Comments on: A Literary Analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 04:42:50 +0000

What is with the color yellow? Does that have some sort of symbolism? Also, what puts her over the edge? Is it the color of the wallpaper, the design of the wallpaper, being alone for so long, or something completely benign?

By: Alina

Alina — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:12:17 +0000

I think that Jane is a reference to Jane Austen. The narrator has gone mad, and I think she thinks of herself both as the woman behind the wallpaper, and Bertha.
She called her Jane because both Jennie and her husband were trying to keep her locked up.

By: amarie

amarie — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 02:08:28 +0000

Jane is the narrator. She speaks to her husband and then to herself in third person when she says, “you can’t put me back.” YOU meaning her husband and her “alter ego” can’t forcefully put her back into the wall anymore. She is now free to [creep] into and out of the wall however she pleases.

By: The Yellow Wallpaper « American Literature II

The Yellow Wallpaper « American Literature II — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:51:52 +0000

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By: Liane

Liane — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 12:33:23 +0000

*just

By: Liane

Liane — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 12:32:47 +0000

well, id judt like to thank all of the above as reading this site enabled me to make up my own mind about things. carry on debating its very interesting

By: Kaytlen P.

Kaytlen P. — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:52:33 +0000

I would just like to point out that Jane is the name of John’s sister. The narrator/main character goes unnamed in the short story. My guess is because she represents the “every woman.”

By: e.johnk

e.johnk — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 08:39:28 +0000

Referring to the narrator as “crazy” seriously trivializes Gilman’s message– and in fact makes you sound a bit like the male-dominated world of medicine that diagnosed “hysteria” in women. This analysis is a bit amateurish; important underlying concepts (someone earlier in the comments points out “she had just had a baby”) are ignored.

And what is “completely crazy”, anyway? Again, a subjective assessment awfully similar to one a “mental illness specialist” of Gilman’s time would have made.

Also, I disagree about you examination of the climax; what you describe is more like the resolution. If the problem of the story is trying to uncover the mystery of the wallpaper, then the climax is when she discovers the woman is in fact imprisoned in the wallpaper and wants to get out; the resolution is when she frees the woman (and thus herself) from the wallpaper.

By: Karen

Karen — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 23:10:23 +0000

Well, there’s never a true story, its all interpretation and being able to find evidence from the story to support your argument. For instance, I am writing an analysis and I had two different thesis 1) John keeps his wife stable but never truly wishes her to heal, in order to control her. 2) John’s belief in his profession makes him inattentive to his wife’s needs, and this exacerbates her illness. Both thesis were approved by my professor.

Thanks to whoever wrote this analysis, it helped to look at the story from a different perspective.

By: Pablo Negrete

Pablo Negrete — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:24:09 +0000

Why doesn’t John want her to write?