What are some themes of The Yellow Wallpaper?
The Yellow Wallpaper Themes
- Mental Illness and its Treatment.
- Gender Roles and Domestic Life.
- Outward Appearance vs.
- Self-Expression, Miscommunication, and Misunderstanding.
What is the argument in the Yellow Wallpaper?
About Postpartum Depression in the Yellow Wallpaper Gilman’s short story focuses on the idea that men control the lives of women in essentially every aspect. The narrator’s husband tells her not to do anything to stimulate her brain.
What was wrong with the woman in the yellow wallpaper?
The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is likely suffering from depression and likely from postpartum psychosis (at least in part) because of the young baby mentioned in the story. She finds that she cannot take care of her baby and has no desire to be near him, as his presence makes her “nervous.”
What is the yellow wallpaper a metaphor for?
The yellow wallpaper symbolizes societal oppression of women in American society. The pattern on the wallpaper represents male-dominated society which deprives women their rights and freedom: “by moonlight, it becomes bars, she says, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be”.
What brought out the smell of the wallpaper to the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper?
As if to confirm this, the narrator reports near the story’s end that “[her] shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall.” So, the narrator has been crawling around the room—or “creeping,” as she calls it—and she is rubbing against the wallpaper, making it so that she smells it in her hair and on her clothes …
How does the narrator describe the smell of the wallpaper?
How does the narrator describe the smell of the paper? She says it has a yellow smell.
Does the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper have a child?
She never describes having the baby, or even seeing it for that matter. The narrator does mention that ”the baby is well and happy. ” She gives an indication that she has concern for her child. Even her husband indicates that she has concern for her child.
What does the narrator do to the wallpaper in the end?
By the end, the narrator is hopelessly insane, convinced that there are many creeping women around and that she herself has come out of the wallpaper—that she herself is the trapped woman. She creeps endlessly around the room, smudging the wallpaper as she goes.
What does her husband symbolize in the Yellow Wallpaper?
In the beginning of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ the narrator describes her husband as a kind of saintly caretaker. By the end of the narrative, he becomes a kind of prison guard that she has to escape.