Societal and Historical Connections

In "The Yellow Wallpaper" Jane was treated poorly by John. He treated her like a child and made remarks such as, "What is it little girl" (6). Throughout the whole story, John knew he could do anything he wanted to her and she wouldn't get mad at him. In the past, women have always been below men. It was believed that women could not handle sports or work. They were supposed to stay in the house to cook, clean, and take care of the children. Women were also required to wear certain clothes. In "The Yellow Wallpaper", Jane was sick so John would not let her see their child. They hired a nanny to take care of the child while John was at work and Jane was in her room. Women were treated cruelly in United States history and they deserved to have as equal rights as men. On August 18, 1919 the 19Th Amendment was ratified assuring all women the right to vote in the United States ("19th Amendment to the U.S Constitution" 1).

societal: noting or pertaining to large social groups or customs

historical: of, pertaining to, treating, or characteristic of history or past event

 http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=63 - This website helped me find more information

about the 19th Amendment.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/historical+?s=t - The online dictionary helped me find the definitions of societal and historical.

 

Who Is the Protagonist?

In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the protagonist of the story is Jane. Jane has been locked up in her room for weeks with nothing to do but stare at the horrid, yellow paper covering her walls. She is allowed to come out of her room for a while each day but eventually has to return. Her husband John insists she is ill and encourages her to take medicine daily. Jane spends so much time in her room and becomes obsessed with the wallpaper. She follows the patterns and markings found on the paper and establishes a certain smell to it. Jane writes, "if I turn my head suddenly and surprise it--there is that smell" (8). After staring at the mysterious wallpaper, she begins to see figures and shapes and eventually comes to the conclusion that she sees a woman (6). Despite the fact that Jane is being locked up inside of this room every day, she always thinks positive. I don’t even think that Jane notices her husband John is treating her unfairly. John keeps her in the same room, torturing her with the dreadful wallpaper. There are metal bars on the door, the bed is nailed to the floor, and the wallpaper has tears in it. Regardless of all the flaws, Jane keeps a positive attitude and thinks of all of the good things in her life. She thinks about her husband and how he claims she is getting better; the beautiful garden in the yard; and even though she doesn’t like the room at first, she knows it is better that she got it instead of her baby.

 protagonist: the leading character, hero, or heroine of a drama or other literary work
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/protagonist?s=t - This online dictionary gave me the definition of protagonist.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/yellowwallpaper/facts.html - Sparknotes helped me figure out that the protagonist is Jane.

 

Women's Rights: Theme

The theme of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is simply that women were treated unfairly by men. In the short story, Jane's husband locked her up in a room for countless hours. He told her that she was sick and needed to get better. In the story, Jane says that her husband is loving and caring but if you look past all of that and notice how he treats her, it's not very good. She tries talking to him and telling him her feelings but he doesn't believe her (1-2). Jane does get angry at her husband but is convinced it is only because of her condition. In the story, Jane writes, "John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall" (4).  As you can see, Jane gets treated poorly by her husband. The overall message of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is that men had power over women. Women were treated unfairly and they deserved to be treated better. Gilman did not state this directly in her story but it takes some thinking to figure it out.

 theme: a unifying or dominant idea 
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theme?s=t - I used this website to better understand the meaning of theme.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/yellowwallpaper/themes.html - Sparknotes helped me figure out that the theme of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is all about women's rights.

What Does The Yellow Wallpaper Symbolize? (Symbolism)

In the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" Jane and her husband John go to a colonial mansion for the summer. Jane has to stay in a room separate from her husband because he thinks she is sick. John is a physician and insists that Jane take medicine. The room Jane is staying in has bars over the windows, wallpaper that was a strange color yellow, and she had to stay in that room for most of the day while John was at work (2). Because Jane spent so much time in her room, she became obsessed with the wallpaper. "I am here, and no person touches this paper but me,--not alive" (10). Jane began to see a women inside of the paper and outside in the garden (6). The women she sees is her own reflection. When she looks through the window and in between the bars, she sees herself behind the bars. The bars in this story represented how women were treated unfairly by men. Women were always submissive to men and they did not receive as much respect as they deserved. The yellow wallpaper symbolized society. When Jane saw the women figure in the wallpaper, it represented how women were trapped and how they deserved their freedom and rights to be able to move and speak freely.

symbolism: the practice of representing things by symbols, or of investing things by a symbolic meaning or character

 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/symbolism?s=t - This website helped me understand what symbolism is and gave me the definition.

 http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/symbolism-yellow-wallpaper-387309 - Using this website, it helped me figure out what the wallpaper symbolizes in the story. 

Meet The Author: Gilman' s Background

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born on July 3rd, 1860. She was born in Hartford, Connecticut and was a writer as well as a social activist during the late 1800's and early 1900's. When Gilman was a child, her father Fredrick Beecher Perkins abandoned her family. Her mother was left to raise two children on her own. Her education greatly suffered due to her family moving around a lot. In 1884, Gilman married Charles Stetson and had a daughter named Katherine. While she and Charles were married, Gilman experienced a state of depression and received treatment for it. This period of time was said to have been what inspired her story "The Yellow Wallpaper". Gilman remarried in 1900 to her cousin George Gilman. George died in 1934 and a year later, Gilman discovered she had breast cancer. On August 17, 1935, Charlotte Perkins Gilman committed suicide. 

www.biography.com/people/charlotte-perkins-gilman-  - The biography about Gilman gave me information about her life that I would not have known from her story.
http://archive.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap6/gilman.html - This biography gave me information that the other biography didn't include.