Essay on The Yellow Wallpaper Imprisoned - 785 Words

Imprisoned in The Yellow Wallpaper As man developed more complex social systems, society placed more emphasis of childbearing. Over time, motherhood was raised to the status of â€Å"saintly†. This was certainly true in western cultures during the late 19th/early 20th century. Charlotte Perkins Gilman did not agree with the image of motherhood that society proposed to its members at the time. â€Å"Arguably ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ reveals women’s frustration in a culture that seemingly glorifies motherhood while it actually relegates women to nursery-prisons† (Bauer 65). Among the many other social commentaries contained within this story, is the symbolic use of the nursery as a prison for the main character. From the very beginning†¦show more content†¦Another way to look at the depiction of the nursery as a prison is to think generally of society at the time. Once a woman became a mother, the nursery was her prison in that she was expected to be the perfect model for her child, spend every waking moment with it, and sacrifice everything about herself for it. Charlotte Perkins Gilman herself wrote in Women and Economics that â€Å"it would seem that the human maternal duties require the segregation of the entire energies of the mother to the service of the child during her entire adult life, or so large a proportion of them that not enough remains to devote to the individual interests of the mother† (323). The nursery as the holding cell in â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† is especially pertinent and symbolic because the narrator has just given birth, and the nursery is the only place she has to look forward to for all her years to come. Even the bed is nailed down and the floor splintered, either from children playing, or perhaps from other women who have realized their confinement and attempted to escape. Also, Gilman wrote â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† about five years after the birth of her daughter. It is well known that Gilman most likely suffered terribly from post-partum depression, and was never cured. In her autobiography, Gilman wrote, â€Å"The baby? I nursed her for five months. I would hold her close- that lovely child!- and instead of loveShow MoreRelatedImagery and Symbolism in the Yellow Wallpaper764 Words   |  4 PagesOn my first reading of Charlotte Perkins Gilman s The Yellow Wallpaper, I found the short story extremely well done and the author, successful at getting her idea across. Gilman s use of imagery and symbolism only adds to the reality of the nameless main character s sheltered life and slow progression into insanity or some might say, out of insanity. 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