bear and raise children, and by her husbands inflexible belief in this code. We can realize this when John has attempted rob her of the few things that bring her consistent pleasure  her writing: He hates to have me write a word, she says, and notes his determination to correct her imaginative power and habit of story-making (Gilman 908). Unfortunately for Gilmans narrator as well as other creative women, these sentiments are shared by others in society. Johns sister, a woman who occupies her proper place in the domestic sphere by being so good with the baby and a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, seems to believe it is the writing which made [the narrator] sick! (Gilman 909). Thus, Gilmans story is way beyond the postpartum depression issue, because it secretly tells us how women were treated during those days. They are expected to be only mothers and wives  they are not allowed to express themselves creatively through the use of their great talents. In the end, the woman tears up the yellow wallpaper and this symbolizes her freedom from the oppression that she despises most. When her husband unlocks the door and finds his wife and the room in that condition, he is appalled. Ive got out at last, she explains, And Ive pulled off most of the paper so you cant put me back! (Gilman, 913). As the husband faints, the narrator continues to creep around the room, crawling over her husband as he lies unconscious on the floor. Ultimately, the woman has succumbed at being a mad woman because she has released herself from the stereotypical roles that women are trapped in during those times.

Conclusion

Although the ending is quite shocking that the narrator becomes insane, it was the authors intense representation that it is possible to breakdown like that given the situation. Women and mothers are people too and they should be allowed to express themselves. Although mothers and wives have obligations to their families and husbands, they need to be given a space for themselves in following their desires and passions.

Works Cited

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. In Scott, Jon C., Jones, Raymond E. and Bowers, Rick (eds.). The Harbrace Anthology of Literature. Canada: Nelson Thomas Learning, 2002. 902-913.

Korb, Rena. An Overview of The Yellow Wallpaper. Gale Online Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale, Literature Resource Center. Gale. 2008. Web.

Charlotte Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper depicts the inner struggle of a woman unbalanced by post-partum depression, a problem for which even todays doctors have no treatment. Her husband and brother are both doctors who have her best interest at heart but whose recommended rest cure is based on the accepted medical theories of that time. In fact, they aggravate her problem by forbidding her to write.

Instead of expressing her imaginative power and habit of story-making (Gilman 160) through her writing, she finds an outlet for her creative energies in the pattern of the yellow wallpaper in her room. Beverly Hume says that most critics of this story continue to read it as the dark and complex record of a womans (or woman writers) oppression, victimization, collapse, and paradoxical emancipation whereas she is more interested in the description it contains of the narrators descent into madness (1). As will be shown, that madness begins with the narrators imaginative projection of her inner struggles onto the wallpaper and ends in her escaping from the world into the delusions she has created out of its pattern.

When the narrator and her husband, John and his sister, Jennie first arrive in the mansion John has rented for three months, she is so depressed that she cannot even be in the same room as her new-born baby. Her first concern is to understand her own condition and for that she has to put it on paper somehow. Everything about the house and surrounding countryside might seem ideal but it tells her nothing about herself, and therefore she believes her husband has prescribed the wrong cure for her. John is a physician, she says, and perhaps & that is one reason I do not get well faster (Gilman 158).

She describes him as a rationalist who scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt or seen of put down in figures (Gilman 157), a man too sensible and unimaginative to understand her mental state; yet because he is a doctor she feels obliged to take his advice. Instead of following his advice to sleep and rest, she begins to study the wallpaper whose pattern offends her esthetic sensibility. She describes it as committing every artistic sin &. and pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study (Gilman 159), which is exactly how she feels about the workings of her own mind at that stage of her madness.

The first sign that her self-projection is turning malevolent comes when she looks at the wallpaper two weeks into her stay, only to see two bulbous eyes looking back at her. At this point the narrator begins to turn away from her husband and Jennie, and to turn inward by looking into her own eyes, as it were. She becomes increasingly interested in the papers pointless pattern, a reflection of her own life, but in trying to find a conclusion in the wallpaper she sees delirium tremens and fatuity (Gilman 162), which mirrors her inability to find the energy to control her state of mind. Eventually she sees a woman in the pattern, and later a woman behind bars.

The wallpaper becomes a source of secret information for her and by continually reading her own story in it, she becomes more and more a part of it. The woman behind bars is so obvious she is sure other people can see her. Therefore, when John or Jennie look at the wallpaper she becomes anxious and possessive because she does not want them to know the secrets which, in her mind, are there for all the world to read.

