A Review On The Book Called " The Yellow Wallpaper" (Book Review Sample)

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THE YELLOW WALLPAPER
The Yellow Wallpaper is a self-fiction short story driven by Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s life events and experiences in which she describes the therapy of women in the interim of a rest cure recommended for nervous disorderliness by a noble specialist Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell. This short story illuminates on the submissiveness, obedience of women to a man’s authority that was considered unexceptional at the onset of the twentieth century.
The unmentioned hero of the book is unable to express what she wants and what she would love to do and satisfy her needs. John her husband takes her to a country house so that she could heal her condition. The reader is instantaneously aware of the snobbish attitude of the practitioner husband toward his wife. She is confined in a room that was previously used by the owners as a classroom for nursery kids and besides this was against her will. The room with the yellow wallpaper symbolizes a prison where this woman is curtailed of her rights such as intellectual works of reading and writing. At the beginning, the narrator insubordinates against the constraints and keeps a secret diary. When John realizes this, she is punished and her diary is brutally torn down.
Social interaction is controlled and therefore her total freedom is rationed. The husband sometimes is in other cities lecturing and this leaves the narrator with emptiness in her heart and no emotional support for couple of days. When he is at home, his talks are patronizing, and he ignores her concerns about her condition. This story clearly shows her role as being a subject of her husband and blindly believes that her own condition is getting better. John’s self-centeredness does not allow him to see that his wife's condition is worsening.
Jennie, who is john’s sister, manages the household epitomizes the encircled role of women. She indulges herself with adorning and looking after the kitchen. She unwillingly carries out John’s instructions to oversee the narrator's activities, though she clearly knows that what the doctor orders is against the patient’s needs. She obeys the orders until it is too late to change the effects of the narrator’s condition.
The strong pattern depicted in the yellow wallpaper reflects bars that restrain the protagonist in her world of oppressiveness and depravity of her freedom. She is deprived of her intellectual rights, the narrator’s thoughts beg for a world behind the paper where oppressed and enslaved women wait hopelessly to be freed. Ideally she is one of the women who seek for liberation from the world of captivity and slavery. She thinks that the only way out of this world is to destroy the paper. Ultimately to her, this is her freedom from slavery of female subservience and male dominance
ANALYSISAND INTERPRETATION OF YELLOW WALLPAPER
In the yellow wallpaper the author uses the imaginative story to portray how a woman is considered lesser in the marriage institution by placing her in fragile and weak positions in the society. Considering time of its publication readers took the story as horrible tool to portray a woman suffering from an intense condition of consciousness .the fact that readings of the stories have become more complex, readers discover that the story is more than just a woman the state of psychological torment. In the story we identify a society of two classes. There are male and female classes, where the females especially the married women are considered the second class citizen in the society. The society draws an instinctive division between the fragile and weak role of woman and active role of the man.
The story shows that gender segregation had an eventuality of keeping women in a fragile position which prevented them from developing intellectually and impacting the development of societies. John’s presumptions of being wise make tormenting her at the hang of helping her to heal. The narrator is portrayed alike a child who cannot stand up by her own and without being looked at as disobedient and disloyal to her husband. The narrator has no power even over little details of family or life but she just has to confine herself to her own fantasy where she has control and practice her power of mind. The psychological torment bestowed on the narrator more than the physical is what that is driving her more to lose her mind. She hides her worries so that she is seen as happy in the marriage but the truth is that her condition is not getting better. The narrator is consistently hoping for an intellectual breakthrough and emotions even if it means to have a secretive journal that keep her feel relieved of her depression. This is what the narrator always referred to it as relief of her mind .However for Gilman, he says that “a mind that is kept in a compelled condition is doomed to self-destruction”.
When we look at the so called treatment rest cure for depression dispensed by Dr.S.WEIR MITCHEL, it’s not strange to believe that Gilman methodized the story as an invasion on an inappropriate and horrible condition of treatment. The yellow wallpaper is an example that shows a mind that is subjected to anxiety and can worsen and brash against itself when it is compelled to inactivity and kept in unhealthy work. To support this, Mitchel who is mentioned in the story had the doctors criticism at heart and left the resting cure beyond the normal comprehension .Gilman symbolizes criticism of any kind of treatment that belittles the needs this poor suffering woman Jane, looking at her as the only docile object of treatment. The relationship between the woman and her husband, the patient and the Dr. is clearly defined and since Gilman s power can be easily ignored though the husband meant to help. Moreover, women who are timid and submissive objects of such authority can be even worse.
The yellow wallpaper story presents irony in the sense that the protagonist uses the verbal irony more in referring to her husband: john laughs at me; of Couse one expects such things in a marriage. The obvious truth is that no one expects such kind of things in married couples. This irony is also depicted when the narrator says: ‘I am glad my case is not serious` at the juncture when it’s known her condition is not any better.
Situational irony is another style used in the story.in this irony characters actions have the contrary of what they expect. For instance, the doctor’s mode of treatment does not produce the desired effect instead worsening the condition of the patient��s depression and actually making his wife insane. Similarly the narrator only gains her power and insight at the expense of losing her self-control and reasons.
Interpretation of the yellow wallpaper can be based on the fact that the wallpaper text symbolizes things that affect her true life. This wallpaper develops symbolism across the story. At the onset; it seems only unpleasant dirtied and ugly yellow. The worst part of it is the confusing patterns that captures the narrator’s attention and tries to figure out what well it’s organized. After a keen close look at the paper she notices other patterns behind the main patterns which are visible only from certain angles. Finally these patterns appearing from behind other patterns comes into a clear focus as a sad woman constantly trying to disentangle herself and looking for a way to escape from the main pattern. The writer sees these patterns resembling bars of a cage. The narrator is so anxious of the cage which is much festooned with many heads of women crying and struggling to escape, clearly the wallpaper represents the setting of the society’s traditions where by the narrator comes to light and notices she is trapped in and she is forcefully struggling to free herself.
The narrator tone is in a condition of anxiety for most of his stories encompassed with flashes of sarcasms, anger and desperation. When we analyze this story we I identify elements such as: major conflicts, rising actions, climax of the action and falling action. The major conflicts arise when there are an intense conflict between she (the narrator) and her husband over the issue of her treatment. This stirs up the psychological conflict in her between her growing comprehensions of her powerlessness and her power to gain her own awareness.
Rising action is depicted on the fact that the narrator keeps a secret journal which expresses her animosity for the wallpaper in her bedroom. This disgust about the wallpaper gradually accentuate into obsession.
Finally the climax and falling actions is seen at last when the narrator absolutely identifies her true position in the society and she realizes that she is the woman trapped and imprisoned behind the wallpaper patterns. The falling action is now evident when the narrator has discovered herself as the woman in the wallpaper. She puts her efforts in escaping from such slavery and her husband realizes this and as results he collapses and the woman crawls over his body.
The dominant theme identified in the story is the submissiveness of women in marriage. This has been addressed in many writings (Bornstein 263)
This is evident by the fact that at the onset of the story the narrator accepts the treatment her husband has ordered for her.in the end, she becomes antagonistic and resentful .she says that “I don’t want to go out and I don’t want anybody to come in, until john comes. I want to astonish him “this is evident enough to prove the fact that despite her resentful feelings about her husband’s treatment and her conditions, she still obeys the instructions from her husband and therefore she is submissive to her master husband.
Gender is another imperative theme Identified in the sto...