The Yellow Wallpaper exemplifies numerous feelings and circumstances for the protagonist. Among theses feelings the sense of incarceration, forbidden creativity, and amusement that becomes an obsession. First person narrative is used to express Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s point of …show more content…
Upon arriving to the home Johns wife’s tone is assured yet vulnerable. She expresses certainty that she does not agree with Johns rest cure treatments “Personally I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change would do me good” but of course John the controlling spouse knows deciding for her will keep her voice silent. Furthermore, her tone alters into fear thereafter. The more controlling John is, the more obsessed she becomes with the yellow wallpaper in her room. Frightful claims of a trapped woman inside the wall looking at her day-in and day-out turn optimism into anxiety and fear.
On the other hand, Johns paternal tone carries out throughout the tale. “What is it little girl?” “Bless her little heart” A tone of disregard towards any idea, feeling or opinion proposed by his wife. The author uses both tones to depict a dad to daughter marriage. It is apparent that John is the adult while his spouse is the …show more content…
The narrator refers to her bed as the “great immovable bed” because it is nailed to the floor. Illustrating her marriage as a repressed domestic partnership. John’s endless limitations and passive demeanor towards his life partner has strained their matrimony not allowing it to move, like the latched bed.
Another key point is the yellow wallpaper itself. The author uses the wallpaper to symbolize her mental state of mind. The narrator’s insistence in trying to figure out the patterns represents her daily challenge of conforming to those gender-based roles society and her husband hold women accountable for. Correspondingly, the author chose yellow, which is often associated with cowardice, sickness, and caution, but most importantly yellow is known to be a gender-neutral color. Which subliminally screams equality.
In summary, after finalizing the analysis through carefully inspecting the story’s point of view, setting, tone, and symbols, it is one hundred percent certain that the “Yellow Wallpaper” possesses an underlying feminist theme. The trapped woman in the wallpaper was a mirroring, reflection of herself all along. She is trapped in a society and marriage with no equality. The author Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s intention of writing this short story was to expose life for many women and although she is not direct in saying so, she leaves ample hints of submission