The projection of her self has become so intense that she is unaware of her physical self. After several months of confinement she becomes increasingly aware of the yellow smell of the wallpaper and a smooch that runs all around the room. Unconsciously she has created this smooch by rubbing her shoulder against it, as if she is circling the room looking for a way to merge with the pattern, and thereby unite herself with the self she has projected onto the paper.

That self now shakes those bars but only in shady spots; in the bright spots she keeps very still just as the women she sees outside do; and no wonder, she says, because it must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight. She always locks the door so that John cannot see her creeping.

She identifies more and more with the projected woman until, during her last night in the mansion, she tries to set her free and then, when that fails, she tries to join her. I shook and she pulled, I pulled and she shook, and by morning we had peeled off yards of that paper (Gilman 167), she says, and when Jennie sees it and tries to make light of the narrators strange behavior, the narrator sees it as a threat to her very existence, and therefore vows that no person touches this paper but me  not alive! (Gilman 168). The process of projection must not be interfered with, she thinks, or both she and her alternate self may die.

As her condition worsens, the projection of her troubled self onto the wallpaper becomes more horrifying and threatening. She wants to tear it all off, but cant reach high enough, and all those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision (Gilman 168). In her frustration she starts gnawing the bedposts, so preoccupied with the emerging self in the design that she chips her teeth and causes her gums to bleed without knowing it.

By now she sees women creeping through the garden and she wonders if they all came out of the wallpaper. The smooch inside fits her shoulder perfectly, and so she goes on creeping around the room, still trying to merge with her projected psyche. When John enters the room on the last day of their three months of recuperation he finds her obsessively circling the room, her hair tangled and stained by the yellow dye, her mouth bloody, her dress covered in yellow. In a very calm, controlled voice she tells her husband that Ive got out at last, in spite of you and Jane. And Ive pulled off most of the paper so you cant put me back (Gilman 169).

What John sees, says Hume, is not Jane but only what is left of Jane, & the narrator, who chronicles these events. The narrator is the woman in the wall-paper, one who is both in and out of her mind (12). By projecting herself onto the wallpaper, she has seen how mad she is and that drove her even madder, until she threw off her body, that suffering thing, to join the women creeping through the yellow pattern of the wallpaper.

Works Cited

Gilman, Charlotte. The Yellow Wallpaper. Ed. Ann Charters. Literature and Its Writers. Boston Bedford/St. Martins, 2006.

Hume, Beverly. Managing Madness in Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper. Studies in American Fiction, Vol. 30, Issue 1, 2002.

Introduction

In modern civilizations, the rising fear of solitude among women is undermining social order. There is a need for assistance, especially among women with domestic obligations. This essay investigates the relationship between insanity and neglect as described in Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper. The primary objective is to learn from Janes experience to improve womens quality of life in modern society. Due to their primarily domestic obligations, women are the most susceptible to social isolation in most civilizations. The health and socioeconomic development of families, institutions, and nations must empower women. As such, people need to be allowed to work in an environment of their choosing for connection and mental stability. In establishing empowerment, women should be able to achieve economic independence from chauvinistic men.

Summary of the Relevant Parts

In The Yellow Wallpaper, Jane is seen more clearly than the figure of a lady behind the patterns bars, who moves at night and remains static throughout the day. Jane feels inferior to John and often worries, If I do not pick up faster, he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall (Watson and Moreton 271). She becomes obsessed with isolation and the rooms furniture and walls, which depict a desire for a relationship or connection. She is drawn to the wallpaper, which has taken center stage in her obsessive-compulsive disorder and psychosis. For instance, Jane suspects John and his sister, Jennie, are also investigating the wallpapers secret.

Personal Interpretation

In Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper, the author represents the narrators imprisonment and the imprisonment of all 19th-century women by society. Jane, the victim imprisoned behind the wallpaper, is gradually distressed by her confinement. She feels misunderstood, noting that there are things in that paper that nobody knows but me (Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland, and Selected Writings 703). She is a victim of societal standards that limit her behavior based on gender stereotypes and male chauvinism. She stares at the yellow wallpaper as a barrier, but she eventually awakens. Jane realizes that she is not imprisoned by the wallpaper but by her husband. She has gotten sad due to her lack of independence.

Through the symbolism of this lady on the walls, The Yellow Wallpaper demonstrates how a womans sadness leads to insanity. Luckily, Jane can leave the wallpaper by revealing that freedom is the only cure to all the madness. Jane cannot recognize her full potential since she is stuck, often protesting that I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time (Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland, and Selected Writings 623). She will discover that she is up to the task once she adjusts the wallpaper and liberates herself. The only way she can be free is to remove herself from Johns life.

