Subsist into Madness: The Yellow Wallpaper
In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonist symbolizes the effects of women’s oppression on society in the nineteenth century. In this story, the author reveals that the narrator is torn between hate and love; yet, her emotions are problematic to determine. The effect is produced by the use of complex themes in the story which aid in her suppression and are reflected in her self-expression. The reader stays with the narrator as her thoughts become more chaotic and as she begins to see a shape on the wallpaper. Accordingly, The Yellow Wallpaper provides a picture of a woman who is driven into madness.
To start with, we are introduced to a woman who is the main character in the story. The narrator and her husband live for the summer in a large, run-down house. The room she will be staying in is large and airy but has a few disturbing features, particularly the bars on the windows and yellow wallpaper. In this story, the setting will play a significant role since almost every aspect of the narrator’s psyche and the situation is reflected in the way she describes her surroundings. In particular, the narrator has been prescribed bed rest as treatment — it means that she has to do very little physically or mentally stimulating things in the hope that she will regain her mental health. Imprisonment and medication inactivity, however, only worsened her mental state. She has been treated for several nervous habits that she thinks legitimately causes damage to her way of life. Yet, she feels that her husband, a doctor, believes that he is embellishing her condition. Gilman shows the conformist side that women seem to be taking. Conformist women are basically in line with the belief that women submit to men.
Jumping into the next case, we can see absurdity from the start; the reader is given an overview of the narrator's husband’s domineering tendencies. The narrator tells us, “John is a physician, and perhaps — (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) — perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.” It is painful to see that she feels trapped and unable to express her fears to her husband. Hence, her husband’s dominance, and her reactions, are reflected throughout the story. The narrator is continually compliant, submitting to her husband’s wishes, even though she is unhappy and depressed. Also, John didn’t want her to work and didn’t even want her to write. We believe that the narrator’s husband loves her very much — he is gentle to her and talks to her in loving, sometimes childlike ways. Still and all, he didn’t want anyone to know the extent of his wife’s mental illness, calling it, “temporary nervous depression — a slight hysterical tendency”.
Lastly, it is within the wallpaper that the narrator finds her hidden self and freedom. The more time she spent in the room, the more obsessed she became with the wallpaper. The room is covered in the hideous yellow wallpaper, whose design “commit(s) every artistic sin” (426). The pattern begins to fascinate the narrator, and she begins to look at more than just the surface designs―it becomes more than just wallpaper; it takes on human characteristics. It was said, “There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down.” Gilman’s sensory descriptions are brilliant. The portrayals are intense and detailed. They make the reader a part of the story and increase the tension. On that account, wallpaper gradually depletes the narrator’s existence, offering more complex images as time passes. However, she first saw a different color sub-pattern of the figure under the front design. This figure is finally seen as a woman who “creeps” and shaking the outer pattern. The narrator, unable to openly express her feelings to anyone, begins to see herself through the wallpaper. She imagines a woman trapped behind the wallpaper, just like she is trapped in a room and her thoughts. Moreover, the behavior of the woman behind the wallpaper reflects the attitude of the narrator.
In brief, the story is narrated in the first person by an unnamed female narrator, and after reading the story, the reader realizes that Gilman may be exploring the theme of insanity. Throughout the story, the narrator appears to be under complete control of her husband and is not allowed to live her life as she pleases. Even though the narrator appears insane, she has in many ways freed herself from the constraints she may have felt earlier in the story. By tearing off the wallpaper, the narrator appears to have freed herself from John’s control of her life. For this reason, the story brilliantly depicts a woman whose opinions and feelings are never recognized as valid in the real world.
