Preview

Essay On Symbolism In The Yellow Wallpaper

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
617 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Essay On Symbolism In The Yellow Wallpaper
In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses symbolism to make the story more interesting, There are many examples of symbolism in the story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Gilman uses objects in the story that have a meaning to what the reader should understand.
In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” one example of symbolism in the story is the bars on the windows. Jane is being locked and left alone in a small room to cure her insanity. The bars on the windows show how Jane feels on the inside. Emotionally, Jane feels that she is very sick and that her husband does not believe her. Jane feels that she is locked inside the room and that is not helping cure her sickness. In the text it states, “I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong to even try” (Gilman). Jane wants to escape the house because she feels trapped inside. The bars on the window give a sense of Jane being seriously captured in the room. Bars are mainly used to keep something not escaping from the inside. The bars prevented Jane from escaping out the window. The bars on
…show more content…
In the text it states, “Then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed which is all we found in the room, looks as if it has been through the wars” (Gilman). The bed in “The Yellow Wallpaper” was nailed to the floor. The bed being nailed to the floor symbolises how Jane was being overly taken care of. Her husband treated her almost like a child because her room was baby proof. In the text it states, “I lay here on this great immovable bed --it is nailed down, I believe” (Gilman). The bed represents how Jane is stuck in the room because it is nailed to the floor and it is unmovable. The nailed down bed is an example of symbolism in the story “The Yellow

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The wallpaper in "The Yellow Wallpaper" was a symbol of imprisonment, restraint, and control. As described by the narrator, the wallpaper "became bars" imprisoning the "woman" in the wallpaper. The narrator herself…

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, symbolism is well presented throughout the story because the narrator feels due to her nervous illness she is trapped in “yellow wallpaper” though the wallpaper is really stands for her being caged by surroundings. The wallpaper is a horrid unclean, almost revolting color as observed by the narrator it is also “strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is dull yet lurid orange is some places. A sickly sulphur tint in others (Gilman 87).” The most terrible thing is that there is a shapeless pattern that fascinates her and intrigues her for hours to figure out how it is patterned. The narrator stares in the moonlight and sees a desperate women crawling and creeping, in…

    • 179 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “ The Yellow Wallpaper” by Gilman, an important symbol is the Yellow Wallpaper, which represents the unknown woman’s illness and life. Throughout the story as the woman’s mental health gets worse, the wallpaper pattern gets more unbearable. She becomes obsessed with the atrocious pattern, and repulsing color. When the narrator and her husband arrive at the mansion, she knows she is depressed but nothing too serious. And when she first sees the wallpaper, she thinks it’s disturbing, but she can handle it. The narrator says, “ It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream.” The narrator is using personification to express how the wallpaper is almost abusing her and how she has no control over it.…

    • 283 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The author of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, uses rhetoric throughout her story. However, she really focuses on symbolism. For instance the wallpaper itself is the main symbol throughout the story. The wallpaper starts out so sad and unappealing in the beginning of the story, it was one of those “sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” it had been “stripped off” the walls in “great patches” (Gilman, 781). As the story continues the wallpaper gains more character that makes it less tasteless and more appealing to the main character. She begins to see a woman in the wallpaper and it seems as if the woman is trying to tell her something. She begins to sympathize with the woman trapped in the…

    • 646 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    She later decayed from the oppression that stole her freedom. The main character in “The Yellow Wallpaper” hung on to her husband because according to her, "it is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so". She depends on him and also fears him too. He took her freedom away and left her mentally worn down too. These stories talk about men who still had old-fashioned beliefs and convictions at a time when the attitudes and beliefs of the world were changing. The women suffered from the way they were treated by the men they were supposed to trust and love.…

    • 2498 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Yellow Wallpaper Thesis

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Often times throughout literary works, authors will use their work to express their passion on important topics or to enlighten the reader more about those topics. Author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman does this within her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Throughout Gilman’s time, she was a leading figure in the women’s movement during the turn of the 20th century. Gilman used her work as a chance to use her voice to challenge the important topics that happened among that era, including conventional gender roles. She also used her own troubles that she faced in her personal life to inspire her short stories. The one short story that relates the most to Gilman’s life is “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Gilman used the troubles in her life to portray the…

