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Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

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In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator is not a typical upper class young woman, who has just given birth to her first child. She is an inquisitive dynamic young woman, whose nervous condition has gradually gotten worse as she adapts to the restrictions placed upon her. We see how the restrictions transform her through a series of journal entries, and learn that she has a tough time expressing her feelings to others. Through intimate journal entries we see how the protagonist is controlled by a dominating husband, and how she becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper. The female protagonist feels inferior to John due to his condescending nature towards her causing her mental state to weaken. In the beginning …show more content…

The wallpaper adds to her frustration; she is confused of what the images in the wallpaper exactly mean. The narrator finds the wallpaper extremely fascinating, and starts to see the patterns within: “One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” (274). She also sees the color of the wallpaper extremely annoying: “The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight” (274). The main character was so intrigued and disgusted that she wanted the wallpaper to be replaced: (275). She was mad that John wouldn’t change it, but when he said, “After the wallpaper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs, and so on.” she agreed that the other items would bother her next: “He is right enough about the beds and windows and things” (275). Although the female protagonist was very disgusted, she became fixated on the …show more content…

The narrator starts to notice how it changes colors when it is in certain lights: “This wallpaper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then” (276). All of the time she has put into analyzing the wallpaper we see an increase to her mental instability; detailed images start to grow in the narrator’s head: “There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down” (276). She not only see the eyes and the broken neck, but there is also movement: “Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere” (276). The protagonist starts to enjoy the room, as her mind is dwindling, and finds comfort in it: “I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper. It dwells in my mind so” (277). This shows that her thought process is starting to weaken more and more; she is starting to lose the appearance of reality, as she becomes more

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Davison explains that the narrator spends all her time watching the wallpaper (54). Because of this, she becomes so fixated that she is literally incapable of thinking of anything else. This kind of fixation or inability to mentally escape can result in harmful effects (Davison 55) . Correspondingly, King and Morris explain that the wallpaper seems to haunt the narrator (28). This means that it completely takes over her mind.

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One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.” (381) Her constant mention of hating the wallpaper seems like it becomes an odd obsession for the narrator. The woman who she is seeing

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As she is getting closer and closer revealing the meaning of the wallpaper, she finds out a disturbing truth of her life which is similar to the figure in the wallpaper. She is simultaneously jealous of the secret “ there are things in that wallpaper that nobody knows but me”(pg 553), and frightened of what it seems to imply. Also the narrator tries to deny her growing insight “the dim shapes get clearer every day”(pg 553), but she is powerless to extricate herself. Small wonder that the woman she sees is always “stooping down and creeping about”(pg 553). Like the narrator herself, she is trapped within a suffocating domestic “pattern” from which no escape is possible.

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The overall obsession with analyzing the wallpaper reveals a sense of desire for higher intellectual understanding. Despite her mental state and her confinement, as the narrator moves farther from reality, she gains more clarity about her

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By this point the already nervous narrator was beginning to go downhill. She was allowing the wallpaper to take control of her life. She then begins to see things in and behind the wallpaper, and she believes that the things are crawling around. “Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd blinking eyes are everywhere” (Gilman, 86). At this point, it is evident that her mental health is quickly deteriorating due to the fact that she believes that her wallpaper is moving and is basically alive.

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She feels constant fear for the yellow wallpaper that is in her room. Her madness drives her to think that the wallpaper is not all as it seems. She describes it by saying that, “The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight,” (1036). This leads the reader to believe that there may be something more going on inside the house the couple has rented. “She has a strong belief that the paper is moving because someone is behind it; writing that, The front pattern does move - and no wonder!

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The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman often discussed for its biographical critic on the way women, but especially those suffering from mental illnesses profiled by 19th century physicians as "women's diseases", have been treated in society at the end of the 19th century (Teichler 1984: 61, Oakley 1997: 29). In order to cure the female main character of her hysterical tendencies--a status she was diagnosed with after the birth of her son--she has been confined to the former nursery in the family's house, and undergoes a treatment in which she is forced to avoid all forms of stimuli, excitement, or activity (Gilman 1997: 1-15.). One of the main objects she interacts with during her isolation period, besides the nailed down bed and her hidden journal, is the yellow wallpaper with which the former nursery is papered (Gilman 1997: 1-15.).

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The yellow wallpaper in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story plays a significant role in illuminating the narrator’s psychological unraveling. On a literal level, the wallpaper serves as a symbol of the narrator’s confinement within her oppressive domestic life. From the beginning, the narrator is presented as a woman who is struggling to find her place in the world. She is in a state of emotional limbo and her husband’s treatment of her only serves to further her sense of entrapment and powerlessness.

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The descriptions of the woman in the wallpaper make the reading contemplate if she is actually shaking the wallpaper or if it’s an illusion. This makes the reader feel like the woman trapped in the room: unsure of one’s self and insane. The climax of the story is when the woman tears the wallpaper off the walls and begins to crawl around the edges of the room and over her husband who had fainted. The reader feels uncomfortable with the woman and is incredibly uneasy about the whole

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The yellow wallpaper itself is a powerful symbol that represents the narrator's confinement and descent into madness. Initially, the wallpaper is a dull and unremarkable pattern, but as the narrator becomes more and more obsessed with it, she begins to see strange and disturbing images in the pattern. The wallpaper becomes a symbol of the narrator's own deteriorating mental state, and its transformation mirrors her own. As she becomes increasingly consumed by the pattern, the wallpaper begins

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At various points, he isolates the narrator from society and prohibits of meeting with the people she likes, which she desperately wants. After trying to have a reasonable talk with John about her desire to meet with Cousin Henry and Julia, she ends up crying because he does not let her go (Gilman 136). John is afraid of letting her go since it would show her condition to other people and expose the facade he’s really living in while destroying the image of the perfect family he wants the society to believe he

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I agree with Knight’s argument that John is selfish and is a factor in her angry breakdown. Throughout the story, John depicts many signs of being self-absorbed and does not acknowledge the narrator's emotions. In The Yellow Wallpaper, a statement from John that supports Knight's claim is, "I cannot possibly leave town just now. Of course, if you were in any danger, I could and would, but you really are bet­ter, dear, whether you can see it or not. I am a doctor, dear, and I know."

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Martin states that the narrator’s confinement in the upstairs bedroom fortifies her mental illness developing into “a frightening hallucinatory world constructed around the pattern of the yellow paper on the wall.” This shift in her identity happens as the shift in her disposition towards the wallpaper changes. The wallpaper is a visible metaphor that eventually becomes her identity. In the beginning of her stay in the bedroom she says the wallpaper is “committing artistic sin” (Par34) and can push anyone to “suddenly commit suicide” (Par35) These comments show her despise towards the wallpaper and the separation she originally has from it.

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Through her hatred of the wallpaper, she is repelling that notion, and is showing her interest in shedding the boundaries that accompany a female role. At the beginning of the story, she has a initial dislike of the wallpaper, but her disgust grows exponentially, and quickly becomes completely fixated on the pattern. As she examines the paper, she sees the image of the trapped women inside, which symbolizes her feelings of confinement. On the surface, she appears to be coping, but precisely like the wallpaper, when she focuses on what is under the top pattern, she reveals a anguished women underneath. At the climax of the story, the narrator tears the paper from the wall, showing her desire to eliminate traditional norms and John’s

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And now, she claims that she can see so much expression in the yellow wallpaper, as she begins to imagine faces, heads, and unblinking eyes across the paper. Later in the story, these hallucinations change to just one thing. A woman. This woman is believed to be herself, escaping from the wallpaper. The wallpaper that symbolises gender expectations of the time, and the confinement of her imagination and true self.

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