The Narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper Essay Sample

The human mind does not only manifest itself by sensations, reasoning, or desire. It is so powerful that we often do not have control over it. The most complex machine on earth is what some psychologists like to call it, our mind is the source of all behaviour and thought. The Yellow Wallpaper not only exposes an interesting scenario that closely connects to current situations that individuals face to this day; it also gives us a perspective of how the view of certain topics can drastically change over time. Among the three stories, The Yellow Wallpaper stands beyond the others. After analyzing background information it's noticeable that this story had a deeper meaning and purpose. The author herself --Charlotte Perkins Stetson-- faced depression, and was inspired by her own mental illness to write the story. The Yellow Wallpaper is considered a piece of feminist literature that helped as a voice to speak up about the importance of metal problems specially on females in the late 1800s and early 1900s. All of this information along with the impressive writing made the story stand out to me, and helped me choose this story over the others. Consecutively, after reading the story and experiencing a feeling  that resembles the emotion one gets when we listen to a song that takes us to a different world, I decided to analyze and annotate this story formalistically. The Yellow Wallpaper can be better understood if the feeling of the story, along with the symbols, and aesthetic; meaning of words, and point of view are deeply examined. This can be done by analyzing  the content, and the structure of the story formalistically. The lack of knowledge about mental illness in the time this story was written had an immense impact on the health of thousands of people. The ignorance about depression, anxiety and other different mental related disorders had a significant negative effect mostly on females in the late 1800s and early 1900s, such as the case of the narrator in the short story. 

The Yellow Wallpaper is written from the narrator's point of view. The story illustrates a woman who clearly suffers from depression. The woman is taken to an isolated house by her husband, a high standing physician that misinterpreted his wife's mental disorder. According to the narrator’s husband, the treatment for her illness is a rest cure, which we now know is counterproductive for this kind of illness. The aesthetic of the story clearly indicates that the narrator is concerned about the situation, and the way her husband and relatives perceive her condition. “Perhaps that is one reason why I don't get well faster. You see he does not believe I am sick ! And what can we do?” Furthermore, the narrator’s character evolution along with her depression, and the change on linguistic expressions between the beginning and end of the story  clearly shows us that the way these types of mental disorders were wrongly treated insured a terrible outcome, to the point of non recognition of known people or oneself.