Реферат: Yellow Wall Paper And Women Role Essay

the paper! A yellow smell. (Cunningham par. 2; Gilman 647) The combination of

Gilman’s words, and the short choppy sentence structure, combine to allow the

reader grasp the depths of the narrator’s insanity. In addition to the sense of

smell, the reader is also captured by the sense of touch. The narrator tells us:

"The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted

to get out. I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move and

when I came back John was awake (Gilman 645). She further tells us: "The

front pattern does move ? and no wonder! The woman behind shakes

it"(Gilman 647)! It is through these compelling descriptions, utilizing the

reader’s senses, that Gilman is "pulling the reader into the narrator’s

world . . . these descriptions nearly perfectly encapsulate what we might all

imagine it is like to be insane"(Cunningham par. 5). It is as if the

haunting images of the wallpaper mirror the haunting feelings inside the

narrator’s mind. The heroine, unable to openly express her feelings to anyone,

begins to see herself through the wallpaper. She imagines a woman trapped behind

the wallpaper, just as she is trapped in the room and in her mind. The

wallpaper, and the barrier it poses to the woman behind it, as imagined by the

narrator, mirror the narrator’s own thoughts about being confined in a room with

barred windows. "At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight,

lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern,

I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be" (Gilman 646). The

heroine is also behind bars. "I am getting angry . . . but the bars are too

strong . . . "(Gilman 649). The behavior of the woman behind the wallpaper

mirrors the narrator’s behavior. "By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I

fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me

quiet by the hour" (Gilman 646). The narrator is also subdued in the

daytime. "I don’t sleep much at night, for it is so interesting to watch

developments; but I sleep a good deal during the daytime" (Gilman 647).

Another parallel between the actions of the narrator and the woman behind the