Viciousness In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

Viciousness, a term that is severe to say, and heavy laden when spoken. Viciousness is vile, a type of cruelty, or brutality. A word that should be spoken seldom, so when the occasion arises it has depth. The narrator, Jane, attests that the wallpaper “looks at [her] as if it knew what vicious influence it had!”(Gilman 834). So when we think about the context the narrator uses it in, it doesn’t seem to be very “vicious”, right? It is just wallpaper. However, what Charlotte Perkins Gilman is trying to convey is that the wallpaper is just a mere symbol of the life the narrator has and the domestic viciousness a lot of women face within marriage. The “vicious influence” the wallpaper had on the narrator was describing the “vicious influence”

Many of them were written off as hysterical and were just ordered into isolation as a treatment plan. This is seen within The Yellow Wallpaper as John puts his wife away hoping she will come to her senses and takes away all things that give her joy or the slightest taste at life. The wallpaper wasn’t the only thing vicious within this time period as it was the men as they trampled over women, their souls, and overwhelmingly missed that women were mere humans too. The deepest of hopes is that women don’t experience this today, however, the superiority men often take upon themselves often captures women in this “vicious” cycle of

She referenced the wallpaper having “vicious influence”. As referenced earlier, it is just wallpaper, so why would the narrator refer to it as being alive or having “vicious influence”? Even in the story, Gilman did not give the wallpaper the ability to encase magical talents or magical purpose, but rather was intended to be a symbol of the trapment the narrator is facing. It is easy to dismiss what the narrator believes about the wallpaper giving her condition, however, we aren’t the husband, so we shall not be dismissive. Yet, the wallpaper was alive. Not in the sense, we are, as it is not breathing, but it is alive in revelation. The liveliness the wallpaper bestowed was simply the truth. The truth is what began to come alive to the narrator, revealing the sorrow and the devastating life that she lived unknowingly and subconsciously. The wallpaper, being an object, didn't come to life and tell the narrator to wake up and realize, but was metaphorically coming alive in the narrator's mind. The wallpaper represented her life, so when the narrator stared at it and analyzed the wallpaper, she was analyzing the life she was living and began to see it unfold as her