Symbols of Entrapment

Talents and dreams, hopes and desires, shunned by the husbands and times of the women in ìThe Crysanthemumsî and ìThe Yellow Wallpaper.î The wife, Elisa, in ìThe Crysanthemumsî, reflects an internal struggle with herself to find her place in a world of definite gender roles. ìThe Yellow Wallpaperî traces the treatment of a woman who descends from depression to madness in the male-imposed psychiatric confinement of her room. The mirror-like situations that hinder the protagonists …

…woman in The Crysanthemumsî and ìThe Yellow Wallpaperî both show ambition and the drive to become more. Within their lives, barriers must be crossed in order for fulfillment to be achieved. Their husbands, the fence, and the wallpaper, are all constraints that must be depleted. Their strive for happiness and zest for a life far more exciting than the present is what gives the narrator and Ellisa Allen an AWAKENING to which they must react.