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Weir Mitchell, is an allegedly 'wise' man of medicine" (Hume pp).
The woman considers her child lucky because he does not have to occupy the room with the horrible wallpaper and stresses that it is impossible for her to be with him because it makes her very nervous (Hume pp). She believes that the room was once a nursery because of the bars on the windows and the condition of the wallpaper (Hume pp). Hume states that the woman is expressing her belief that children should be kept behind bars in order to control them, yet are capable of showing their hatred and perseverance by destroying the wallpaper (Hume pp).
At first blaming the yellow wallpaper for her illness, and in the end, embracing it, "now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell" (Gilman pp). Mary Roth writes in the December 2001 issue of "Mosaic," that the yellow wallpaper is symbolic of cultural imperialism (Roth pp). Writes Roth, "There is no question about the Oriental identity of the art: Gilman calls it 'florid arabesque'...Domestic ornament in the nineteenth century contained sign systems that articulated a complex of attitudes about the imaginary East" (Roth pp).
Roth also points out that yellow wallpaper was a familiar character in...
For example, George Sand wrote of her room in a Paris convent that, "the wallpaper was once yellow, or so I am told. However that may be I find it a source of constant interest for it is scribbled all over with names, mottoes, verses, all sorts of foolishness, reflections and dates, the relics of former occupants" (Roth pp).
Whether one believes that the wallpaper represents cultural imperialism or whether the entire story reflects feminine oppression is certainly open for debate. However, the story does reflect the nineteenth century male superiority over matters such as health and medicine. Since the woman in the story has a baby, one might also suggest that she might well be actually suffering from postpartum depression.
Works Cited
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wall-Paper." http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/gcarr/19cUSWW/CPG/TYW.html.
Hume, Beverly a. "Managing madness in Gilman's 'The Yellow
Wall-Paper.'" Studies in American Fiction. March 22, 2002.
Roth, Mary. "Gilman's Arabesque Wallpaper.(Charlotte
Perkins Gilman's short story the Yellow Wallpaper considered for its themes and influences)." Mosaic (Winnipeg). December 01, 2001.
Works Cited
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wall-Paper." http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/gcarr/19cUSWW/CPG/TYW.html.
Hume, Beverly a. "Managing madness in Gilman's 'The Yellow
Wall-Paper.'" Studies in American Fiction. March 22, 2002.
Roth, Mary. "Gilman's Arabesque Wallpaper.(Charlotte
For example, she edited feminist publications in San Francisco in 1894 and helped with the planning of the Women's Congresses of 1894-95. At the congress she met Jane Adams, the social reformer. Charlotte also toured the United States, lecturing on women's rights. Throughout the subsequent lectures and written works she was adamant about the need to reform the status of women in society. "Women are human beings as much as
I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still... It keep me quiet by the hour" (Hunt, 179). With this, it is clear that Gilman sees herself as trapped in a very disruptive and confined world, one which ultimately drives her insane; also, this mysterious woman is a symbol of her physical self caught within a maze of confusion and despair, all because of the "yellow wallpaper"
Her mother gave her little affection, believing she would never know the pain of rejection if she never experienced love. (Vosberg para. 13) The clear need her character has for a family and for overt family support, as well as the suspicions that develop in her mind about the others in the house, reflect this sort of youth in many ways. The enclosed world of the protagonist is a representation of
As the narrator is denied access to the world and the normal expression of her individuality, so she becomes a true prisoner of the room with the yellow wallpaper. Her life and consciousness becomes more restricted until the wallpaper becomes an animated world to her. There is also the implied suggestion in this process of a conflict between the rational and logical world, determined and controlled by male consciousness, and
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" to F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Winter Dreams" writing styles; James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" compare to my own life. Modernism vs. postmodernism Over the course of the late 19th and early 20th century, American literature began to turn inward. Instead of looking to outer manifestations of the human character, American authors began to use interior monologues as a way of creating a narrative arc. Stories such as
.. With these materials and with the aid of the trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche." In "The Cask," both insanity and murder operates to create a feeling of the grotesque all throughout the story. Moreover, these themes were symbolically "concealed" by Montresor's cultured personality (to hide his insanity) and the cask of Amontillado (to hide his murder of Fortunato). While Poe uses both themes