Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” at first look is a disturbing piece were you see a women being isolated from the world, by her husband and a crazy doctor who knows nothing about women, go insane. At second look you really get down to the bottom of what the piece represents and what the author was trying achieve with the women. I feel the woman in the story was acting in a crazy manner so show how isolation and rest don’t fix the problem of being a woman. Men in this time didn’t take the time to look into what makes a woman tick and how her feelings come through. The doctor really didn’t care what she was going through and just prescribed her rest.
The rest and isolation caused her to examine the wall-paper in the room but what she was really looking at was herself. The woman in the wallpaper escapes and creeps around the grounds and that’s what the woman feels she is having to do. You can tell through her writings that she has to hide that the more isolation she gets and the more rest she gets that she is getting tired and irritated. The colors of the wall-paper with its crazy pattern that she analyzes on a daily basis I think shows her plan being hatched to show that none of the treatment she is receiving is doing any good because she is not ill. All the woman wants to do is her writings and enjoy her life.
The fact that John the husband faints at the sight of his unkempt wife is hilarious and rather interesting. At this time the woman is always seen with her nails down and hair up and a pretty dress on. Now a day husband and wife share a bed and see each other in a less than flattering light every morning. I understand why she wanted to break out of the mold and do her own thing. She was tired of getting all dressed up and doing housework before it was taken over during her illness and it really shined through. I feel bad for her and the woman at this time because they really couldn’t shine when married and some not even after the husband died.
“The Yellow Wallpaper could be perceived as being a gothic piece but I don’t really think it is. It is set in a summer home away from everything she knows and far from neighbors. This can give a castle like feels to the piece and the fact that she is kept under lock and key in a room on the second floor. The fear element is most certainly there in that room and is created over time. She fears that she may never get “better” and she feels the fear of the women in the wallpaper. That fear that she is going crazy and then the fear of the husband that she really has gone crazy when he sees her unkempt really shows how the fear is created.
The narrator was fighting against the medical treatment of women during this time not only by her husband the physician but by the other doctor involved in the piece. The rest cure is not the answer to cure her of not wanting a domestic life. She is also fighting against the domestic life of woman versus the working life of men and how she really wants to write. There is also a fight against depression. It was dragging her down and though her journal and deep inner examination she crawls her way back out of the hole she feels she is being buried.
This piece is a really representation of time period and the misdiagnosis of women due to the lack of study of the female body. To call “The Yellow Wallpaper” gothic story would a grave error as it is much deeper than that. This piece is a journal of a study of the effects of isolation and poor understanding of the female body. The journal is a great collection of the progression of depression with isolation from your loved ones. The narrator is just crying out for help and showing other women what can happen and telling women to do something it this is happening to them.
No comments:
Post a Comment