Yellow Wallpaper Thesis

The Unseen: An Exegesis of “The Yellow Wallpaper” (Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1892)

The birthing process, carrying a young or fetus to term that is capable of feeding and breathing, is a universal experience shared by most complex organisms; mammals and reptiles alike. However, what is unique to human beings is the birthing experience and the emotions tied to the process. As a species capable of higher thinking, we are one of the few that have the ability to recognize our reflection such of that from a mirror. To further add to this, as a species of higher thinking, we have a brain that can view the world through a subjective scope. The human brain perceives external stimuli through our senses; sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell. Given

Set in the late 19th century, gender stereotyping is heavily noted between the characters in the story. The narrator, as a woman, plays housewife to a physician. Her concerns and suggestions are often not taken into consideration. The narrator’s husband, as a physician, is perceived to be well educated with a formal background. The husband’s suggestions override that of the narrator in almost every way throughout the story. Through the narrative, we see the transition of what is a seemingly innocent housewife into a person suffering from mania as she exhibits a change of behavior most notably her distinct lack of sleep and her elevated arousal energy level. The husband suggests isolation as a cure for her perceived depression. Can her repression and lack of social support have lead to a change of behavior if not a complete change in personality? As the combination of a barren social environment with repressed emotions runs amok, the narrator further dwells into mania as she starts to focus on the Yellow Wallpaper. The narrator dwells on how she finds wallpaper to be repulsive and repugnant as she describes each encounter with a description of increasing dilapidation. She develops illusions of a woman that is trapped in the wallpaper that becomes more apparent as her social isolation becomes more apparent. Her frantic need to free the woman behind the wallpaper is eventually successful as she begins isolates herself further