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English Literature: Literary Analyses
Title of the story: The Yellow Wallpaper
Author: Charlotte Perkins Stetson
Thesis of the Story
The story The Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Perkins Stetson, is about mental illness, treatment for married women, and freedom of thought and expression that bring ups and down in their emotions. The writer has offered various symbols like the diary, the yellow wallpaper, and day and night light to symbolize the story and the characters feelings.
Justification of Critical Perspective
Since the story is written by a female writer and was married too, the female experiences are different from those of men, particularly in married life, which corroborated with the Feminist perspective. The narrative parts of male and female viewpoints would be scrutinized with the given story. The female authors take on the plot events and the protagonist should be better evaluated. How and why the author thought of married life, illness, and freedom of thought to be connected should be assessed independently from male personality being married and mentally ill, also if a male writer wrote it.
The author was unaware that the story she would write decades ago would be considered a classic in its genre and still be acclaimed in modern times. The writer symbolized the story of repression and the impact it has caused mentally over the psychological working of a woman. Also, the story best fits the writers personal experiences, who was believed to be on the brink of madness and being recommended the treatment of Victorian rest-cure for curing nervous condition among females. The story was a protest from the writer for the women undergoing any similar conditions.
The constant criticism from her husband in the story, sarcasm, and irony have been intertwined to produce a controlling nature of men over a females sanity within Victorian culture. Therefore, the condition of near madness is due to suppression of her liberty to express to which wallpaper displays the complex image of herself.
Annotated Bibliography
Source 1: Bibliographic Entry
He, Xiaojun and Lina Liao. Women Consciousness Exploration in Jane Austen and Her Works.Journal of Education and Training Studies, vol. 3, no. 6, Nov. 2015, pp. 293-297, doi:10.11114/jets.v3i6.1125
Evaluation and Analysis
The source is peer-reviewed, and there...…its influence over the females emotions and oppression with the help of a literary lens. The bibliographic source debated the females acceptance of the male-dominated society and its embedded suppression to which females have always been a target. Their own identities are harshly affected rather than taking them as individuals who should be cared for, loved, and nurtured. A strong quote from the source that would be helpful in my research is: The feminist thinkers call these notions into question by showing a protest and resistance to masculine coded codes of conduct. Also, the source resonates with the chosen critical perspective since the historical insignificance that women have been subjected to created feminist wanes in the political movements and literary writings, such as in the form of second-wave feminism. The social patriarchy and gender inequality have been intensely discussed in the literary discourse within the article. The quote fromThe Yellow Wallpapersaying, John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage, frames a powerful link to this bibliographic source.
Word Count: 210
Works Cited
Feminist Gothic in The Yellow Wallpaper. Lone Star College, https://www.lonestar.edu/yellow-wallpaper.htm.…
Works Cited
“Feminist Gothic in “The Yellow Wallpaper.”” Lone Star College, https://www.lonestar.edu/yellow-wallpaper.htm. Accessed 3 Dec. 2021.
“Literature- Critical Theory and Critical Perspectives.” St. John’s College HS, http://www.stjohns-chs.org/english/mgelso_courses/literature_critical_theory.pdf. Accessed 3 Dec. 2021.
Yellow Wallpaper is a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman first published in 1892. The story touches upon themes of patriarchy, misogyny, identity, disenfranchisement, and mental illness. Told from the perspective of a first-person narrator, the reader gets a glimpse into the effect of patriarchy on individual women and on women collectively. The story begins when the narrator and her husband John spend the summer in a holiday house. The
Yellow Wallpaper Breaking Free: The Ironic Liberation of "Yellow Wallpaper" Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a quintessential feminist story, even though it can be interpreted on many levels within that rubric. The narrator is married and has a child; she is thus engaged in some of the strongest trappings of a patriarchal society. However, she is removed both physically and spiritually from her stereotyped role as wife and mother. The
Yellow Wallpaper portrays that the protagonist in the story, Jane is mentally disturbed. Due to various factors and social pressures, Jane is affected with a mental condition that causes her to lose her mind and be out of touch with reality. The diagnoses that can be made about Jane from The Yellow Wallpaper are of Schizophrenia, Paranoid Type and Bipolar Disorder Type I. Schizophrenia- Paranoid Type As defined in the DSM-IV (APA,
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
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"
Yet, in this case, the freedom that the author is talking about is not necessarily the liberation of women from the oppressive male society, but the freedom of each individual with mental problems to having a socially integrated life, with little or no confinement that would also make the mental problems develop. In conclusion, although it may seem that "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a short story written with a feminist