The Yellow Wallpaper -- Literary Analysis, Gilman

It is very popular in American Literature that most authors explore how characters shape the society in which we live. Society consists of people who help create the social order and social norms, and those who rebel against the social order. The insiders of society are the people who practice the values of the society and try to live up to cultural standards of that society. In American Literature the outcast of society is shunned by the rest of society for their inability to live up to the moral, social, economic, or cultural standards of society. I am going to explore three different literary works of American literature and explain how one of the characters in each literature is rejected by society, or portrayed as a social outcast because of the inability to live up to either the social, economic, or cultural standards of society. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper,† the main character is also the narrator of the story, and her name is unknown. The story is written in diary format and the narrator is giving personal accounts about her experience battling depression, her marriage to her â€Å"rational† husband John who is also her physician, and her inability to express herself. The narrator is very imaginative and being confined to a large room with the yellow wall paper causes her to battle with reality. She is portrayed a social outcast in the story because her illness does not allow her to perform the social duties that women are portrayed to perform in society, such as raising her child, and assisting in household chores. Gilman also portrays the narrator as an outcast through imagery. She writes the story in diary format so that the story is told from the narrator’s point of view, and the only... ...s one who is very ambitious and will try to reach for the American Dream at all cost. Gatsby’s social status interferes with his affairs with Daisy and why they could not be together in the past. The character in each literary works inability to live up to the social, economical, cultural, and moral standards of society has made them an outsider, and each story ended with a negative outcome of the character’s life. In â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper,† the narrator’s inability to fit into society causes her hysteria to only worsen. Daisy Miller suspecting of committing unethical behavior Giovanelli causes her to catch Roman Fever, which leads to her death. Gatsby inability to live up to the social status of one born with wealth destroys his possibilities of obtaining the American Dream, and his character is murdered. These lives shape the evolution of society.