Реферат: Yellow Wall Paper And Women Role Essay

also stifles these thoughts. "I always fancy I see people waling in these

numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in

the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making, a

nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and

that I ought to use my good will and good sense to check the tendency. So I

try" (Gilman 642). The more time she spends in the room, the more obsessed

with the wallpaper she becomes. In her mind, the wallpaper becomes more than

just wallpaper. It takes on human characteristics. "This paper looks to me

as if it knew what a vicious influence it had" (Gilman 643)! When the story

begins the narrator refers to the house as haunted. This theme is again brought

to the forefront when she begins describing the wallpaper. "There is a

recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes

stare at you upside down" (Gilman 643). Gilman’s sensory descriptions are

ingenious. The descriptions are intense and detailed. They make the reader a

part of the story, increase suspense, and help the "reader’s perception of

the particular kind of insanity that afflicts the narrator" (Cunningham

par. 1). In reading the story we are provided not only detailed visual images,

but vivid olfactory descriptions as well. We are told: But there is something

else about that paper ? the smell! I noticed it the moment we came into the

room, but with so much air and sun it was not bad. Now we have had a week of fog

and rain, and whether the windows are open or not, the smell is here. It creeps

all over the house. I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the

parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs. It gets into my

hair. Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and surprise it-there

is that smell! Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours trying to analyze

it, to find what it smelled like. It is not bad — at first, very gentle, but

quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met. In this damp weather it is

awful. I wake up in the night and find it hanging over me. It used to disturb me

at first. I thought seriously of burning the house?to reach the smell. But now