The Yellow Wallpaper Symbolism
Life as it is, can be full of ups and downs. Through time, individuals have lived healthy lives and life has treated them well, but also there are sicknesses in life that can be detrimental to ones-self. Individuals have different coping mechanisms that help with tough situations through life. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” portrays how one is able to go about dealing with an illness that ends up being detrimental to the narrator. Gilman, in the “Yellow Wallpaper,” through the use of the setting, symbolism, and point of view, conveys the message that the narrator suffers from an awful illness.
A major aspect that Charlotte Perkins Gilman utilizes in order to show that the narrator is suffering from an illness is through …show more content…
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
A major aspect that Charlotte Perkins Gilman utilizes in order to show that the narrator is suffering from an illness is through …show more content…
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