To say the least, in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the timeframe of the narrator’s existence encompasses the four ideals of womanhood, which included piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness. These ideals of womanhood serve as the backdrop of the tone that is set. The tone always accomplishes an air of intimacy probably due to the epistle like construction of the prose. It is in essence a secret diary that the narrator writes, therefore the diction of the narrator can be observed and used as a measurable documentation of her progress toward insanity. The development of such a mental state is indicative of the role women were expected to fulfill.
Initially, the narrator expresses what appears to be a distaste for the yellow wallpaper. There are also numerous examples where the role of woman as subservient intellectually inferior beings is reinforced. Take for instance the narrator’s prohibition of writing in the following line, “I did write for while in spite of them;but it does exhaust me a good deal having to be so sly about it, or else meet with opposition.” This not only implies that a woman should not preoccupy herself with mental strain, but also is left to go about mental stimulation in a clandestine sort of way. Thus, this is where her literary exploration of the yellow wallpaper is born. Could it be that the narrator’s experience is post partum depression coupled with isolation? Baby blues is a normal sequence after childbirth, however more than 10 days, “We have been here two weeks, and I haven’t felt like writing before, since that first day,” could be an indication of this type of depression.
hi Santiago, I was about to ask you what are four ideal of womanhood, then you wrote it here, thank you. Wow,i know that she gradually insane but how you express it make me want to copy the whole thing down :"the diction of the narrator can be observed and used as a measurable documentation of her progress toward insanity." This is true, goodjob.
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