Summary Of The Yellow Wallpaper And Women's Discourse By Karen Ford

A Feminist Reading of Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar dives headfirst into The Yellow Wallpaper and presents their interpretation of the short story. The three main points that this article covers are the symbolism of the room the narrator was confined to, the degradation of the narrator’s mental state, and the real world impact that this story had. While I agree for the most part with these authors, I have my own personal interpretation of the story.

The story "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story about control. In the late 1800's, women were looked upon as having no effect on society other than bearing children and keeping house. It was difficult for women to express themselves in a world dominated by males. The men held the jobs, the men held the knowledge, the men held the key to the lock known as society . . . or so they thought. The narrator in "The Wallpaper" is under this kind of control from her husband, John. Although most readers believe this story is about a woman who goes insane, it is actually about a woman’s quest for control of her life.

The wallpaper takes on immediate significance when it is introduced to the story, simply because its characteristics are described with such detail. At this point, the paper seems to represent all that is the opposite of the woman, and she is repulsed by it. "I never saw a worse paper in my life,"(l56) writes the woman. Whereas she is a sweet, dutiful wife to her husband, and her behavior carefully conforms to what society expects of her, she is disgusted by the paper's poor condition, its faded, soured color, and its pattern, "One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin"(156). Her mild-mannered behavior, evident in the opening scenes, carefully conforms with what society expects of her; therefore, this vague description of the pattern of the wallpaper seems to be an inversion of the woman's personality.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman is known as the first American writer who has feminist approach. Gilman criticises inequality between male and female during her life, hence it is mostly possible to see the traces of feminist approach in her works. She deals with the struggles and obstacles which women face in patriarchal society. Moreover, Gilman argues that marriages cause the subordination of women, because male is active, whereas female plays a domestic role in the marriage. Gilman also argues that the situation should change; therefore women are only able to accomplish full development of their identities. At this point, The Yellow Wallpaper is a crucial example that shows repressed woman’s awakening. It is a story of a woman who

The initial description of this woman is of her “stooping down and creeping about.” The woman in the wallpaper is a direct reflection of the narrator’s confidence and feelings of inferiority, and the change they undergo. Initially, the woman in the wall symbolizes the narrator’s fear of presenting herself and her opinions, and being her husband’s equal.

In Charlotte Perkins “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which was published in 1892, the author explores the gender ideologies of the time period and how women were seen as inferior, resulting in unfair treatment in cases even involving their personal health. The main character, who is a woman named Jane, is led to insanity due to the unsuitable treatment received for her depression, but the insanity she goes into symbolizes a revelation. As she progresses into this insanity, the author ties in the discovery the main character makes of the hidden figure in the wallpaper to a woman making the discovery of how the oppressions and limitations women face must be challenged and changed in order to escape the lifestyle which keeps them imprisoned to the

In the story”The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman reveals changes in the narrator that expresses the yellow wallpaper which she has to write down in her journal because the 1900’s women didn't get the respect that men all got. At first the wallpaper was nothing to her but now it has her and now she is found of the room. The different symbols used in the,” The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman reveal changes the narrator to a feminist story which shows her frustration by being trapped and not being herself. First symbol that Gilman stated in this reading was the yellow wallpaper. In this symbol the narrator has thoughts of hating the room with this wallpaper but throughout the story the wallpaper dwells in her.

During the early 1800’s, the rights of men were still deemed more important than the rights of women. This issue was finally brought into discussion in the late 1800’s, where women now started to fight for their rights. This time period also brought around the start of feminism. The fact that Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is a feminine story to make a statement about men controlling women is shown through three main points: what the woman sees in the yellow wallpaper, how the husband treats the woman, and also through the narrator herself.

Although initially perceived as a gothic novella by contemporary readers, feminist critics who reposition the focus of media to ‘celebrate the attempts of women to assert themselves’ as mentioned in the A-level critical anthology, re-establish the symbolism of the wallpaper. At the start of the novella, when our narrator is repressed and battling her entrapment, she uses death imagery to describe the wallpaper mentioning that the patterns ‘suddenly commit suicide-plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions’, perhaps reflecting her own mind-set, imposed upon her by her constant oppression. Nearer the end of the novella, the reader will notice a shift from lurid descriptions to those such as ‘the faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out’, imagery which allows the wallpaper to symbolise anything repressing 19th century women such as societal expectations, domestic values or lack of education, subsequently permitting the reader to examine the character development of the narrator: she begins to scrutinize her repression. This is rebellious in terms of the narrator yet radical on the part of the author who subtly challenges societal beliefs regarding the mental capacity of women to question their hierarchal position. This is reinforced when the narrator describes

In Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator compares herself to the wallpaper to represent the hardships of her life. The narrator uses the wallpaper as her imagination to escape from her imprisonment. Due to society, the narrator uses the yellow wallpaper to compare her institution of marriage. The ideals of women were positioned as housewives, reproduce kids, and please their husbands. On the other hand, men’s position is to be dominant of the relationship.

Since she allowed no creative outlets, nor the ability to make decisions for herself, her obsession with the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom becomes increasingly severe. The narrator begins to use the wallpaper to facilitate her creativity and give herself some purpose. The oppressive situation her husband forces her into seems to drive her further and further into insanity until she becomes one with the ‘woman’ behind the wallpaper. “I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard! It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please!” (Gilman, 1899, p. 9) The narrator’s inability to control her own life due to her husband’s continuous controlling ways seems to increase her insanity to the point of no return. This directly represents a woman’s struggle in society during the time the story was written. It was expected of a woman to adhere to every wish of her husband, whether or not he was correct.

For centuries women have been overlooked by their male counterparts in society. They have been ignored, mistreated, and treated as second-class citizens by society. It seems to be never-ending, as women oppressed in their everyday lives in their homes, at work, and everywhere else in the world. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the wallpaper symbolically represents the oppression of women in society as it demonstrates its inescapability, its unsightliness, and the normalization of it.

It does not take the form of the traditional symbol of security for the domestic

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story about a woman who has a mental illness but cannot heal due to her husband’s lack of belief. The story appears to take place during a time period where women were oppressed. Women were treated as second rate people in society during this time period. Charlotte Perkins Gilman very accurately portrays the thought process of the society during the time period in which “The Yellow Wallpaper” is written. Using the aspects of Feminist criticism, one can analyze “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman through the dialogue through both the male and female perspective, and through the symbol found in the story.

     In the late nineteenth century, after the American social and economic shift commonly referred to as the "Industrial Revolution" had changed the very fabric of American society, increased attention was paid to the psychological disorders that apparently had steamed up out of the new smokestacks and skyscrapers in urban populations (Bauer, 131).  These disorders were presumed to have been born out of the exhaustion and "wear and tear" of industrial society (Bauer, 131-132).  An obvious effect of these new disorders was a slew of physicians and psychiatrists advocating one sort of cure or another, although the "rest cure" popularized by the physician S. Weir Mitchell was the most