The Protagonist’s Physical and Social Conditioning in Charlotte Perkins :: English Literature

The Protagonists Physical and Social Conditioning in Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper.The married woman, protagonist, in The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte PerkinsGilman, is trapped. measly from a slight hysterical tendency (p676), an affliction no star really understands, her husband, aphysician, prescribes a treatment, which offers her little support tobe wellhead again. Her condition is further aggravated by limitations ofher social role as his wife. She is confined, controlled and devaluedby her husband. She is powerless to renegotiate her situation. She istrapped by her treatment, her environs and her social role as awife, with no hope of change. prone the hopelessness of her situation,she chooses to overpower what she can defeat, a figment of herimagination.The setting is a colonial vestibule, which the husband, John, has rentedas a place of respite for her recovery. It is run garbage down and neglected,like his wife run down from her illness and emotiona lly neglected,as her desires are overruled by his practicality. The mansion hashoused children in the past. The nursery serves as the geminatesbedroom, where the windows are barred (p 677), to prevent the children from injuring themselves from a fall. Like the children, she is saved and imprisoned. This atrocious nursery (p 677) is covered with a smouldering unclean yellowness (p 677) wallpaper, which becomes her obsession. Surrounding the mansion is plenty of fresh air, an aspect of hertreatment. But the wife suspects an air about the house -- an air ofan unwanted presence. Being isolated, the mansion is a perfect placefor her confinement, another aspect of her treatment. Her husband has plus a version of the rest cure1. His rest cure amountsto universe idle. The wife is a writer with artistic sensibility. She isdeeply offended by the yellow wallpaper and its sprawling flamboyantpatterns committing every artistic inferno (p 677). She needs an outletto express herself, through w riting, but is prevented from doing so,as mapping of her rest. However, she still writes, covertly. John is aphysician, an expert on physiologic illness. Being practical, he is notpredisposed to be an expert on the artistic temperament. She disagreeswith her treatment, but remains silent on that issue, displayingappropriate wifelike behaviours.To be appropriate, to exhibit proper self-control (p 676) isrequired as his wife in the nineteenth century. She is the propertyof her husband and must appear to break to his will. John is, bymodern standards, a control freak -- a well intentioned control freak.He controls her environment by choosing the mansion and the extract of