The Analysis Of The Story "The Yellow Wallpaper" By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Nowadays, many people go through depression and it can take over their whole life. In the story The Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the main character, who is also known as the narrator, is a young woman going through depression. The especially innovative protagonist’s transformation is because of her overcoming depression. This sort of treatment was declared by her physician and spouse, John, whose controlling personality requests his wife to stay in bed and rest in a disconnected room and prohibit her to take an interest in any innovative activities. The oppression of women and the yellow paper is a fictionalized personal record that delineates the passionate and scholarly crumbling of the female storyteller who is both a mother and wife.

In any case, because of the narrator’s innovative power and propensity for story production, John advises her, “a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency, so I try”. Being prohibited to have a creative ability leaves the narrator very bothered and chafed with sentiments of oppression. However, she overlooks her husband’s thoughts and possesses her creative energy with the yellow wallpaper that encompasses the room, building up a type of association with it that enables her to admit her smothered emotions.

As the narrator experiences her “apprehensive condition,” the secluded area makes her begin to deteriorate. Being alone in the room with yellow wallpaper contributes her passionate pain to end up overwhelming. The failure to fully talk about her sentiments of dejection makes her begin to write in a more innovative manner about her associations with items in the bedroom, particularly the yellow wallpaper. She starts to expand on the wallpaper as though it is assumed to have a type of importance. At the start of the woman’s confinement, her consideration is centered around the points of interest of the wallpaper’s pattern.

As the narrator continues getting increasingly interested by this yellow wallpaper, she instantly begins to write about it. She specifies how she sees a woman caught behind the wallpaper and how she wants to set her free. She talks about how she has seen the figure “creep” many times around the bedroom. In the end, she tore off the yellow wallpaper so she can set the lady “free.” I would say that from the beginning to the end of this story, this character changes quite a bit. Her husband forced her to stay in the house all the time thinking that that would cure her depression.

This whole time she was under his watch and she couldn’t do anything without his consult. There was no way for her to express how she feels or to go out, so she was just forced to stare at a blank wall. John drove her crazy from boredom, as she said “I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal – having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.” She is not allowed to write, so she always ends up doing it secretly.

As I got to know more and more about the narrator, I would describe her as a round character because she can never explain how she feels about everything and has a hard time trying to be in charge of the whole situation. When I look at her and her husband’s relationship, it almost makes me think they are father and daughter. He treats and talks to her like she is a little girl the entire story and she just takes whatever he says and does it. She doesn’t ever think to stand up for herself and decide what she wants to do or what is the best way for herself to be cured, but since her husband is a physician, she trusts that he knows what he is doing. Throughout the story, the narrator talks about all the nice views she has from her room, including the garden. But she just can’t seem to ignore what is right in front of her at all times, the yellow wallpaper.

As she keeps getting more and more intrigued by this wallpaper, she immediately starts writing about it. She mentions how she can see a figure trapped behind the wallpaper and she wants to save her. Jane mentions how she has seen the woman “creep” around many times. She eventually went to rip off yards of that wallpaper so she can finally “free” the woman. As she keeps getting more and more intrigued by this wallpaper, she immediately starts writing about it. She mentions how she can see a figure trapped behind the wallpaper and she wants to save her. Jane mentions how she has seen the woman “creep” around many times. She eventually went to rip off yards of that wallpaper so she can finally “free” the woman.

What I saw in this story was the narrator creating an illusion in her imagination and relating all hardships she went through in life and with John and how she almost feels as if she is trapped under his power. So, I see that once she had freed the woman behind the wallpaper, she was really freeing herself from being suffocated under John’s control and not being able to relieve herself with what she wants to do or being able to express her emotions. With all this happening, I can say that she has definitely changed and grown as a character as she enters a state of relief.

11 February 2020
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