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The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

585 Words3 Pages

In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman, Gilman uses symbols to portray the situation of John and his wife, who's the narrator, after the arrival at their rental home. The theme represents the complexity of relationships coupled with inequitable decisions. Gilman discusses how the wallpaper led the wife to insanity, how her illness affected her mental and physical health, and how John tried to “help” his wife overcome her illness.
To begin, Gilman discusses throughout the story how the wife became more and more interested in the wallpaper. This interest soon turns into determination and desire to decipher the wallpaper and its purpose because the elements within the wallpaper become increasingly more enticing. For instance, toward the beginning of the story she is disgusted …show more content…

It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it! All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision!” All of the details and placement of the wallpaper somewhat drew the wife near and made her more curious to learn. Since she felt “trapped” in the house because of
Scott 2 the rules of her treatment, the fascination and intense clarity of the woman within the painting jumped out at the wife.
Secondly, the wife suffered from an illness which is indicated multiple times throughout the story. “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus”. This condition restricts her from any travel outside of the grounds or really even outdoors so her physical health is very limited. Mentally, she grows mad as the story progresses because the wallpaper relates to her sense of confinement and her rationality begins to disintegrate. The thirst for something new and different to discover is quenched as new details and patterns arise and intensify her interest.
Lastly, John tried to “help” his wife overcome her illness though he didn’t realize all

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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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However, we later see a shift in her feelings towards the wallpaper as she states that she is growing “really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper” and comes to a realization that it may be “because of the wallpaper” (Par 94) As her opinions on the wallpaper begin to change, the progression of her mental instability becomes increasing visible. She begins to build a relationship with the wallpaper and claims that “There are things in that paper that nobody knows about” (Par 22) her. As this relationship with the wallpaper builds, her sanity begins to slip, and the hallucinations begin in a somewhat minor manor. In her first mention of “the woman” she says that the pattern on the

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These show that she is not only creeped out by the wallpaper but also trying to figure it out. This causes the narrator to feel as if she will never be free from the yellow wallpaper and that she is always being watched. The feeling of always being watched as well as not being

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The vast majority of people wouldn’t give the wallpaper much thought, however the narrator becomes obsessed with it. To the narrator, the wallpaper is alive and becomes the focus of all her time. Her overwhelming lure to the wallpaper becomes obvious when she first provides a very vivid description stating “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions” (217-218). As she begins to lose her grip on reality, the narrator beings to see faces and eventually a woman within the wallpaper. At first, her description of seeing faces in the wallpaper seems like it could be her mind making since of the varying patterns or just part of her imagination.

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Nonetheless, the narrator continues to pen her ideas about the wallpaper as it transpired from being perplexing to gaining clarity each day. Amidst arriving at a full conclusion of what the wallpaper depicts, the narrator says she sees “a woman stooping down and creeping about behind the pattern” (Perkins Gilman, 50). As the days passed,

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