Analyzing Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper

Plot
1. Beginning
  1. 1) Jane and John went to a colonial mansion to rest from her illness and she enjoyed the beauty of the place except for her room because of the yellow wallpaper.
  2. 2) John rejected her request to change rooms. After awhile, she noticed a strange figure hiding behind the wallpaper.
2. Climax
  1. 1) Jane was afraid of John and Jennie for staring at the wallpaper and decided that she would find out the truth behind it.
  2. 2) Later on, she met a woman behind the wallpaper, tore it down and slept under it for months
3. Ending
  1. 1) Jane is with her family but refused to leave the room and locked herself in until John wanted to break down the door with an axe.
  2. 2) Jane asked John to open the door with a key and he did but was shocked by her condition and fainted right across her path by the wall, causing her to creep over him every now and then.
Setting
1. Late 19th Century
2. A Colonial Mansion
  1. Isolated, well back from the road quite three miles from the village.
3. Jane’s Bedroom
  1. Big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore.
4. At Night
  1. John was asleep and Jane felt uneasy about the wallpaper because of the faint figure that seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out.
5. Midnight
  1. Jane saw a woman behind a wallpaper and creep out.
Characters
1. Jane
2. John
3. Julia
4. Jennie
5. Henry
6. Jane’s brother
7. Weir Mitchell
8. Mary
9. Jane’s baby
Characterization
1. Jane
  1. Have temporary nervous depression with slight hysterical tendency.
  2. On a rest cure and often disobey John by writing secretly.
  3. Loves the colonial mansion but frustrated & unhappy at the yellow wallpaper
  4. Imaginative, smart and understand arts also gets distracted easily
  5. Gradually she needs to make effort to think straight, and emotionally stable.
  6. Jane ‘sees’ things, and become worse, mentally and insomniac
  7. She cares of her baby, and John.
  8. She changed info someone else like the creeping woman.
2. John
  1. A physician & does not believe anything supernatural but facts and evidence
  2. Loving and caring husband loves his wife very much
  3. Controlling but with a good reason
  4. Always absent from his home, not beside his wife most of the time due to the job
  5. Not for sharp about his wife when she changed and hid something from him
  6. Very shocked at the changes and how bad it became on his wife
Theme
1. Jane's creativity vs John's rationality
  1. Creativity
    1. She thrives in her use of imagination.
    2. Her creativity is an inherent part of her nature (as she likes to write)
    3. Eg. She likes to think a lot. Refers lines 120-126
  2. Rationality
    1. The husband did not recognized her imaginative fancies and replace it with his own solid rationality.
    2. Eg. refers lines 141-144
2. Role of women in the 19th century
  1. Women were expected to fulfil their duties as wives and mothers and be content in their existence as nothing more.
  2. Men in public
  3. Women in private sphere
  4. Eg. Jane is not allowed to write (husband use the rest cure as an excuse not to let her write)

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Analyzing Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper

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	Created by kakujiyuki almost 10 years ago