The Yellow Wallpaper Analysis Essay

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Yansi A. Perez Mrs. Sangster Critical Writing and Research October 6th 2014 In the "The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman the protagonist can easily be construed as insane. She see things such as "broken necks" and "bulbous eyes" in the wallpaper and woman locked inside of the bars of the wallpaper and even attempt to rescue her. Her fascination with the wallpaper is odd, but digging deeper the real lose sight of what the wallpaper institutes. The Yellow Wallpaper echoes a period where men dominated women. As the nameless protagonist madness progresses, she becomes increasingly aware of a woman the pattern of the wallpaper in her room. She sees the woman struggling against t he bars of the paper. Later in her she imagines…show more content…
Gilman creates to be John the window in which readers can view the negative images of women with this patricarchial society. During Gilman’s lifetime the rights of women were primary issue debated in the home, media, and the political arena. As the fight to be equal citizens was going on many tehories and practices fought against this ideal. Psychologists made theories that “proved” women’s developmental immaturity, low cognitive skills, and emotional instability. Physicians, who at the time had little knowledge of the female body, made conclusion’s arguing that the womb created hysteria and madness, and that it was the source of women’s inferiority. In dissecting John’s patronizing treatment of his wife, Gilman condemns the entire system, in which many women were trapped behind damaging social definitions of the female. One can see the negative effects of John’s (and society’s) treatment of the narrator in her response to the rest cure. At first, she tries to fight against his control of her. By recording her own diagnosis in an unauthorized journal she hides. She writes “ John is a physician and perhaps. Perhaps that is one reason. I don’t get better faster”. (_____) As the despair deepens the narrator expresses this diagnosis through vivid fantasies about the yellow wallpaper in her room. Kautz states that the journal of the narrator fantasy is the narrator’s only defense against the control of her

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