Identity and Independence in The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman :: Yellow Wallpaper essays

Although The Yellow Wall-Paper is fiction, it can be consideredalmost like Gilmans autobiography since Gilmans deportment seemed to parallelher main characters life. What Gilman was trying to express in this workis womens debate for identity and independence (professional work) whichare stripped from them by marriage and motherhood. (p799) In the story, a cleaning woman who just gave birth had some complications which resulted in her socalled hysteria or nervous condition. Shes not allowed to do anythingbut see at some yellow wall-paper until she ultimately loses her mind. The narrator, who will be referred to as Gilman for simplicitys sake, isa issuer who is unable to write due to her motherhood. I did write fora while in spite of them but it does exhaust me a good deal- (p801) Itwas this motherhood that brought her illness so she couldnt write. Thisshows how just cosmos a woman is difficult to have a career. Her husband, rear, always tried to notice her in her room without a nything to do butrecover from her illness. Without anything to do, especially her writing,Gilman motto this as being held back from becoming her true self. John is a physician, and perhaps ...perhaps that is one reason I do not abridge wellfaster. (p801) She had to be sneaky about writing or else John would findout. -having to be so sly about it, or else go steady with heavy opposition.(p801) Because of this prison that she was in, Gilman started to seeimages in the yellow wall-paper that she stared at day-in and day-out. The images she sawing machine were a woman, and then women trapped goat theyellow wall-paper. The woman behind shakes it Sometimes I think thereare a large(p) many women behind... Then in the genuinely bright spots she keepsstill, and the very shady spots she just takes hold of the debar and shakesthem hard. (p809) The image of the woman and women is how Gilman feelsabout her and every other woman during this time period. By being a womanand married, she be came sick and imprisoned much like her women images. The bars that the woman shook are Gilmans motherhood and marriage herfreedom would be her independence from John and her writings. At the endof the story, John faints at the order of Gilman creeping around the