"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a very interesting short story. Not really short alittle long but interesting to say the least. I felt alittle angry when reading how the poor lady who obviously was suffering from some stage of depression was kept locked up in solitare and away from the world.
One would think that when one suffers depression that the best thing would be to surround them with Love, Friends and Family. She never got to play or hold her baby. That made me sad for the baby and her. She never really left that room with the yellow wallpaper. Maybe just a hand full of times. That alone would make a person go mad!!
In the story she explains how she love to write and that her husband who is a doctor forbids her to write. "He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making, 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. I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me." This right here makes me sad for her. They are not letting her express what she is feeling inside. I don't blame her for thinking that she is trapped in side this room of yellow. It is her that she see's becoming one with the room. it is her that she feels is trying to escape the bars that hold her in that yellow wallpaper. I wanted to scream for her. I felt like I was going to go mad along with her!
I feel so angry that she felt she couldn't speak about her feelings to her husband or too any one that was there to take care of her. "I don't know why I should write this. I don't want to. I don't feel able. And I know John would think it absurd. But I must say what I feel and think in some way--it is such a relief." She is totally crying out but in her own mind.
I love the end of the story when she knows that their time is almost up to head back to their original home and leave this mansion and the room with the yellow wallpaper and the misterious lady stuck behind it. She locks herself in the room and throws the key out the window to buy her time so she can release the misterious lady from her intrapment of the paper with the wild design. She works all night and day to rip that paper off the wall and succeeds to release her. "I've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!"
Great story!! :)
Im glad you wrote your analysis on the Yellow Wallpaper it is good to read someone else's view since I wrote mine on the same short story. It upset me as well that her husband kept her from writing which was something she enjoyed and might of helped her come out of post partum depression. In those days though there was no post partum depression and women were considered crazy and confined until they got better. I agree that the woman in the Yellow Wallpaper symbolized her own entrapment. Towards the end she frees the woman and herself from future isolation. I enjoyed your analysis.
ReplyDeleteI forgot about the baby. I believe she was a little bats in the belfry to begin with; however, after reading your post and MyrnaV's comment, I can see how she could of been suffering from postpartum depression. I like the part were you said, "I wanted to scream for her. I felt like I was going to go mad along with her." I too was engaged in the reading. I felt like I was going to go crazy along with her as well. Charlotte Perkins Gilman seems to me like an incredible writer who was a head of her time. The story is a psychological thriller, and I can see how it would of been a big deal back when it was written. It is a great story, and a great author.
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