THE YELLOW WALLPAPER BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN

Charlotte Perkins Gilman had developed an emotional disorder and she was depressed. Physician says that she is because of “rest cure” and this unsuccessful prescription prompted her to write “The Yellow Wallpaper”
SUMMARY
The narrator and her husband rent a mansion for the summer where she will be healthy. However, she finds odd things about the house on her first day and John doesn’t accept her that thought. John doesn’t understand how she suffers and doesn’t accept her request to repaper the room. Then the narrator begins to write secretly. She wants to write because she feels well herself. But except for her everybody thinks that writing has made her sick. Later the narrator notices there is woman in the wallpaper during the night and she goes when the sun rises. Because of the wallpaper writer finds life more exciting and her health improves but she can not tell John it. She sleeps in the daytime and watches the wallpaper at night. She believes that there is creeping woman in the wallpaper. One day, the narrator locks the door and throws key down and her aim is to astonish John. When he comes he tries to open door and she tells him where the key is. He asks her why she creeps around. She tells “I’ve got out at last in spite of you and Jane and I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” John faints, but Jane goes on creeping.
POINT OF VIEW
The point of view is first person narration because “I” is used.
SETTING
The place is a mansion and the time is summer.
CHARACTER LIST
The narrator is married to John and manipulated by him. Because she is ill, he doesn’t allow her what she wants but only rest. He especially forbids her from writing. She starts to live in her room whose walls cover with the yellow wallpaper. At first the yellow wallpaper irritates her, but later she sees the figure of a woman. She identifies herself with the woman and that woman tries to escape from prison of the wallpaper by moonlight.
John is a physician and the narrator’s husband. Although her husband, he treats her like an infant. John forbids her from working especially creative working such as writing. He has a classic idea about men and women for example men work outside of the house and women work inside of the house. His idea associates him with the sunlight.
ANALYSIS OF THE STORY
Moonlight and sunshine: There is a parallelism between moonlight and woman in the wallpaper. Moonlight is the time when women are free from oppressive of men’s sunshine. I want to stress “men’s sunshine” because according to John men work outside of house and women work inside of house during the day and there is no another choice for women. At the same time the woman in the wallpaper symbolizes that woman tends to work at house and there is not a choice to get an intellectual job in the outside world. That’s why the yellow wallpaper is yellow and this shows that colour of wallpaper is related to oppression of masculine because sunlight is associated with men’s order.
Feminine: The woman in the wallpaper represents feminine imprisonment. During the sunlight women doesn’t appear but moonlight. Sunlight represents men’s oppression and darkness represents liberation of feminine.
Creep: According to the narrator woman in the wallpaper creeps and end of the story she also creeps. Creeping is the beginning of walking and creeping symbolizes movement of feminism. Briefly feminism needs to “creep” silently before it could stand tall.
Tearing wallpaper: The narrator believes that she can come out of the wallpaper like the other woman and this is symbolic meaning: She and the woman liberate themselves from masculine oppression by tearing wallpaper and they become free.
IRONY
John tells her to exercise self-control, but he controls nearly everything about her for example he gives her a schedule for each hour in the day.