Analysis

  Yellow Wallpaper

Yellow Wallpaper is a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was about her experience that happened after her daughter birthday. She began to have her depression and fatigue. She was referred to physician and she was gnashed getting Neurasthenia. She wrote about that experience into a short story. Yellow Wallpaper was published in 1892. Now, I have to analyze this short story in sufficient detail; theme, characters, characteristics, characterization, setting, conflict, plot, point of view, and also the message behind the text.

The theme is about feminism. The wallpaper which was colored yellow was the symbol of the woman. Instead the yellow wallpaper was framed. It symbolized a woman who was incarcerated.

In this story, there are five characters. They are narrator, John, Jennie, woman in the wallpaper, and Mary. The narrator is a round character. She had many characteristics. Sometimes she was temperamental, spoiled, and mad. John is a flat character. He had only one character. He was sympathetic. Jennie is a flat character. She had to remind to the narrator behaving properly. Woman in the wallpaper is a flat character. She was symbolic. She symbolized as an imprison woman like the narrator. Mary is also flat character. She was maternal. Characterization of these characters is the dramatic method. As I got from the way of the writer introduced her characters indirectly.

Setting is not only time and place. Setting is also about social setting and physical setting. In this story there are three elements of setting. The first is the actual geographical location, including topography, scenery, even the detail of a room interior. Second are the occupations and modes of day-to-day existence of the characters. Third is the time in which the action takes place.

There are two conflicts in this short story. Conflict happened between narrator and his husband. His husband did not believe that she felt something strange in that house especially wallpapers. The next conflict is the conflict which happened between person and natural. From this story I got that narrator had a conflict against the natural. She imagined that there are woman in the wallpaper who wanted to come out from the framed wallpaper. This phenomenon made her curious in following the serial.

This short story has a closed-plot because there is and certain ending. Closed-plot means that this story has solution. Plot has five elements. They are exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. The first up to the seventh paragraph is the exposition. It introduces the characters and the setting, even the conflict started. Rising action exists in a paragraph eight. In this plot, the problem began. Narrator was aware that she was sick but her husband did not believe. Climax assigned in page seven. In this page, narrator began to imagine there is woman in the wallpaper. The falling action is in the page nine when readers assume that narrator might solve her problem. The denouement is in these dialog, “I’ve got out at last,” said I. “in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” Finally, narrator got her freedom.

“I” is a narrator. It called first-person point of view. First-person point of view can not see another character’s plans or ideas. He or she just guest and suppose it based on his or her analysis.

The message behind the text is show your love properly. This story tells us that in 19 century in America, a woman might be at home. No job, no shopping, no traveling, etc. Woman had to keep at home. John loved narrator so much for he over protected his wife. May be it is the beginning of her mad, so that she reflected herself as a woman in the yellow wallpaper who wanted to come out. Actually a woman who wanted to come out from the wallpaper was herself. She imagined it due to the fact she was depressed. Unfortunately her husband could not understand it. In the end of story, narrator got her freedom.

These all of my analysis. I hope we can get the lesson from that story.