In this tale, Jane represents the narratives suppressed ego, which she perceives as a prison inside her home world. The more the narrator examines this wallpaper, the more a lady begins to emerge. It further represents how women were seen throughout the 19th century, where married women were subservient. Jane is not fond of the relationship as she states, John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage (Gilman, The yellow wallpaper 13). In the protestations, both the lady and the wallpaper have profound significance. From Gilmans perspective, Janes experience is an excellent narrative demonstrating many womens experiences with society-instigated isolation.

The Feeling of Helplessness and Psychosis

As evidenced throughout the novel, John never takes Jane seriously, although Jane finds herself emotionally dependent on her spouse. She often wonders why she always remains in the room, yet there is little attention to her suffering. IN expressing distress, Jane says that it is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this nervous weakness I suppose (Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland, and Selected Writings 673). She appeared disillusioned when she said that John believed it was beneficial for her to be restricted in the room (Watson and Moreton 271). She believes her spouse is more important than she is, which was how society saw males in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Throughout the majority of the 19th century, mothers were supposed to be nurturing toward their children, and postpartum depression was seen as a transient nerve disorder.

Relevance in History

Janes psychological distress questions societys perception of women as only mothers and spouses in light of the supplied evidence. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the treatment of women in the early 1900s provides a glimpse of some of the errors that define male chauvinism. Jane admits to her sense of neglect, admitting that John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him (Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland, and Selected Writings 713). Jane was a victim of womens psychological and physical enslavement under their husbands authority. In The Yellow Wallpaper, John is portrayed as a domineering husband who disregards his wifes wishes as unreasonable.

In the early 19th century, the responsibilities of women in American culture were cooks, wives, mothers, and general homemakers in a mainly rural context. Families were significantly more prominent and depended on the women to provide children to conduct free physical work on the land to preserve the family income and welfare (King 119). They were supposed to be subordinate to their spouses and fathers on all issues and had little political, legal, and social equality. With the advent of the First World War and the industrial revolution, however, the need for employees to manufacture commodities exceeded the number of males available in the United States. Consequently, women got admission into the workforce, which expanded to create gender equality in the United States forever. These experiences put women at risk for mental disorders such as sadness, anxiety, paranoia, and psychosis.

Similarly, the quality of obligations accessible to rich women was as deleterious to their mental health. The few available employment consisted of being a maid or a servant for an aristocratic household, which required the same work ethic they used while caring for their families. The patterns were exacerbated by the fact that women received little education and had few job development opportunities. In addition to the long hours and difficult working circumstances, pregnant women were expected to continue working until their due date and return to work virtually soon after delivery. Due to tiredness and the substandard medical procedures of the period, most women had an extremely poor life expectancy and essentially worked themselves to death. However, throughout most of the 20th century, there were significant gains in opportunity for women when technology offered options for women and a culture that pushed for womens rights.

Alarming Trends in Contemporary Workplace

Despite the progress, the 21st century continues to expose women to mental illness, partly attributable to the nature of womens roles in the workplace and the rising trend of remote work. There are fears that women executives are leaving their organizations because they confront obstacles in the workplace that make advancement more difficult. Trends reveal that more are likely to face humiliating microaggressions, such as experiencing their judgment challenged or being confused for someone more novice. Today, women support employee well-being and foster inclusivity to a greater extent than in the past, but their efforts are primarily unrecognized and undervalued.

Women leaders aspire to senior-level positions with the same frequency as males. However, many firms encounter contempt that undermines their authority and indicates that advancement will be more difficult. For instance, research indicates that women in leadership positions are far more likely than men to have coworkers suggesting that they are unqualified for their professions (Kalev and Gal 259). The patterns indicate that women leaders are misidentified for subordinates twice as often as male leaders. These deficiencies must be addressed to improve employed womens quality of life.

Recommendations for Action

On a larger scale, proposed initiatives need interventions that strategically enhance the quality of womens efforts to achieve empowerment. Such interventions include enhancing womens occupational, financial, and life skills and removing obstacles to social, political, and economic involvement. These tactics should attempt to increase womens individual, group, and collective strength to combat inequality and oppression in individual relationships, families, and organizations. The activities should concentrate on economic and social empowerment with help in policy creation and advocacy campaigns on womens rights.

Conclusion

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman depicts the contemporary experience of women in society. Janes experience depicts the narrators imprisonment and the imprisonment of all women of the 19th century by society and, to some degree, the current male-dominated society. Today, there is a correlation between such mental discomfort and psychosis and other psychiatric disorders. Recommended interventions include developing womens educational, financial, and life skills and removing obstacles to social, political, and economic engagement. The intervention should bolster womens individual, community, and collective strength to combat inequality.

