Evaluating, Narrating, and Describing - Essay Example

Backgrounder and Significance “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a short story published in 1892, is about a young, upper-middle class woman who suffers depression within her marriage. Some literary critics said that this is a hyperbolic version of Gilman’s own experiences as a mother and a wife particularly after giving birth to her child in 1887 (Kurrus 68). In addition, during Queen Victoria’s reign, a woman’s role in the home was emphasized. The Queen became the icon of the ideal wife, mother, and woman.

Women were expected to be content with domestic role and motherhood, and females are expected not only to fulfill such roles, but also to be entirely happy in doing so. What is interesting to note here is that the story was written over a century ago but the feminist struggle still echoes to this day. Women in the cities may experience some forms of gender equality, but women in the rural areas still live under the shadow of the gender stereotypes set by the society (Veeder 65). Any person, especially woman, who have felt oppression and inequality at some point will be able to sympathize with the story’s main character. . y decides for almost every activity that the narrator will do, and even if she prefers the prettier but smaller room downstairs, John decides that they should stay in the upper, larger, airy room.

In the short story, it is obvious that the narrator does not have any voice in the marriage, and she is expected to obey everything that her husband says. John, the narrator’s brother who is also a doctor, and the other family members also discourage the narrator from writing --- an activity she truly likes. Analysis Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story is laden with irony. Irony is a literary device that utilizes words to deliver different meanings that are usually contrasting each other.

This literary device is used to convey the real setting of the short story. At several points in the story, the narrator uses dramatic and verbal irony to refer to her condition, the surroundings, her husband, and their marriage. Taken at face value, the setting of the story looks ideal: the narrator marries a doctor, stays in a large summer estate with her husband, has a husband who dotes on her, a nanny to take of the newborn, and a sister-in-law who helps in the house chores. The irony in the story, however, emphasizes that these facades are not as ideal as the true setting that they cover.

For example, the narrator marries a doctor and she is declared to have a temporary nervous depression. It may look ideal that her comfort is being taken cared for, but on the lines: John is a physician, and PERHAPS--(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)--PERHAPS that is one reason I do not get well faster. (p.1) one would immediately realize that there is something wrong in how she is being treated of her medical condition. Another