The Yellow Wallpaper Analysis

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is an intricate narrative that employs the tools of fiction writing to provide a critique of S. Weir Mitchell’s rest cure. Specifically, it emphasizes that this approach results in the confinement of women and separation from the outside world. One major advantage of choosing fiction as her medium is that Gilman had the opportunity to utilize certain literary devices of the genre to make her work accessible to the general public, in contrast to her other works concerning the status of women in society, like Women in Economics. Perhaps the most prominent literary tool Gilman uses in this story is symbolism, with inanimate objects playing major roles in the progression of the story. For instance,

She comes to this conclusion as she lies in her bed, staring at the wallpaper. In this scene, the narrator makes a point to describe the bed as immovable. More specifically, she notes that it is nailed down (48). Not only do nails provide a strong point of attachment, but the actual process of nailing a piece of furniture to the ground is a task that is usually deemed to be masculine. This suggests that the bed is kept in its position within the room based on some type of male intervention. Viewing the bed as a symbol of complacency among women, this indicates that these women may exhibit such complacency due to the previous activities of men. Expanding on this, nails only need to be put in place once and require little to no attention thereafter. This further indicates that the bed does not move due to the act of some man in the past, implying that women who accept their current status within a patriarchal society may not be actively oppressed by the men they encounter. Instead, it suggests that a portion of this mentality results from the deeply engrained perceptions of gender that have resulted from the actions of oppressive and male-dominated societies in the

This scene is critical in understanding the bed as a symbol of complacency, primarily through its depiction of John. At this point in the story, the narrator has a bout of what she refers to as nervous weakness, but John takes her to her bed (49). The language in this passage paints a much different picture of John than that given at the end of the story. Specifically, the narrator says he gathers her in his arms, carries her, lays her on the bed, and reads to her (49). First, the word gather calls to mind the image of surrounding and encapsulating, almost to protect. It certainly is more effective at conveying protection than if the author were to say John picked up his wife or grabbed her. Second, it is stated that John carries the narrator, and the word carried is the focal point in this phrase. His effort to carry, rather than take or bring her, to the bed gives the reader a much better image of John physically holding his wife and getting them both to a safe place. Then it is said that John laid her on the bed and read to her. Both the words laid and read give the impression that John is being gentle with his wife. Generally speaking, the use of these words to describe John’s actions seems to deliberately portray him an ideal male caregiver in the eyes of our narrator. At the start of the scene, he is depicted as very masculine as he