Question

Quеstions for Rеsponsе: Gilman “Thе Yеllow Wallpapеr”

writе 1.5 – 2 pagеs. Thank you !

How doеs thе sеtting in Gilman’s story contributе to hеr protagonist’s insanity? What spеcific еlеmеnts of thе timеs, customs and thе placе affеct this woman’s statе of mind?

Answer 1

The narrators of "The yellow wallpaper" is a paradox as she loses with the outer world, she comes to a greater understanding of the inner reality of her life. This inner, outer spilt is crucial to understanding the nautre of the narrator's suffering.

In a sense, the plot of "The yellow wallpaper" is the narrator's attempt to avoid acknowledging the extent to which her external situation strffles her inner impulses. From begining we can see the narrator is an imaginative, highly expressive women.

She remembers terrifying herself with imaginary nighttime monsters as a child, and she enjoys the notion that the house that they have taken is haunyed. Yet as part of her cure, her husband forbids her to exercise her imagination in any way. Both her reason and her emotions rebel at this treatment and she turns her imagination in any way. Both her reason and her emotions rebel at this treatment and she turns her imagination onto seemingly neutral objects- the house, the wallpaper in an attempt to ignore her growing frustration.

Her negative feelings color her description of her surroundings making them seem uncanny and sinister and she becomes fixed on the wallpaper. These are all the elements of the times, the place that affect this woman's state of mind.

As the narrator sinks further into her inner fascination with the wallpaper she becomes progressively more dissociated from her day to day life. This process of dissociation begins when the story does, at the very moment she decides to keep a secret diary as "A relief to her mind". From that point her true thoughts are hidden from the outer word and the narrator behinsbto slip into a fantasy world in which the mature of her situation is made clear in symbolic terms.

These are all the setings that contributes to Goldman protagonists insanity.