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¶ … Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Specifically it will discuss the effect that point-of-view has on the story. The narrator in this story slowly descends into madness as the story continues, and the first-person point-of-view helps the reader truly feel how the woman feels, and why she goes slowly mad in her own home.
The author chose first-person for this story to graphically illustrate how women's lives were ruled over by others in the 19th century. This narrator has no say in her own life -- her husband makes all the choices for her, including who she sees, what she does, and how she recovers from her "illness," which was really a bout with madness. She has no purpose in life, and no way to escape except through losing her mind. This first-person view graphically affects the story, because it is as if the reader is right there with the narrator, watching her painful life and her reaction to it. It makes the story more real and engaging, and it makes it seem truer and believable, as well. To begin, she seems sane and rational enough. She is sane enough to realize her husband is part of her problem. She says, "John is a physician, and perhaps -- (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) -- perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see he does not believe I am sick!" (Gilman). As the story progresses, and John keeps a tight rein on her, her condition quickly deteriorates, and the use of the first-person makes this quite clear. The narrator begins to see and hear things around her; things that are not really there, like the old woman who "creeps" out of the wallpaper in the bedroom. She says, "There are new shoots on the fungus, and new shades of yellow all over it. I cannot keep count of them, though I have tried conscientiously" (Gilman). She continues, "Then in the very bright spots she…
References
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." City University of New York. 2009. 9 Sept. 2009.
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"
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
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
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
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
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