Literary Paragraph of Background
Purpose: To show that the woman in the wallpaper is really the unnamed narrator in reflection to herself.
The unnamed narrator views the woman trapped in the yellow wallpaper as a reflection of herself. As the narrator is first introduced to her room she is locked with the presentation of the yellow colored wallpaper. Here the reader becomes aware of her mental state. She describes the paper being “…Dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide-plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions. (161).” The narrator is ordered by her husband as a form of therapy to stay in her room always and sleep after each meal. She is forbidden to read and write and is imprisoned in her room thus she begins to fantasize about the yellow wallpaper. At times she begins to imagine a women hiding in the paper “stooping down and creeping about”. (166) and she becomes frightened. Day by day John, her husband tells her that she is “flourishing inspite the wallpaper” although he does not know that as the days go by the narrator becomes more in touch with her inner self and loses her mind. She becomes fixated now on the wallpaper and at this point she begins to see the woman hiding in the paper is now rising. “I think that woman gets out in the daytime! And ill tell you why-privately-I’ve seen her!” (169).
The Essay on Yellow Wallpaper Narrator Woman Women
The Struggle For Independence In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper. "The Yellow Wallpaper" Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the story of women's struggle for independence in a patriarchal society. In the story the wallpaper is an important symbol as is the woman behind it. The narrator's thoughts about the wallpaper tell us a great deal of how she feels about the ...
Only in the sunlight she is the most happiest. She becomes happier now as she realizes she is transforming to that woman in the paper and she is not afraid to express herself finally. The unnamed narrator has been trapped and imprisoned in her room and inside this “domestic sphere” that she wants to escape. She constantly compares herself to the wallpaper. “I didn’t realize for long time what the thing was that showed behind, that dim sub-pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me quiet by the hour.” Just like the paper in the day light they are one and more alive. “life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch.” The message is now clear in her expressions about the “stripped” wallpaper and the woman in it. She feels as if the woman and she are one and now becomes free. In the end of the story it is revealed who the woman is. “Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it” (171).
As she peels off the wallpaper she feels as if she is breaking down the bars that are holding her back and she can finally escape and be herself. “I’ve got out last,” she says to John, “in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pushed off most of the paper so you can’t put me back” (172).
Finally it is revealed that woman is in fact the unnamed narrator
