The Yellow Wallpaper: A Woman's Struggle For Freedom?

Words: 2384
Pages: 10

Charlotte Perkins Gilman is best known for her crusading journalist and feminist intellectual (Gilbert, para1). She was a passionate writer who also advocated for women's rights. Throughout her life, she was faced with a great deal of pain from her troubled and loveless relationships: with her mother, her father, and her daughter (Gilbert, para1). Eventually her troubled relationships had an immense influence in her life. One of Gilman's incidents in her life sparked one of the greatest pieces of feminist literature ever written. Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" represents women's lives in a difficult era where women struggled for freedom. Charlotte Perkins-Gilman uses the narrator, symbolism, and setting to demonstrate that …show more content…
The narrator states, “Of course I don't when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone” (Line 72). As the narrator persistently uses the word “I” it puts us right in the narrator’s head. In contrast to the narrator’s desires and expectation for women in the real world they are being subjected to follow the rules made by man. Gilman's ideas about rejecting the female role intensifies as the narrator's rejection of John and patriarchy deepen. Jane declines to embrace her physical space of confinement given by her husband. The narrator states, "I've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back" (Lines 263). As the narrator speaks these words it shows a subliminal signs of irritation towards her roles of wife and mother. When the she states her name in the third person, she illustrates the conflict within herself. She is trying to comply with these roles but is not able to fully commit. This is symbolized when John ask Jane to give up what she loves which is writing. Although Joh has asked her to stop, she continues to write. This is her way of having freedom and defying man. Now she is free from the restraints given by society and her own efforts to repress her