Fiction Analysis
English 102
Dr. Alexander
October 14, 2010
Fiction Analysis
The two short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Story of an Hour”, are two very similar stories. They share similarities of feminism, freedom, and marriage.
The short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story about the struggle of a woman to gain her freedom and to get her own life apart from her controlling husband. The physician, who also happens to be the woman’s husband, keeps her in a room, as a form of “treatment”. He claims that she is psychotic, but after reading the text, I felt that the woman was only driven to insanity because of the so called “treatment” that her husband set forth. From being kept in this room for so long, the woman starts to become obsessed with the yellow wallpaper on the walls. The woman begins to put herself down by saying things such as, "I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and her I am a comparative burden already". The woman belittles herself and doesn’t give herself any credit because I feel that this is what her husband has put into her mind; that she isn’t worth anything and isn’t capable of anything.
The woman then tells the reader that she has a journal that she has kept secret from her husband. She talks about how the yellow wallpaper and how she finds it “revolting”. The fact that she has to keep this secret journal just shows that she is afraid of her husband, and that she has to keep secrets from him. Her husband has taken her freedom away from her by keeping her in the secluded room by driving her to believe that she is depressed and or psychotic.
As the summer begins, the woman starts to become obsessed with the yellow wallpaper. She talks of the unique patter behind the wallpaper, and she begins to think that the bedroom must have been a nursery. As the summer passes, the woman gets very tired and her husband threatens to send her away to another physician who she had
Dr. Alexander
October 14, 2010
Fiction Analysis
The two short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Story of an Hour”, are two very similar stories. They share similarities of feminism, freedom, and marriage.
The short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story about the struggle of a woman to gain her freedom and to get her own life apart from her controlling husband. The physician, who also happens to be the woman’s husband, keeps her in a room, as a form of “treatment”. He claims that she is psychotic, but after reading the text, I felt that the woman was only driven to insanity because of the so called “treatment” that her husband set forth. From being kept in this room for so long, the woman starts to become obsessed with the yellow wallpaper on the walls. The woman begins to put herself down by saying things such as, "I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and her I am a comparative burden already". The woman belittles herself and doesn’t give herself any credit because I feel that this is what her husband has put into her mind; that she isn’t worth anything and isn’t capable of anything.
The woman then tells the reader that she has a journal that she has kept secret from her husband. She talks about how the yellow wallpaper and how she finds it “revolting”. The fact that she has to keep this secret journal just shows that she is afraid of her husband, and that she has to keep secrets from him. Her husband has taken her freedom away from her by keeping her in the secluded room by driving her to believe that she is depressed and or psychotic.
As the summer begins, the woman starts to become obsessed with the yellow wallpaper. She talks of the unique patter behind the wallpaper, and she begins to think that the bedroom must have been a nursery. As the summer passes, the woman gets very tired and her husband threatens to send her away to another physician who she had