The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that is written from the first person perspective as a collection of diary notes. It was created in the 19th century and is one of the first examples of American feminist literature. As feminism continues to transform our society...for the better, its mission is far from complete. That's why it is so important to know the story of this phenomenon and its depiction in literature. If you’ve been given an assignment of writing The Yellow Wallpaper essay topics, consider revising the samples of scientific papers on feminism. Various services provide excellent The Yellow Wallpaper thesis ideas on relevant topics and history. To make a clear outline, pay attention to the structure of other works of The Yellow Wallpaper research paper topics, particularly to the introduction and conclusion.
Female oppression has always been a great problem back in the years. Females were asked to live under the shadow of their spouses and not have an idea of their own. Females were suppressed treated like an item and not like humans and equals as...
When reading “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the reader comes to meet to the narrator and her husband John, who is also her doctor. Throughout the story, we must interpret if the narrator’s downfall was a result of her husband’s controlled treatment. It...
In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents readers with the theme of a woman restrained by her more powerful husband. When a woman being treated for hysteria by her domineering spouse is forced to stay in a room with maddening yellow wallpaper, she is...
Although the feminist movement began to make a solid appearance in the United States in the mid 19th century, successful results did not show until the early 20th century. In the 1800s, women held little importance in society and had little to no voice. They...
In Charlotte Perkins Stetson’s The Yellow Wallpaper, conflict plays a significant role in the narrator’s worsening physical and mental condition. The author has used a diary format to give readers incredible insight into Jane’s state of mind. Stetson inserts John’s voice into his wife’s confidential...
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman and “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell have plots of very different naturesin one, a mentally disturbed woman is taken to a reclusive house to recuperate while in the other, a woman is accused of killing her...
The late nineteenth and early twentieth century was characterized as a time of growing change for women in terms of rights and freedom. As evidenced in “Editor’s Note: Contexts of The Awakening,” women’s acceptance of traditional female roles began dissipating, and women sought to become...
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Feminism, Gender, Gender role, Gender Roles and Women’s Rights, Human sexual behavior, Human sexuality, Husband, Marriage, Sexual intercourse
American literature was founded upon strong ideals rooted in individualism, and as a result, many stories are written with the idea of “what does it mean to be an American?” Both Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter...
“Live as domestic a life as possible… And never touch pen, brush, or pencil as long as you live” (“The Literature of Prescription”). Such was the suggestion bestowed upon Charlotte Perkins Gilman, author of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by her physician, the famed Silas Weir Mitchell,...
In the well-known work Women and Economics, Charlotte Perkins Gilman emphasizes her belief that “dependence on men not only dooms women to live stifled lives but also retard[s] the development of the human species” (Kirszner 449). Those words support the ideas conveyed in her short...
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Jane’s skewed perceptions of her surroundings, caretakers, and mental state reflect her refusal to confront the reality of her confinement to a mental institution. Supposed husband and physician, John believes “a colonial mansion, a hereditary estate” or in...
Charlotte Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper” focuses on the slow mental degeneration of a young woman forced to undergo the “rest cure,” examining both the causes and the nature of her madness. Shortly after moving into a new place of residence, the narrator of the...
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s literary work ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is often considered as an important early work of American feminist literature which illustrates common social and physiological attitudes towards women during the 19th century. A number of analysis have been done on this literary text and...
The Victorian rest cure, a diagnosis set forth to upper class, white, Victorian women who were believed to be suffering from “hysteria”, or “trauma related to an unsuccessful role adjustment” sought to instill in them a “childlike submission to masculine authority” (Ammons 35). Charlotte Perkins...
Reading “The Yellow Wallpaper” is like being drawn into the imaginary world of someone who is slowly leaving reality behind them. The short story is written as a kind of journal of the narrator as she becomes more and more detached from her family and...
There are several examples of the way vision establishes elements of realism in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and “The Yellow Wallpaper.” There is a literal vision that pertains to the senses of readers, which is created through the use of vivid details made...
“Personally, I disagree with their ideas.” One of the opening statements of “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, this quote sums up the point of the text. Gilman becomes incensed at the way doctors and society view women. This short story is an up-close...
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” explore ideas of female identity and selfhood, and more importantly, female liberation. These authors present their female characters as self-assertive in a positive manner; however, the characters also acknowledge that the...
