The Yellow Wallpaper as a psychological story Essay

The Yellow Wallpaper as a psychological story - Essay Example ly regarded as a classic of feminist-inspired fiction in America and the author makes a clear distinction between the psychological and the sociological elements in the story. â€Å"â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† is of course brutally honest psychology, so brutal that many readers in that more innocent age were outraged that anyone would write of such terrifying experiences. They feared that the story itself would drive people crazy. The literary success of â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† was indeed due to the coercive effect of the wallpaper, which so disturbs the young woman’s deep, but least stable, feelings that she is drawn into its lurid, obnoxious patterns.† (Lemert, 13) Therefore, in a reflective analysis of â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, it becomes lucid that the short story is one of the best examples of a psychological story. The psychological elements in the story â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† by Charlotte Perkins Gilman are mostly evident in the protagonist and the narrator of the story who is taken to a remote house as part of her ‘rest cure’. The author creates an effective setting for her psychological story when she places the narrator in an expansive â€Å"colonial mansion, a hereditary estate† which is â€Å"quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes [her] think of the English places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates lock and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people.† (Gilman, 3-4) Through the setting of this lonely house for the recovery of the narrator from her nervous condition, the author effectively creates the background for her psychological story, and the empty, deserted or economically rented house is a standard motif in various ghost stories as well as other ta les of the supernatural. Gilman’s narrator expresses mistrust for her surroundings which increases the character’s loneliness and vulnerability in the face of the