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    yellow wallpaper

    • 422 Words
    • 1 Page

    Throughout "The Yellow Wall-Paper," Charlotte Gilman uses various symbols to show the oppression of women by men, and the continuing struggle to escape that oppression. The three main symbols that run throughout the story lend the most support to this. The yellow wall-paper is an indication of the mental restrictions that were placed upon women by men during the 1800s. As yellow is oft considered the color of sickness or weakness, the sickness that the writer suffers from is the continuing oppression and struggle that continues to this very day by women. Gilman shows that the possibilities of women are as vast as those of man, and that during the 19th century those possibilities were severely restricted. This is shown through the descriptions of the two windows and the view from each. The writer sees other doing acts she could do herself, just as women saw acts of man that they could do with the same level of competency. Entirely, "The Yellow Wall-Paper" is a statement of the oppression of the female sex by mankind.On page 835 the description of the two windows and the view from them by the writer is a representation of the possibilities of the female sex, and how those possibilities were limited and restricted by men during the 19th and into the 20th century. The first view is described as "I can see the garden, those mysterious deep-shaded arbor, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees." The "garden" is a clear symbol of the earth, or society, and the use of "mysterious" shows that the possibilities that women have are undiscovered to them. In the next view the writer describes seeing a "lovely view of the bay" and a "private wharf belonging to the estate." The bay is a reference to the uncharted territory of womankind's abilities and the private estate is clearly indicating the sections of society forbidden to women. The description of seeing "people walking in the numerous paths and arbors" is the idea of women seeing the acts of men, and…

    • 422 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” written as a first person journal entry is a great example of symbolism in the literature. The narrator uses various symbols like window,nursery and wallpaper to serve as reflection of protagonist’s state of mind and indication of societal suppression. It was written during early-to-mid nineteenth century positions female imprisonment within domestic sphere. The narrator sets the wallpaper as a symbol of protagonist state of the mind. The pattern of the wallpaper is illogical and chaotic which is very similar to the sanity of narrator. In the beginning of "The Yellow Wallpaper" the narrator seemed to be very imaginative and highly expressive woman, for example she remembers terrifying herself…

    • 422 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The narrator also goes as far as explaining what the woman behind the wallpaper does all day long while she sleeps. She gives life to the wallpaper itself in a sense that she believes that a woman is prisoner behind it, “As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and rant to help her” (536). The symbolism the narrator used were of great significance because at the end it was the narrator feeling free. The wallpaper was her husband and Jennie holding her back from doing what she wanted, “‘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!’”…

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Symbolism, in many aspects, can affect humans as well as characters in a negative or positive way. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” it is obvious that the symbol that is used, being the yellow wallpaper, affects the narrator in a negative way. As the story progresses and the narrator is forced to stay in the room covered in yellow wallpaper, she starts to gain a sense of who she is as well as a sense of self-expression. Suffering from her illness, the narrator is secluded from everyone and as time passes the wallpaper starts to come to life and causes her harm. As the narrator looks more and more into the wallpaper, she starts to notice the different types of delicate patterns in which lead her to seeing women behind the wallpaper. She starts to feel as if she has legitimately been isolated and can’t help but see people behind the yellow wallpaper. “Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over. Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard “(Gilman 487). Having the narrator see women from the wallpaper goes to show the reader that she is becoming delusional as time goes by, and soon her actions play a role in deciding to rip off the wallpaper off. The reader can definitely understand that the narrator is aware that she does have an illness that has affected her in multiple ways now, but does not want to accept how insane she truly has…

    • 1021 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The chosen passage is an extract from “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Gilman. In this story, the narrator is staying in a house with her husband John, Mary, her baby, and John’s sister. There is yellow wallpaper in the narrator’s room which for some reason seems to annoy her. The yellow wallpaper’s imagery indicates the narrator’s state of mind, her relationship with her husband and her life in general.…

    • 653 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many authors use objects to represent more than their literal meanings. Literary devices such as this can create depth and enhance the reading experience. Specifically in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Symbolism is apparent and used to emphasize allegorical concepts.…

    • 408 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Initially, Jane describes the paper as “repellant, almost revolting...a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.” (Stetson 649). John initially intends to repaper the room but later decides not to, stating that “[Jane] was letting it get the better of [her]” (Stetson 649). Stetson starts to show that the wallpaper represents the manner in which the needs, opinions and voices of women were suppressed by men in society. John continues “nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies...after the wallpaper was changed, it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs and so on.” (Stetson 649). The quote shows the internal fear in men that led to the inferior treatment of women and discrimination in society in an attempt to prolong the patriarchy. Therefore, the yellow wallpaper essentially represents the domestic prison that prevented social mobility amongst women. The woman behind the wallpaper that Jane sees as her condition worsens is an attempt by the author to paint a vivid picture of the injustice against…

    • 1198 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the wallpaper symbolizes the husband’s oppression of the narrator’s creativity and femininity.…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper

    • 2030 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Gilman uses symbols throughout her story in a variety of ways. In The Yellow Wallpaper Gillman uses the house to symbolize a body. The speaker describes the outside as “beautiful and delicious.…

    • 2030 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays