“The Yellow Wall-paper” and role of women in 19th century

張貼日期：Jan 23, 2014 1:0:59 PM

CHUANG, YI-CHING LIN, SI-YU

Advisor: Dr. Hsian-li Chou

Introduction

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in the 19thcentury society. The rights of women shouldbe valued during this period. Tranquilla and Hsieh narrate about Gilman:Gilman's remarkable talents brought her into a different world when she left home and enrolled the Rhode Island School of Design as a young artist and met Walter Stetson, who she married in 1884 and with whom she had a daughter. After baby Katherine's birth, Gilman was not overjoyed with the completion of the family; instead, she nearly collapsed and appeared to be postpartum depression. For better environment of health and spiritual recovery, she spent some time with her longtime friend in Pasadena, California, and was introduced to “Rest Cure” by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. That was when Gilman generated the idea of her most famous storyThe Yellow Wall-paper.(“Charlotte Perkins Gilman.”)

The story is an epitome of the patriarchy society in the 19th century, and there is a struggle that a protagonist pursues her own freedom in a conventional society.

In The Yellow Wall-paper, the protagonist and her husband John begin their new life in a queer house. Everything looks like good. The protagonist, a traditional mother without working and paying for her life and her family, would be crazy because of the dull and terrible life. She is restricted to write, think and work, but for her, writing can enrich her life. Gradually, she imagines a nonexistent woman who is confined like her in The Yellow Wall-paper. Actually, The Yellow Wall-paper is her invisible stresses. The protagonist wants to escape and acquire the freedom. In the end of the story, she chooses a method to run away from reality - suicide. The environment totally makes her disappointed as if women lost themselves in the 19th century.