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Subjectivity In Kate Chopin's The Yellow Wallpaper

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Written in the late 1800s by one of the most outstanding feminine authors of the century the yellow wallpaper is a utterly complex and layered text. Within this piece the author gives us a look into the the complexity of maternal female bodies and the many parallels that women see in the text and houses confinements. "The Yellow Wallpaper" effectively evokes the question of subjectivity itself. The story suggests that Janes mental condition is the true subjectivity of the text.Although she is prescribed rest for her supposed hysteria, It seems to be the worst treatment for her as it merely leaves her with extended time to drown in her questionable thoughts and she begins to hallucinate.She imagines a woman trapped within the yellow wallpaper
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In the Yellow Wallpaper, the Woman does not have this bond, and instead sinks further into her own nightmarish fantasy. As a child, the woman had an active imagination as she writes, “I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store” (Gilman 135). In her isolation, she is unable to do almost anything, and the only thing she can do entertain herself with her imagination. Her isolation causes her to see women in the wallpaper as she writes, “ The front pattern does move—and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!”(143).

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In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Jane is a mentally ill woman whose surroundings are only worsening her condition. Jane’s husband, a physician, thinks that a change of scenery will benefit her condition and takes it upon himself to relocate to a summer home, not knowing that this new environment will be Jane’s downfall. The entire story is written as a journal, inscribed by Jane whenever she can stealthily disobey her husband to write. Gilman writes the story from Jane’s point of view to coax the reader into a deeper understanding of Jane’s mental battles and the overall theme of oppression. Gilman’s choice of style for this short story exponentially enhances the effectiveness of the text because the reader is opened

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“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, raises many questions from readers and makes us think about what has really caused the narrator to become insane in her story. Due to her husband’s controlling nature as a physician, there have been many moments where he treats her like a child that should be kept away from the outside world, which eventually drove her to insanity. She says, “dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia.

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Throughout the generation, women have always been trapped in some way or another. In the short story, ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’ and the novel ‘The Awakening’ highlights the struggle of women in the late 1800’s and the early 1900s in society. The Yellow wallpaper is a short story about women giving birth and being imprisoned in a room with a weird view of the yellow wall-paper. This resulted in her hallucination lead to the development of mental illness. By the end of the story, she rips off the yellow wallpaper and kills her husband.

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Charlotte Gilman’s short story, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, (1899) is a text that describes how suppression of women and their confinement in domestic sphere leads to descend into insanity for escape. The story is written as diary entries of the protagonist, who is living with her husband in an old mansion for the summer. The protagonist, who remains unnamed, is suffering from post-partum depression after the birth of her child and is on ‘rest’ cure by her physician husband. In this paper, I will try to prove that ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ acts as a subversive text by portraying the protagonist’s “descent into madness” as a result of the suppression that women faced in Victorian period.

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Locked away in a mental prison of her own head, the main character of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is the expression of the struggles women faced in seeking freedom from themselves. Some people may think of this story as a psychological spine-chiller of sorts, however it is clear from the standpoint of a feminist that this is a reflection on the state of women in the late 1800s, and perhaps even of the author’s own struggles with a society run by males. This theme is made clear through the characterization of John (the protagonist’s husband), the thoughts and writing of Jane, and the environment in which she is placed. Combined, these elements describe the imprisonment of women, and the control held over them

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She wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” in an effort to open the public’s eyes to the unfairness of this treatment. By infusing Jane’s narrative with childish language and actions without ever actually calling “Jane” by her name, Gilman creates a universal experience any woman of the time could insert herself into. This allowed women to fully realize the injustice they faced. John’s belittlement of Jane also serves to create both a universal and eye opening experience for the women reading it. Additionally, for those who were willing to read into the symbolism, the nursery and the meaning underlying it added to the injustice Gilman conveys.

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The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story full of imaginative symbolism and descriptive settings. However, without the narrator’s unique point of view and how it affects her perception of her environment, the story would fail to inform the reader of the narrator’s emotional plummet. The gothic function of the short story is to allow the reader to be with the narrator as she gradually loses her sanity and the point of view of the narrator is key in ensuring the reader has an understanding of the narrator’s emotional and mental state throughout the story. It’s clear from the beginning of the story that the narrator’s point of view greatly differs from that of her husband’s and other family in her life.

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(678) in this statement she is challenging herself and this shows the reader she is facing some confusion. The yellow wallpaper in the main characters (the narrator) bedroom is a major point in the story. The yellow wallpaper plays a major role in the woman’s insanity. The woman’s obsession with the wallpaper creates her problem and affects her mind and judgment. This is shown in, “It dwells on my mind so!”

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Enclosed to the four wall of this “big” room, the narrator says “the paint and paper look as if a boy’s school had used it” because “it is stripped off” indicating that males have attempted to distort women’s truth but somehow did not accomplish distorting the entire truth (Perkins Gilman, 43). When the narrator finally looked at the wall and the paint and paper on it, she was disgusted at the sight. The yellow wallpaper, she penned, secretly against the will of men, committed artistic sin and had lame uncertain curves that suddenly committed suicide when you followed them for a little distance. The narrator is forced to express her discomfort with the image to her husband, he sees it as an “excited fancy” that is provoked by the “imaginative power and habit of story making” by “a nervous weakness” like hers (Perkins Gilman, 46). Essentially, he believes that her sickness is worsening and the depth of her disease is the cause of the unexpected paranoia.

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One theme from the yellow wallpaper is a feminism , telling a story about a woman’s struggles against males thinking ; on how they see women. Ever since she moved to the apartment on the top floor with the yellow wallpaper she has decicated to find a pattern on it. She was trapped in a mental state and was seeking mental freedom. Her husband john isn’t very nice to her he treats as a pet ,”John laughs at me, of course , but one expects that in marriage”. She was given the “rest cure” which only makes her makes her more ill because she can 't express herself.

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