Works Cited

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland, and Selected Writings: The Yellow Wall-Paper; Herland; Our Androcentric Culture or, The Man-Made World by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing, 2021.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The yellow wallpaper. 2022. Ryerson University, Web.

Kalev, Alexandra, and Gal Deutsch. Gender inequality and workplace organizations: Understanding reproduction and change. Handbook of the Sociology of Gender, 2018, 257-269.

King, Marjorie. Exporting femininity, not feminism: Nineteenth-century US missionary womens efforts to emancipate Chinese women. Womens Work for Women, Routledge, 2019, pp. 117135.

Watson, Neil, and Fiona C. Moreton. The Yellow Wallpaper: Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Practical Neurology, 2021, 268-268. Web.

Introduction

Gilman used her own personal experiences in her first marriage and postpartum depression as the inspiration for The Yellow Wallpaper, a story that details the deterioration of a womans mental health when she is a rest cure on a summer estate with her family. The unnamed narrators obsession with the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom is the beginning of her plunge into psychosis from her postpartum depression (Özyon, pg 116). The Yellow Wallpaper publication is a masterpiece, particularly because of how the author uses literary devices such as cacophony, repetition, metaphors, and antithesis to create depth into issues on mental health, feminism and gender relations in the 19^th century.

Repetition

In her secret journal, the narrator repeats the phrase what is one to do? to characterize herself as confused and helpless. One might even go further as to say that this question shows that the narrator felt oppressed by her doctors husband. If a physician &assures that there is nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression- a slight hysterical tendency-what is one to do? (Gilman, pg 1). Personally I disagree with their ideas. But what is one to do?(Gilman, pg 1). In the repetition of this question, the narrator depicts herself as a woman like any other in the 19^th century since she is unable to have a voice and stand up to her doctor and husbands seemingly negligent and unfair treatment.

Antithesis

While the color yellow is normally associated with attributes like clarity, positivity and freshness, the author uses an antithesis to illustrate the chaotic nature of the wallpaper as the narrator perceives it. It is dull enough to confuse the eye in the following&and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide&plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions (Gilman, pg 2). She describes the lines as dull yet immediately says that they plunge off at outrageous angles and destroy themselves. These juxtaposed descriptions only facilitate accurately communicating to the reader the story of the narrators perspective. In this phrase, the narrator begins to reveal her relationship with the yellow wallpaper and, in so doing, endorse her husbands opinion that she is mentally unwell. Interestingly, this antithesis also announces the narrator as an eccentric with keen feminine sensibilities.

Metaphor

The woman behind the yellow wallpaper is the biggest metaphor in the story. The woman is a representation of the narrator and her mental struggles in dealing with the loss of her autonomy and her husbands oppressive nature. At night, in any kind of light, in the twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worse of all, moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be (Gilman, pg 7). The woman behind the wallpaper draws a parallel to the narrator, who feels confined due to isolation in the room with the yellow wallpaper.

Cacophony

In The Yellow Wallpaper, cacophony is used to develop tone and mood in the story and create imagery. The color is repellent, almost revolting a smoldering unclean yellow (Gilman, pg 2). It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulfur tint in others (Gilman, pg 2). The outside pattern is a florid arabesque, reminding me of a fungus (Gilman, pg 6). The authors choice of strong descriptive words depicts a tone of disgust and devastation toward the wallpaper. Words like revolting, fungus, repellent and sickly are cacophony that prompt the reader to comprehend how the narrator sees and feels about the wallpaper while at the same time contributing to imagery established in the story. In creating strong visuals using these words, Gilman portrays the wallpapers distastefulness and disgust and the narrators dissatisfaction in the room.

Conclusion

In The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman uses literary elements of cacophony, metaphors, antithesis and repetition to emphasize the narrators horror in her shifting understanding of her reality and emphasize themes of mental health, gender relations and feminism (Özyon, 118). As much as the narrator is trapped in her own home, this epistolary story posits the danger of how adhering to patriarchal expectations of women prevents womens personal and artistic growth.

Works Cited

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The yellow wallpaper and other writings. Gibbs Smith, 2019.

Özyon, A. A journey of feminist rebellion through Charlotte Perkins Gilmans short story The Yellow Wallpaper and her novel Herland. International Journal of Language Academy 8.5 (2020): 115-124.