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The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

539 Words3 Pages

In the Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonist has an internal conflict projected in the yellow wallpaper, causing her to slowly give in to her id, the lady in the wall, and become delirious. Gilman uses Freudian concepts to connect to how the patriarchy causes women to feel trapped by their marriages. Her superego criticizes herself, believing she can’t do anything for her husband, and the ego suppresses her id, while the id relieves her from all her conflicts at the very end. At first, the protagonist sides with her superego, claiming that she is meant to be a “help to John,” to give him “real rest and comfort.” She also denies her husband's dismissive behavior stating, “of course, but one expects that in marriage.” …show more content…

The lady trapped in the wall is supposed to be a reflection of the protagonist herself since she is also confined within societal norms. Her husband and her ego both repress her internal desires to keep her from going against societal standards. By keeping her “forbidden to work,” he further represses and deprives her, causing her to go insane through the wallpaper slowly. Progressively, she gives in to the id, finding the yellow wallpaper interesting, and determines that “nobody shall find it out but myself!” She unconsciously uses the wallpaper to relieve her imagination caused by her inactivity and prescribed confinement. Her id fights Trang 2 against the ego by insisting that the lady in the wall “shakes” the front pattern, furthering her interest in the lady trapped inside the wall. The superego is intended to be the wallpaper to keep her from reaching the internal desires that lie within the trapped lady. It’s the last resort the unconscious uses to return to conform with social norms. As she gives in to the id, she separates herself from the superego that enforces her standards, such as unconsciously distancing herself from John by being “a little afraid” of

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Together the themes of manipulation and mental illness will trigger a series of events that change their lives. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the protagonist becomes increasingly obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom and seclusion from human contact. This was a cure that her husband John prescribed that proved detrimental to her mental health. As she spends more time alone in the room, she becomes fixated on the patterns and images, slowly becoming convinced there is a woman behind the wall that is trapped and that she must free, "The front pattern does move—and no wonder!

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In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the main characters thinking processes focus on her general state in the beginning and then it completely consists of the awful, yellow wallpaper. When she sees herself in the window, she sees another woman. She starts to dedicate her time to free the woman. Closer to the end, the main character thinks the other residents are against her when they were only trying to help. Specifically, the main character assumes that her husband’s sister wants to free the woman herself.

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She is trapped inside of the house just like the woman stay inside of the wallpaper. Moreover, females can have their own thought only in the imagined world. In the reality, the narrator is obeyed everything to her husband, she cannot even have her own opinion. However, when she finds the woman in the wallpaper, she is eager to want to figure out what it is, and how she moves. She does not tell her husband because she has her own ideas and makes her own decisions.

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The woman in the wallpaper is trapped just like she is. The narrator creates a figure that she could relate to and then spends all her time focused on the figure and trying to figure out how to help the woman in the wallpaper escape her cell. As the story continues and she remains isolated, it is obvious Jane views herself as the woman inside the wallpaper. As a result of being trapped in her room, she begins to lose her sanity. She believes she is trapped in the wallpaper and must escape its holds.

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As was common of the treatment of women during the nineteenth century, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is one of oppression as John, the protagonist's physician husband, tries to cure her mental illness with a treatment plan of solitude and rest after moving in hopes his wife will regain her health. While critics have debated what causes the character's eventual insanity, María Teresa González Mínguez suggests that lack of a creative outlet lends to the woman's rapid regression. The protagonist's lack of a creative outlet combined with isolation ensures a downward spiral for the woman as symptoms of her mental illness ultimately consume her. While John hopes monitoring his wife's behaviors will cure her, his efforts only worsen her mental state.

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The Narrator’s disdain for the situation she is in is clearly shown through how she tells her story. As her insanity grows deeper, the wallpaper is described as a prison, something that has a sub-pattern whose “dim shapes get clearer every day. […] And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern” (Gilman). This life that The Narrator has been born into is not one that she fits into, so she identifies with this hypothetical woman trapped behind a metaphorical wall of femininity.

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No wonder the children hated it!” , but with the constant medication and being confined to that room with nothing else to look at she began to start obsessing over it. At first it was just the abstract markings on the wall and how peculiar they were in shape and how they were so random in every way. Then after being medicated for weeks she started to see a women trapped behind bars that was hidden in the markings of the wallpaper“I didn't realize for a long time what the thing that showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a woman”. It became her sole mission to free the women but figuratively she was just looking at herself in a mirror.

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John is Jane’s husband who is trying to control every aspect of Jane’s life. Jane states, “There comes John, and I must put this away-he hates to have me write a word.” (Gilman) This is just one of numerous situations and statements that the narrator shares with the audience. John’s influence also plays a big part in his dysfunctional marriage with Jane.

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She becomes obsessive over the woman in the wallpaper, theorizing that the wallpaper moves because of the woman, and assumes that the woman can escape from the wallpaper. At the end of the story, the narrator locks herself in her room and throws the key to ensure that she will catch the woman in the wallpaper. When her husband John unlocks the

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As the story progresses, the narrator's mental state continues to deteriorate. She becomes convinced that there is a woman trapped behind the wallpaper, and she becomes obsessed with freeing her. This obsession is a manifestation of the narrator's own desire to break free from the constraints that society has placed upon her. She feels trapped in her role as a wife and mother, and she longs for the freedom to express herself and to be taken

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Secondly, throughout the story, the narrator describes seeing an evolving woman trapped inside of the wall. Although readers can assume that this woman is merely a product of the narrator’s mind, the woman can also be seen as a symbol of the narrator and her feelings of being trapped. Eventually, the woman in the wall aids the narrator in her escape. In conclusion, many elements of the narrator’s increasing madness throughout The Yellow Wallpaper contributed to her freedom from the confines of the room, the confines of society, and the confines of her

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She becomes obsessed with the patterns of the wallpaper, but she mainly notices a woman that she thinks is trying to free herself from the confines of the wall. During the day this woman is still, but when night time comes around, it seems as though the woman creeps around. Towards the end of the story, the narrator has a breakdown and thinks that she is this woman inside of the wallpaper, and begins to perform similar actions like creeping around. This meaning of this scene is simple cause and effect. Not only did she already have postpartum depression, but she is basically trapped in this house for a whole summer with nothing to do so she can heal.

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814 Words | 4 Pages

However as time moves on, and the woman in the wallpaper becomes more and more real to her, it’s clear that her mental state is rapidly depleting. Her first description of a figure in the wallpaper came when she stated that the wallpaper had a “recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down” (219). By the time the story ends, the narrator had turned into the

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562 Words | 3 Pages

The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892 shows mental illness through the narrator first hand. The theme in this story is going insane verses loneliness as well as being trapped. These themes are shown through the main character (the narrator of the story) as she works through her own mind, life, and surroundings. First, the theme of the woman’s state of mind is the main focus in this story.

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By the end of the story the narrator was incredibly disassociated and has convinced herself that she freed herself from the wallpaper by tearing it off of the wall and that she shall be able to creep around the house no matter what John and Jennie try to do to "put her back in the wallpaper". She believes she has won her freedom, when she has only imprisoned herself inside of her own

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