The Yellow wallpaper essays

The Yellow wallpaper essays In Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow wall-paper there are many associations with to sunlight and moonlight. Daylight is associated with logic and rationality while moonlight is irrational and definitely not logical. Gilmans perception of daylight and moonlight is closely related to her views on men and women in society. Daylight represents masculinity. Gilman uses the analogy of John, the husband, laughing at Jane for the way she is acting (Gilman 658) and how the sunlight made the pattern appear to laugh at Janes actions (Gilman 668), to describe this connection. In the sunlight everything is clear and seen, which is why the woman in the wallpaper never crept around in it, society was able to see her and a woman creeping around was not accepted by society. In the daylight the yellow wallpapers pattern did not move, in the narrators eyes, because she knew that it was not accepted to see such things. In the moonlight, when everyone was sleeping and could not see, the pattern of the yellow wallpaper would come to life. In the moonlight it is dark and everything is hidden, nothing can be seen by society. The narrator sees the woman in the wallpaper shake the bars of it trying to get out and creeping around the garden at night, because the moonlight hides her. The narrator also sees strangled heads of other women that have tried to squeeze through the bars but did not succeed, representing all the other women in the world who have suffered as the narrator has and were not able to escape from the limits and rules of the society. Sunlight and moonlight in Charlotte Gilmans The Yellow wall-paper are just as hey are perceived in real life, complete opposites. In the sunlight everything is proper and is how it should be. In the moonlight the unheard of occurs and is hidden. ...