In “The Yellow Wallpaper” Charlotte Perkins Gilman depicts an anonymous woman whose role in society is limited. During the time period Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” women roles in society were limited due to male dominance. Male dominance had a negative effect on women. Since males were the dominant leaders of this time period women did not have a voice. The voice of women was allocated through the mouth of males due to the male dominance.
In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” imagery, allegory, symbolism, and irony, Gilman expresses how a woman’s role in society is restricted and her bility to express herself has limitations due to male dominance. In the story Gilman speaks out on the excessive power that men have over their wives. Male dominance played a vital role in what women could and could not do. In the story Gilman portrays the limitations that a woman to keep them at a constant state. The authority that men had placed women with a permanent position in the hierarchy.
In the story the husband was a doctor and played an important role throughout the story. The husband did not allow his wife to read, write, or roam freely. The restrictions placed on the wife by the husband in the tory resulted in her obsession with the wallpaper. As a result of the husband putting restrictions on his wife ,the wife finds amusement in the room being locked up with the yellow wallpaper and begins receding herself into her obsessive problem with the wallpaper , the only place in which she feels that she is in control.
In the beginning of the story the wife and the husband John rent a secluded mansion for the summer. The husband John rented the mansion out because he thought it would help with her condition. John diagnosed his wife with nervous depression and suggested to her that being secluded and getting rest would elp her with her condition. In the beginning of the story many readers would think she would have been diagnosed with Postpartum depression. Postpartum depression occurs after giving birth also known as the baby blues.
When postpartum is present the mother of the child has anxiety and depression due to the realization of the baby and becomes disconnected with the child for weeks or even a couple months. When the wife gave birth shortly after she did not want to be in the presence of her child because she felt that she would put the baby in a bad state. Since the wife had these feelings this is when the husband iagnosed her. The allegory in “The Yellow Wallpaper” involves the woman who are trapped in the yellow wallpaper. “Don’t like to look out of the windows even there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast.
I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did? ” (Gilman 653). In this quote the wife wonders if the woman in the wallpaper that were trap faced the same struggles that she faced. In order for the wife to be content she continued to rip and peel the wallpaper to find out the mystery and wondered if the women trapped in the wallpaper did the same. By questioning if the women trapped ehind the wallpaper faced the same struggles she faced, the wife comes to realization that the women trapped was just an image of herself.
The wife and the women that were trapped behind the wallpaper represented a home in which they were prisoners. The women are considered prisoners in their own home because they had no say so or a way to be themselves. By peeling the wallpaper and creeping it allowed the women to be free. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” using symbolism, Gilman shows the audiences scenes that help show how the oppressive ideology of men in power can have a negative effect on women. In the rticle “The Writing’s on the Wall” by Barbara Suess, Suess names the story “censorious and overwhelming”.
Suess states that early in the story, the wife perceives specific, disembodied body parts within the wallpaper. Seuss explains in the article that the initial contact with the wallpaper, which represents the mirror stage, the wife r what will become herself in the fragmented body images of the women that are trapped in the wallpaper. At the point in the story Seuss states that the wife continues to struggle with the process of constituting a whole self. In the story the wallpaper symbolized barriers. The wallpaper was a barrier because she became obsessed with it and the women that were trapped within.
The wallpaper symbolizes that bars in a jail cell in which the women all had in common that prevented them being free of mind and soul. When the husband suggested that they rent an estate for the summer the wife was not too happy about it. The wife did not want to go but the husband insisted it would help her condition. The irony of the story is that moving to the estate was supposed to help the wife with her medical condition. When they moved into the house the husband gave the wife the room that was ore like a nursery with bars.
As time progressed the wife became more mentally ill but yet moving to the house was supposed to help her. When the husband assigned his wife to the room she insisted that the wallpaper be changed but the husband told her that it is fine and would help her illness. The appearance of the room is also irony the room hand big windows and bars around the room as if it was a prison. Out of all of them rooms had the husband placed her in the most secluded area of the house. Throughout the course of the story Gilman used very descriptive detail that made the readers feel as if they were there.
In the beginning of the story she tells the audience what she likes to do but yet is not allowed to them. The wife states that she enjoys long walks and gardening. Once they arrived at the estate for the summer the wife describes the house as a haunted house and that there was something weird about it. In the story the audience can see that the wife’s insanity is evident because of the way she describes the room. “Then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed which is all we found in the room, looks as if it had been through the wars Gilman 650).
The wife describes the bed as if it had been through trials and tribulations. Although the room was supposed to be a nursery it portrays to the audience as more of a jail cell or psychiatric ward. “Don’t like to look out of the windows even there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wall- paper as I did? ” (Gilman 653). In this quote the wife describes the images in which she is obsessed with within the yellow wallpaper. The wife describes the women in the wallpaper as figures trying to escape and creep out as she attempts to help them.