The Yellow Wallpaper Symbolism

The Yellow W exclusivelypaper symbolisationThe Yellow Wallpaper written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892 is a prayer of journal entries written by a charr who suffers from the mental disorder, to wit temporary nervous first gear. All of the entries constitute an account of the fair sex who is taken by her physician husband to the country in order to be cured _or_ healed mental stability. More importantly, it portrays the protagonists preoccupation with the ugly paper in her sickroom. The scat is filled up with plenty of symbols, but the most important and public star is the mentioned above cover. The protagonist is engrossed in it and feels an uncanny union to it. This seemingly irrelevant and ordinary element of ribbon represents many problematical issues in the tier, making the sympathiseation of the text more complex and meaningful at the same period. The yellow wallpaper stands for tell apart of mind, restrictions placed on women as good as for the racial pr oblems in the late nineteenth century particularly in the United States of America.Firstly, let me have a look on the wallpaper as a symbol of the protagonists state of mind. The very colour of it is yellow. The most universal connotations with it are bodily fluids, infirmity or uncleanness. In the case of The Yellow Wallpaper it would mirror a mental illness and the process of the down radiate of the human mind. Moreover, the pattern of the wallpaper is illogical and chaotic just as the narrators shaken sanity. As her illness confuses her mind and contradicts logic, the paper parallels her psychological state at this point. She is confused and shaky just as the decoration. At first, the wallpaper is a source of an great irritation to Jane as she cannot find any, even the smallest sign of consistency in it. I never saw a worse paper in my lifetime (Gilman 4). However, she becomes gradually obsessed with deciphering its meaning. As her mental disorder progresses, she starts twi nge from hallucinations and finally concludes that actually there is a logic in the paper pattern. I have finally found out. () The front pattern does scat and no wonder The woman behind shakes it (Gilman 16). The wallpaper portrays a woman who is ambushed in this illogical system. It is only when her who can see the woman, and therefore, the womans only materialise to set her free. Jane slowly looses the contact with reality, retreats into her obsessive fantasy. As the time passes by, she becomes the woman within the paper who simultaneously loses her identity. She disconnects herself from Jane and assumes new personality as well as recognition of herself. The subsequent deterioration of the protagonists mental state reaches the completion when she locks herself in the room to finally tear all of the wallpaper in order to set the woman free from imprisonment. When John finds her, with all the decoration torn to pieces, the woman vigorously shouts out Ive got out at goal () in spite of you and Jane. And Ive pulled off most of the paper, so you cant project me back (Gilman 21). The narrator is finally free and there is no function which would imprison her again. She got relieve of all chains, societal norms and constraints by total roue into insanity which surprisingly, turned out to be her only salvation.Secondly, the wallpaper whitethorn be a metaphorical equivalent for all restrictions imposed on women in the 1800s. In those times, women were condemned from intellectual work, forced to conform to the dependence of males and all rules of decent woman behaviour. It goes without saying that as a result women were befuddled and oppressed. The title wallpaper is a confusing and complicated pattern in which the fictional woman appears. This may represents womens feeling of being lost in the oppressive and strongly hierarchical society and living in the arena which does not appeal to them. The historically shaped division of the roles within family a nd conglutination leaves its unbearable mark on womens lives. As the time passes by, our protagonist starts to chance upon herself with the imaginary woman. At this point, all the narrators fears and inner emotions are projected on the wallpaper. Societal constraints and norms overwhelm her and deprive of any chance to live her life to the full. The only way to know peace is a complete fall into insanity.The last and probably the most outrageous interpretation of the wallpaper is the one proposed by Susan Lanser. She set the story in the political and ideological linguistic context of racial anxiety and nativism. Her immensely provocative thesis that the yellow wallpaper is a reflection on Yellow Peril questioned the common perception of it and triggered out a wave of surprise and consternation. The main symbol of the story with its colour which stands for dirt, urine, inferiority and uncleanness, seems to signify the racial otherness. The racism is in a way encoded in the wallpap er. In the late 19th century western sandwich countries, especially the United States of America, faced with a massive immigration of due east Asians. This process evoked the conviction that new comers would be a little terror for the Whites job market and may change standards of living (Frost). Due to that Americans were so obsessive and hostile towards the representatives of the yellow race. On the basis of this information, we may interpret the protagonists tearing of the wallpaper from the wall as an act of getting rid of all unwelcome immigrants as well as an expression of dislike and racism. Moreover, to prove this thesis more reliable and feasible there is yard that the author was personally an active supporter of racial uniformity. She belonged for a time to eugenics and nationalist organizations opposed open immigration and inscribed racism, nationalism, and classism into her proposal for kind change (Lanser 429). Therefore, according to Horvitz, we may state that the n arrators descent into nervous depression is in metaphorical terms a kind of escape to an Utopian word in which there is no yellow, stained and smelly wallpaper, and in consequence no presence of other race.The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a perfect example of the symbolism in the literature. It plays a sense part of The Yellow Wallpaper. The main ideas, points are presented across it making the text more complex, intricate and interesting. The story is overfilled with various symbols such as the window, babys room and obviously the most influential one the wallpaper. It may be a clear reflection of the protagonists state of mind, indication of societal suppression and its principles or as Susan Lanser pointed out, the metaphor of racial discrimination. In my paper I presented only three of the possible interpretations of this particular symbol, but it goes without saying that one may come up with as many ideas and conclusions as possible.