Jane; the narrator of the short story, is one of these woman forced into the rest treatment by her physician husband. It 's here where she discovers the yellow wallpaper that leads to her mental demise. What is the symbolic meaning of the yellow wallpaper and how do her interactions with the wallpaper represent the change in her feelings towards her husband and society. The yellow wallpaper symbolizes women 's suffrage and the struggles women went through, and her interactions with the wallpaper represent the problems woman had with their husbands and society. The main symbolism present in the story is how the yellow wallpaper represents woman suffrage and the problems they endured during the 19th century.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "The Story of an Hour" written by Kate Chopin were written in the late 1800s. They may seem pretty different at first, but they both discuss women 's confinement in society in the late 1800s. Moreover, while these two stories focus on social status based on gender, in doing so, they bring out the effects of gender roles and gender stereotypes that end in affliction. In the story "The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman paints a picture for the reader starting off with the narrator a housewife who feels detached from society due to her husband’s controlling nature. Although they are from the upper class of society and she seems like she has everything such as a colonial mansion and her husband, Dr. John, she still feels lonely and although her
We think that the form of the “Imaginary” mentioned in Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory of Mrs. Mallards family and friends “imagining” that the devastated new of Mr. Mallard’s death would cause her a heart attack, however later on in the story it was mentioned that she was in fact relieved to know she was a free woman of her marriage. Consequently, the reality of Mrs. Mallard’s thoughts, perceptions and feelings were not the same as others may have assumed or imagined to be. Based on stereotypical standards of society this was misunderstood because a wife should feel an enormous pain for the death of her husband. As the story continues, when Josephine whose Mrs. Mallard’s sister told her about the death of Mr. Mallard, instead of reacting in shock as “many women would’ve (Chopin, The Story of an Hour)” done so, Mrs. Mallard “wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. (Chopin, the Story of an Hour)” It would be prudent to believe by the way Mrs. Mallard was crying that indeed she was devastated about her husband’s tragic death.
The worst part of was that in there was the 1882 Married Property Act that when a women gets married she has to pass on all her wealth, and virtually there life to their husband (Women and the Law in Early 19th Century.) In the case the sacrifice of Jane is to “relive the press of [writing],” the only thing that seem to keep her at rest. However, the real reason for the downfall of the narrator is that her condition becomes worse due to the fact that there is a mysterious room that keeps calling her, and she will not stop thinking this place as this room symbolizes her isolation that she from society. The cause of the down fall of Jane is really the fault of John because he for the most part wants the narrator to stop thinking about her episodes, but in reality that only makes her think of her depression even more she is “nervous weakness.” And the worst part is that she cannot escape John even if he goes out to help his patients. In this story John is a physician, and most importantly a man both combined makes a controlling “dictator” that could drive any person crazy or to something
After reading the novel The Secret Life of Bees, it would be easy to think that the main theme is discrimination or family, but in reality it is actually focused on the toll that mental illness takes on a family. The protagonist of this novel, Lily Owens, has always had a troublesome life. Both her parents, Terrence Owens, also known as T. Ray, and Deborah Fontanel are ridden with illness, sadly caused from each other. Lily also meets a new family in this novel after running away from her cruel father who abuses her. This family is also dealing with mental illness.
The epigraph of Chapter Three highlights the ways both Mother and Mattie feel and relates to the novel’s theme of loss. Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Fever 1793, quotes from a letter from Margaret Morris, which states “Oh, then the hands of the pitiful mother prepared her child’s body for the grave.”, the “pitiful mother” representing Mother, and the child spoken about is Matilda. Mother has just experienced yet another death, the last one being Mattie’s father. Polly was their helper girl, and now they don’t have anyone to help around the shop. This will cause Mother to get more stressed as she and Mattie have more work to do.
It is known that loneliness sometimes makes us senseless. In Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of her Peers” loneliness made Minnie Foster irrational. Mrs. Hale assumes that Mrs. Wright is guilty of killing her husband because of her nonchalant answers she gives when being interrogated about her husband’s location. During the story the reader will learn more about Mrs. Wright, or Minnie Foster, and how her personality changed drastically through her twenty years of marriage with John while Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are covering up the tracks that they presume led to murder. They conclude that loneliness made her lose herself which is evident throughout the short story.
After analyzing the pattern for awhile, the narrator witnesses a woman trapped behind bars. Eventually, we realize that the woman in the wallpaper is the narrator. Throughout the story, the narrator 's mental state continues to deteriorate. Being both the narrator 's husband and physician, John assumes that he knows what’s best for his wife. However, in this essay, I will argue that Gilman portrays John as an antagonist or “villain” in her story because, through his actions, he is the main reason for his wife 's descent into insanity which proves that he didn’t know what was best for his wife after all.
Male Order Bride “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story narrated by a woman who is losing her mind. When the narrator admits her mental illness, she is told by her husband John, a doctor, to rest and do as little thinking as possible. This only drives her madness and makes the reader question the abilities of her husband. Does he really care about her if he cannot see that his own advice is driving her mad? The “rest cure” was not made up by her husband; it was a common practice during the late 1800’s and was believed to be effective for the most part because of society’s views of women.
The house is in a super-isolated place. The house represents the narrator 's personal emotions; restricted and isolation. In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the symbolism of the the wallpaper and the diary demonstrate the psychological difficulties, that were caused by being disrespected and thought less of, during the 19th century for women across the United States. In the “Yellow Wallpaper”, the woman 's husband John neglects her symptoms of postpartum and says she has a slight hysterical tendency. As this progresses, the woman starts to go mad from ignorance and starts to believe there is someone behind the Wallpaper.