“The Yellow Wallpaper”
By Charlotte Perkins Stetson Date of Publication: January, 1892 Setting: The protagonist’s husband is a physician, and so does her brother. They both say that the protagonist has a mental disorder, and they consider it as not a big deal. However, as the person who has to get through all the depression and lethargy, she thinks she goes crazy. Biography: Charlotte Perkins had almost similar experience with this protagonist. She had a mental issues, but Michel, the physician of hers, oppressed her writing activity. Charlotte felt so much depression whenever she felt oppressed by her physician, and actually she experienced the moment that she feels like she goes crazy. Genre: Essay, Autobiography Genre within Genre: Novel Plot summary: As mentioned above, the protagonist of this story has mental disorder, and her husband and brother are physicians. Her husband regards her disorder as not a big problem, and oppresses her writing activity to prevent her useless imagination, even if she feels liveness through writing. Moreover, she experiences that she goes crazy sometimes. Finally, instead of writing, she was obsessive with her wall paper, and her imagination gets bigger and bigger. Finally, she becomes like what she imagines and escapes from her oppressive reality. POV: First-person Tone: chaotic, oppressive, and confusing Themes: Authoritative social atmosphere which oppresses women’s activities, and the great escape from rigid reality to imagination. Motifs: Protagonist’s imagination which makes her very rigorous, yet her husband does not understand what she gets energy from, and her husband authoritatively oppresses her like he is the absolute true towards her problems. Symbols: imagination and yellow wall paper can be significant symbols here. Imagination was the only evacuation of her depressive reality and the wall paper is the median that connects with her imagination. Underlying message: The protagonist finally goes out of her oppressive reality and crawl on her husband. This can be described as the challenge against authoritative patriarchal society at that time. As much as people oppress particular minority, they can be outburst with a violence.
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Jacob (Chan Woo Kim)
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