The question of how to determine what is sane and what is insane is explored in both Kesey’s Novel ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ (1962) and Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ (1896). The terms “sanity” and “insanity” are often attached to a great amount...
Female marginalisation is a major theme in The Color Purple, with Celie’s emancipation from repressive male patriarchy being the culmination of the plot. When discussing the way narrative method and perspective are used within the novel to address these themes, it is useful to make...
The literary element of mood portrays the atmosphere of the work through its words and descriptions in order to create an emotional response within the reader. This allows the reader to develop an emotional attachment and interest in the story, as well as to better...
Imagine being locked in a room, with no outside interaction, except for the rare conversations with a housemaid or husband. Add in a bout of postpartum depression and an overbearing husband to have the story of Jane, a woman in nineteenth-century America. She is the...
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is, on its surface, about a woman who suffers postpartum depression, which is the ultimate factor leading to her insanity; however, a closer examination of the protagonist’s portrayal and description reveals that the story is primarily about her...
Gilman wrote this story as a symbol of the oppression women face in a society full of paternalism over women. The narrator, a woman, feels powerless against her husband (John), who determines what she does, who she sees, and where she goes while she is...
In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, her personal experiences with postpartum depression was used to create powerful fictional short story which has broad importance for women. When the narrator recognizes that there is more than one trapped, creeping woman, Gilman indicates that the...
Throughout many works of literature one can find overlying themes that carry throughout multiple texts. Along with this an expanse of literary techniques are used commonly among credible works of literature. While novels, novellas, or short stories may have a different overall message or storyline...
The Controlling Lives of Women“The Birthmark,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents the unjustified treatment of women and expresses the oppression of them in the 19th century. In the stories it perceives the agonizing wives, and the cruel treatment...
The short stories The Yellow Wall-Paper and Revelation were both very interesting reads because the authors utilised doubles when writing their stories and you can not really see how they use them until the end. When you realise that they are there, it makes the...
Neurological diseases are undercover agents ofmalice battling with the mind’s sanity. Similarly, women are silent crusaders waging a war for equality in literature. In early history, mental diseases were overlooked by physicians and often left untreated; however, almost every person is affected in some way....
A woman is a human being too. She deserves to be able to make her own decisions and to express herself freely. A woman should be able to live in society without being oppressed into submission by rules or by men. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by...
The Woman in the Wallpaper, John, Mary, Narrator, Jennie
Based on
Based on the theme of madness and being powerless. According to an article in Forerunner magazine’s publication in 1913, it has been loosely based on the author's own mental illness that she has been going through because of postpartum depression.
It has been influenced by early feminism and gender relations in late 19th-century America. It also deals with the mental breakdown and the postpartum depression, loneliness, and isolation. The Yellow Wallpaper became a symbol of a mental disease and the covering of female loneliness and lack of help after becoming a mother.
Plot
It tells a story about a woman who is obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in her room, which is a symbol of falling into psychosis as a result of depression. As the protagonist is placed on a special "cure" at the rented summer estate with her family, she becomes isolated and slowly becomes insane. It shows the structure of domestic life through the lens of madness and the early feminism outlook.
Interesting facts
The book has been written by Gilman to persuade her physician that his ways have been wrong.
The "Yellow Wallpaper" has been a helping grace for many other women to escape insanity.
Some publishers believed that this story was too depressing and rejected to publish it.
It is one of the earliest feminism-related stories ever published.
Hysteria was among the most frequent diagnoses that was common for women in the 19th century.
Gilman has never been paid for her initial publication of the story.
Gilman has testified before Congress in favor of woman suffrage at the 1896 Hearing of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
Quotes
“But I MUST say what I feel and think in some way — it is such a relief! But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief.”
“I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.”
“You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream.”
“John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.”
“I am glad my case is not serious! But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing. John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.”
Why is this topic important
The culmination of this short story is so-called "rest-cure" of the Victorian times that has been meant to cure hysteria, loneliness, sadness, or any nervous condition in women living in those times.
Why should this topic be used
It is an important work of art that brings up the issue of a mental breakdown that has been ignored in the 19th century. It also speaks of gender relations and the postpartum depression treatment where the men do not see any problem and choose to ignore it. As the story with the relative feminism and the use of symbols, it is a poignant story that is both disturbing and sincere to explain that the problem of depression and a mental breakdown does exist. As the essay topic, it is used to explain the gender relations and the domestic life of women.
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