Who is Jennie in the Yellow Wallpaper?
Jennie. John’s sister. Jennie acts as housekeeper for the couple. Her presence and her contentment with a domestic role intensify the narrator’s feelings of guilt over her own inability to act as a traditional wife and mother.
What is the mental illness in the Yellow Wallpaper?
These actions make it clear that the narrator has lost her mind. Gilman, who also suffered from depression, brilliantly uses the yellow wallpaper as a representation of the structure of domestic life that women can get trapped in by overpowering family members or friends.
Why does John faint at the end of the yellow wallpaper?
John faints because he is overcome with terror once he witnesses his wife’s shocking state. The nameless narrator creeps to avoid suspicion as she attempts to free the imaginary woman trapped inside the wallpaper.
What is wrong with Jane in The Yellow Wallpaper?
In ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses the character of Jane to describe the adverse effects of the rest cure. This woman, who goes unnamed for most of the story, is suffering from a mental illness. Most likely, she is suffering from postpartum depression.
What does the ending of The Yellow Wallpaper mean?
At the end of the story, the narrator believes that the woman has come out of the wallpaper. This indicates that the narrator has finally merged fully into her psychosis, and become one with the house and domesticated discontent.
Does the yellow wallpaper have a happy or sad ending?
The Yellow Wallpaper story has a sad ending. The Yellow Wallpaper ending is sad, because the narrator goes crazy. When John breaks into the room, the narrator does not recognize him. John faints, and the narrator’s continues creeping around the room over him.
What is the irony in the Yellow Wallpaper?
Dramatic irony is used extensively in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” For example, when the narrator first describes the bedroom John has chosen for them, she attributes the room’s bizarre features—the “rings and things” in the walls, the nailed-down furniture, the bars on the windows, and the torn wallpaper—to the fact that …
Is the yellow wallpaper based on a true story?
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” draws from experiences that Gilman herself faced, but it is fiction rather than an entirely true story. After having a baby, Gilman suffered from what today would probably be called postpartum depression.
Why is the yellow wallpaper a horror story?
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is not a ghost story because it does not have supernatural elements. Instead, it is concerned solely with the real world. The narrator’s insanity is not caused by a supernatural force but by the way she has been prescribed the wrong treatment for her depression by a patriarchal society.
Who dies in the Yellow Wallpaper?
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, author of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” dies at the age of 75 on August 17th, 1935.
Who is the audience of The Yellow Wallpaper?
AUDIENCE APPEAL The Yellow Wallpaper is especially popular with college and university Women’s/Gender Studies programs. It is recommended, as well, for high school students. The extraordinary story and performance stimulate discussions about imagination vs. science, the place of women in society and marriage, and more.
Why does the narrator hate the wallpaper at first?
Mallard died of heart disease upon seeing her husband. Why does the narrator hate the wallpaper at first? The narrator hates the wallpaper because she sees eyes and a woman skulking behind the wallpaper. The narrator thinks she is the woman in the yellow wallpaper.
What does the yellow wallpaper say about gender roles?
In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman is showing her readers that the male doctors were not listening to their female patients. It is these patronizing attitudes that Gilman is fighting against, and she does so by illustrating the ways that rigid gender roles have a negative effect on both women and men.
What do the unblinking eyes symbolize in the Yellow Wallpaper?
The “unblinking eyes” are fixated on her. They see her deteriorate and do nothing about it. They can read her soul and basically are witnessing all that she is going through. The eyes represent her status: A person to be seen and not heard.
What were the gender roles in the 19th century?
Women and men were not equal in the 19th century. Women were seen as ‘the weaker sex’. This particularly affected middle class women because they had no reason to leave the home or go to work. The middle classes took the role of women very seriously because they did not have to worry about things like poverty.
What is the main point of the yellow wallpaper?
The primary theme of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is that women who are suffering from post-partum depression, or any kind of depression, should be respected and allowed to make decisions regarding their own lifestyle and health.
What is the husband’s role in The Yellow Wallpaper?
John acts as a doctor, husband, and caretaker to the story’s narrator, so his role as someone who constrains her physically and psychologically is triply reinforced.
Did John help the narrator or hurt her?
John knows his wife only superficially. He sees the “outer pattern” but misses the trapped, struggling woman inside. By treating her as a “case” or a “wife” and not as a person with a will of her own, he helps destroy her, which is the last thing he wants.
Is John the antagonist in the Yellow Wallpaper?
We know the main antagonist is her husband, the physician, John. He creates the “obstacles that give the story momentum” and “creates an environment in which [her] transformation can take place” (Marks).
What does the narrator believe would be the best cure for her?
The narrator believes that her best cure would be work, go out into the world (and society), and try to be a mother to her child. Her husband and brother wish to do the opposite: they want to isolate her, keep her away from her child, and prohibit her from working.
What is the narrator implying to her husband?
The picture that we are given of the narrator in regards to the way she feels about her husband is that she is clearly trying very hard to be a loving and devoted wife.
Is she or isn’t she crazy diagnosing the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper?
The narrator’s identity isn’t revealed in The Yellow Wallpaper, but she can be identified as a women with a mental illness. John, the narrator’s physician husband, describes her mental illness as “temporary nervous depression” but she feels her illness is more serious.
Who prescribed Gilman A similar rest cure when she suffered from depression?
Silas Weir Mitchell
Why does the woman in the yellow wallpaper need to rest?
Gilman exploited the rest cure in The Yellow Wallpaper to alert other women of the damaging effects of the treatment.
What are the four basic elements of Dr Weir Mitchell’s rest cure?
The cure involved four basic elements: bed rest, force-feeding and overfeeding, massage, and electrical stimulation of the muscles. Later, Mitchell adapted the rest cure to treat hysteria and other nervous disorders in the civilian population.
What therapy was Gilman prescribed after having her daughter?
Soon after the birth of her daughter, Gilman experienced depression and received treatment from well known physician, Silas Weir Mitchel. He prescribed a treatment of rest which often included isolation from friends and family, a special diet, and massage and electrotherapy.