Many people in modern world are sensitive to the huge amount of things. One of the worst is people with post-traumatic depression after giving birth to the child. In the short novel written by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” we see what results it can cause. Talking about the character list in this story – we don’t have many heroes. In the novel, the role of the main character, as well as the narrator, has a woman who is trying to deal with post-traumatic depression. When her husband prevails to rent a house somewhere far away from their home, she agrees, and here they are, in the creepy building. The highest floor is for the wife who is locked there by her husband. That is the way he decided to deal with her problem. And after some time we will discover why.
The narrator, the wife, thinks that some time ago that room could be one of the children – it has yellow wallpaper that is ragged; windows that are boarded up; and the floor that is badly scratched. According to the words of the narrator, something very odd is happening in the house. Also, the main character seems to be very restless as she thinks that some time ago there was another woman locked in the room suffering from the same problem. Up to the end of the story, the reader doesn’t get the information if it is a truth or just a fantasy of a sick brain.
Jane, who is the narrator and the main character with post-traumatic depression decides to make a diary, which became the only friend she has, where she can write things that bother her and talk to things that are in the room. Starting from this moment in the Yellow Wallpaper reader gets the information about her illness more and more. Was it an illness? The mental disease placed upon the narrator in the Yellow Wallpaper, it showed so much more than a physical one that we start thinking – is she insane? Her husband acts like a tyrant; he forced her to hide her feelings, and emotions. He forced her to show that their marriage is an ideal one and the primary reason of why he moved his family to another place was the desire not to show that his wife has problems that she can accidentally occur as not an ideal one.
Characters of the Yellow Wallpaper are the real representatives of the things that are happening with the woman and man in nowadays world. It is a very common thing for a humble woman. The main hero of the story is locked in the room without any help and assistance from a person (husband) who was supposed to protect. It is pretty understandable that the Yellow Wallpaper represents the factor, the structure of the family, medicine, traditions in which our main character is trapped. The author of the text Gilman skillfully uses wallpaper like a nightmare, like a domestic violence a woman can face in the world. Isn’t it scary that women from the 19th century have the same status in the 21st? Characters of the story are representatives of typical problems and people who exist now, who are widespread all over the world.
The Yellow Wallpaper is an illustration of the way of mind that is already plagued with anxiety can deteriorate and begin to prey on itself when it is forced into inactivity and kept from healthy work. Using specific techniques, even scary ones, Gilman in the Yellow Wallpaper shows us what the problem is? Why don’t we do anything with it? Gilman shows what will happen to the society at the end of the novel. The woman became crazy, and the man likely was dead. Is it the real thing which has to be in the relationships between humans?
To sum up, we have to overview our attitude to the things which are close around us. And to stop being silent – silence isn’t a thing which leads to healthy relationships.
