The woman behind the wall: character analysis
As a social critic and prominent feminist in the United States of the late 1880’s, Charlotte Perkins Gilman had to overcome a lot of challenges. In the short story “the yellow wallpaper” Gilman once again defied society. The story is about a depressive woman who is socially cut off because of her disease and became self destructive. The principal character and narrator of this story does not give her name although she is the author of the story. The plot is a chronological sequence of events; the most common plot, also the one used by Gilman, follow this path: Exposition, Rising action, Climax, Falling action, Resolution. This story “the yellow wallpaper” is plotted following the most common scheme the narrator follows a pretty steady logic throughout the story. Gilman’s story is terrifying but the way she kept the story all vivid makes it more interesting. The narrator insisted on foreshadowing and suspense which make the reader more involved. The sequences are following in order part of the narrator tactics is to make the story easy to understands with some participation from the reader. Based on what I study on plots thus far I will break down the different part of a plot and how they relate to Gilman’s story. . . .
In this story the rising action is described by the woman meeting the “woman” behind the wallpaper. At the beginning of the story they just moved in the new place, the woman is introduced to us trough herself, she starts to write her diary. This story’s protagonist is the woman who calls herself Jane. There is no flashback, the story has sequences set chronologically from start to finish. The other thing that I noticed was that she mentioned “Jane” in this sentence. “The front pattern does move –and no wonder! The woman behind it shakes it!”(189); those lines introduce the reader to the woman behind the wall. The plot is directed by the character who is also the narrator. The details are told to the reader it’s just like she is talking to a friend who does not know that much. Locking them in rooms doesn’t do much help because it usually hurt them more. In this line we can see that she was the woman inside who felt oppressed, she wanted freedom and she was locked in this house with protectors. Something different about this story too is that the resolution is foreshadowed during the whole story. The first climax could be the moment that she realizes it was her last chance to discover the woman behind the wall.
Common topics in this essay:
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