Term Papers on The Yellow Wallpaper Response

Term Paper Title	The Yellow Wallpaper Response
# of Words	858
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.43

The Yellow Wallpaper Response

In The Yellow Wallpaper, originally published in 1899, Charlotte Gilman presents the internal dialogue of a woman diagnosed with “hysteria” and for whom total rest has been prescribed. In the short story, the patient is slowly driven mad by her cure, prescribed by her physician husband, and is cut off from any intellectual pursuits whatsoever.  The misdiagnosis of depression and anxiety leads the woman on a downward spiral that eventually causes her to perceive the yellow wallpaper in her room as a projection of herself.   The woman is eventually able to regain self-empowerment by tearing down her barriers, in the form of the wallpaper in her room.

            The narrator initiates the story by describing a beautiful, but prison-like house, run by the protagonist’s husband that both realistically and symbolically confines his wife.  The husband keeps his wife incommodious for two probable reasons.  First, the husband was a physician and despite his good intentions, ignorantly prescribed the worst treatment imaginable for depression, inactivity.  Second, most likely due to society at the time, the man arrogantly perpetuates an ideological prison that subjects and silences his wife.  The husband prescribes a remedy for his wife, a woman, which he would not also recommend for a man.  Because the doctor’s decision was based on no physiological or proven psychological difference between man and woman, the doctor’s rational is not merely medical, but sexist.  Society supported the sexist idea that did not believe a woman should enjoy creative expression, mental stimulus, or access to things that fulfill her.   These beliefs influenced the husband’s decision to confine his wife physically which also lead to her psychologically imprisonment.

Further evidence of John’s sexist and psychological ignorance reveals itself when he refers to his wife as “little girl” and repeatedly coos such phrases as “blessed little goose” or “bless her little heart” when speaking to her.  (Gilman 23)  These alleged terms of endearment tap into what the famous psychologist Thomas A. Harris would refer to as, her “Not OK child.”  Harris explains these terms in his book, I'm OK You're OK, based on Eric Burne's ideas called Transactional Analysis. Harris explores in depth what he calls 'life positions'. At some stage early in our lives we adopt a "position" about ourselves that very significantly determines how we feel about ourselves, particularly in relation to other people. Harris used Berne’s work as a basis for his own, focused on the internal voices that speak to us all the time in the form of a...

This is ONLY a preview of the article. If you would like to view the entire document, you must subscribe to Digital Term Papers. Please register below now!

Digital Term Papers has over 63,000 essays, term papers, and book notes online. Many paper sites will charge you hundreds of dollars for a single paper. Digital Term Papers only charges $14.95 for a one month membership with instant account activation!

Don't waste anymore time! Join NOW!!!

1 Month (automatic renewal) ($14.95)

3 Months (automatic renewal) ($29.95)

6 Months (one-time billing) ($39.95)

Pay by: