my mom's paper due on the yellow wallpaper story is due monday, so what does yellow mean to you?

Question

i need your opinon, i think it is confused

http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Charlotte_Perkins_Gilman/The_Yellow_Wallpaper/The_Yellow_Wallpaper_p1.html is where you can read the yellow wall paper

Answer 1

Your MOM"s paper?
uh huh...........

The wallpaper is seen as a Tabula Rasa; the Narrator sees what she wants in it; the ugliness of it makes way for her increasing madness and freedom:

One of the basic assumptions about reading is that we as readers “see” the story as well as interpret the words. The concept that imagery shapes the narrative is based in the idea that how we process information is primarily a result of how we visually perceive it. Gilman’s imagery allows us to look at the text and narrative of the story from two slightly different angles: what the narrative tells us is happening and what the description implies to be just below the surface of that narrative. Gilman’s descriptive passages are ironic in the sense that, by being precise in their imagery, they introduce a sense of ambiguity to the story. The reader is left wondering if such precise images that the narrator describes can be merely a projection of the narrator’s increasing psychosis or are they actually manifestations of something within the house. Indeed, her lush and almost minute descriptions of the wallpaper lead to an almost claustrophobic immersion in the detail of the Narrator’s world. However, it is by subjecting the reader to this lushness that a bond with the Narrator is forged quickly and effectively. Gilman wanted this story to act as propaganda against the Patriarchal concept of Women’s nervous disorders being readily treatable by an almost generic “Rest Cure”, a technique of virtual immobility on the woman’s part. In many cases, the complete lack of stimulation caused more Psychological trauma to women than the “disease”. By skillfully weaving concrete details and ambiguous interpretations of those details together, Gilman is able to replicate the concept of creeping madness so precisely that the reader is clearly able to see the damage that misguided and unyielding treatment can cause in a patient.

It is this isolation and lack of outside stimulus that leads the Narrator to fixate upon the wallpaper and attempt to draw meaning from its seemingly random designs.
This seeming randomness is, thematically speaking, the most important aspect of the story. As the principal factor within the story, the wallpaper acts as both the template and the Tabula Rasa upon which the Narrator’s increasing psychosis is projected. We as readers are subjected to descriptions of the wallpaper in its entire variant forms and designs. It is through this sense of the wallpaper being trust upon us throughout the story, dominating the imagery and seemingly taking over the focus of the narrative that we are able to, in a way enter the mind of the Narrator and share her preoccupation with the it. Clearly, the idea of seeing the wallpaper as a reflection of the Narrator’s mental state is fairly widely held within the Academic community. It has been referred to as a “projection screen” as well as a “Rorschach test” of the state of her mental health. (Berman 21). The wallpaper reflects the Narrator’s transference of her energies from doing the “proper” thing and curing herself towards that of creating a new persona for herself. As the Narrator descends deeper into mental and emotional instability, the patterns on the wallpaper become more and more elaborate, reflecting a return to her original imaginative childhood state where she found “ more entertainment and terror [in] blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store”(Gilman 29). This can be seen as a reflection of how her mind is disassociating itself from her external surroundings and re-aligning itself within the context of what it is able to control and create, namely the seemingly ordered patterns within the wall paper. Another idea is that, as the story progresses, the Narrator begins to identify more and more with her Woman in the Wall and eventually becomes her surrogate in the “real” world. There is also the idea that perhaps the Narrator wholly assumes the personality of the Woman in the Wallpaper, modifying her mental and physical manner to assume the new personality. As the progressive complexity of the Narrator’s interpretation of the patterns is mapped out through the story, we see in addition a related decline in her ability to stand apart from the wallpaper. She no longer sees it as a benign and impersonal decoration, but imbues it with hidden messages as well as a personality. Eventually, the Narrator merges with the wallpaper, discarding her old personality and becoming a new entity. There is ambiguity as to whether she merges with the “personality” behind the wallpaper.
Gilman’s almost claustrophobic description of the wallpaper and the Narrator’s reaction to it throughout the story allows the reader to see in detail the effect that a cure, initially designed to treat Women’s weakness, can actually wreak more damage emotionally when applied without consideration to individual personalities and temperaments. The Narrator, though her transformation, shows how a creative personality responds to such a stifling “cure”. Gilman, through the use of concrete details and ambiguous interpretation, allows us to see the thoughts of the Narrator and the effects the cure has on her. Through this process and the subsequent narrative detail, in which the reaction of the Narrator is contrasted with that of her husband, we are given insight into the narrative from the two angles of the surface text as well as the implications the ambiguities bring to the surface. These ambiguities, when combined with the detailed imagery of the Narrator’s surroundings, allow us to see through her eyes and be drawn into her world. And it is through seeing this world that we gain understanding and compassion for her and realise the injustice of the denial of her personality.

Works Cited

Berman, Jeffrey, “The Unrestful Cure: Charlotte Gilman and ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.” The Captive Imagination: A casebook on The Yellow Wallpaper, ed. Catherine Golden. New York: The Feminist Press, 1992. 211-242.

Feldstein, Richard, “Reader, Text and Ambiguous Referentiality in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’” The Captive Imagination: A casebook on The Yellow Wallpaper, ed. Catherine Golden. New York: The Feminist Press, 1992. 307-318.

Hedges, Elaine R., “ ‘Out at Last’?” The Yellow Wallpaper after two decades of Feminist Criticism.” The Captive Imagination: A casebook on The Yellow Wallpaper, ed. Catherine Golden. New York: The Feminist Press, 1992. 319-333.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The Captive Imagination: A casebook on The Yellow Wallpaper, ed. Catherine Golden. New York: The Feminist Press, 1992. 24-42.

Golden, Catherine, “ ‘Overwriting’ the Rest Cure: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Literary Escape from S. Weir Mitchell’s Fictionalization of Women.” Critical Essays on Charlotte Perkins Gilman, ed. Karpinski, Joanne B. New York: G.K. Hall and co., 1992. 144-158.

Lanser, Susan S., “ Feminist Criticism, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and the Politics of Color in America.” Charlotte Perkins Gilman“ The Yellow Wallpaper” Women writers, Texts and Contexts, ed. with an introduction by Erskine, Thomas L., and Richards, Connie L. New Brunswick, NJ. Rutgers University Press, 1993. 225-256.

MacPike, Loralee, “Environment as Psychopathological Symbolism in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’” The Captive Imagination: A casebook on The Yellow Wallpaper, ed. Catherine Golden. New York: The Feminist Press, 1992. 137-144.

Answer 2

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/yellowwallpaper/

http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles/wallpaper/

Your mom can read these sources and see if it helps her understand the question.