The Yellow Wallpaper Symbolism

A Critical Analysis of Formal Elements in the Short Story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

When asked the question of why she chose to write 'The Yellow Wallpaper', Charlotte Perkins Gilman claimed that experiences in her own life dealing with a nervous condition, then termed 'melancholia', had prompted her to write the short story as a means to try and save other people from a similar fate. Although she may have suffered from a similar condition to the narrator of her illuminating short story, Gilman's story cannot be coined merely a tale of insanity. Insanity is the vehicle for Gilman's larger comment on the atrocities of social conformity. The main character of "The Yellow Wallpaper" comes to recognize the inhumanity in society's treatment of women, and in her

Secondly, not only does interior monologue give impact to Jane’s thoughts toward her situation and illness, but this point of view style gives unique insight into the relationships among Jane and the other characters, especially the those between Jane and her husband, John, and her sister-in-law, Jennie. At the beginning of Gilman’s story, the husband and wife relationship of Jane and John follows the pattern of the time with John taking the part of the dominant yet well-meaning husband, and Jane taking the part of the obedient wife. Except for her forbidden writing, Jane follows John’s treatment guidelines (326); however, throughout the story, the respect and obedience Jane exhibits toward John at the first start to deteriorate, and suspicion and resentment replace it. One example of this change is when Jane states, “John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious. I am glad that my case is not serious!” (327). Not only does her paranoia grow toward John, but also toward her sister-in-law, Jennie. The

     Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is as a wonderful example of the gothic horror genre. It was not until the rediscovery of the story in the early 1970’s that “The Yellow Wallpaper” was recognized as a feminist indictment of a male dominated society. The story contains many typical gothic trappings, but beneath the conventional façade hides a tale of repression and freedom told in intricate symbolism as seen through the eyes of a mad narrator.

The geographical, physical, and historical settings in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" were more than the primary character could handle. The geography would lead to think she could enjoy the environment, but she chose not to. The physical setting showed us the reader just how grotesque and unbearable it would be to live a room in which the wallpaper to over the narrators mind. Lastly, we looked at how historically women were not allowed to speak their minds about how they felt. Maybe now that John has seen his wife go completely insane for himself he will finally seek extra attention for

The woman behind this work of literature portrays the role of women in the society during that period of time. "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a well written story describing a woman who suffers from insanity and how she struggles to express her own thoughts and feelings. The author uses her own experience to criticize male domination of women during the nineteenth century. Although the story was written fifty years ago, "The Yellow Wallpaper" still brings a clear message how powerless women were during that time.

  The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman can by read in many different ways.  Some think of it as a tragic horror story while others may find it to be a tale of a woman trying to find her identity in a male-dominated society.  The story is based on an episode in Gilman's life when she suffered from a nervous disease called melancholia.  A male specialist advised her to "live a domestic a life as far as possible.. and never to touch a pen, brush or pencil..."   (Gilman, 669).   She lived by these guidelines for three months until she came close to suffering from a nervous breakdown.  Gilman then decided to continue writing, despite the physicians advice, and overcame her illness.

While living in the house in the countryside, the couple stays in a room that has many things wrong with it. The windows are barred, to keep people from escaping. This object points to the symbolism of how one might feel trapped, like behind prison bars, and cannot escape their illness. Not only are the windows barred, the bed is nailed to the floor. Keeping the bed in place could be to protect the people that are in the room. Also, the wood floor is scratched up. This could be a sign that people lose their mind in this room, and they are digging to find a way out. Lastly, the yellow wallpaper had been peeled off around the room. It seems as though someone was trying to get rid of it or let something free. All of these characteristics of the room were obvious reasons for why the woman should not have been in the

The two are alike in the fact that they are the only two characters in the story who are unnamed. This woman embodies the narrator and her feeling of being trapped under all of the things that the wallpaper represents. She also symbolizes a person who the narrator would like to be. This creeping woman does what she wants- she creeps around the room, in the moonlight, freely. She has no husband, or if she does, she is defying him by skulking around the room alone at night. I think that the narrator's mind realizes this significance because it eventually takes on the creeping woman's identity in the end.

She moves into a new home with her husband, John. She describes the new home as a “colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house” (Gilman). Her description of the home is a negative feeling she has towards the house. The description of the home being haunted shows her terror because she sees it as an imprisonment. In this home, there is a yellow wallpaper in the room she is staying in. She describes the wallpaper, as “the color is repellent, almost revolting; a shouldering unclean yellow” (Gilman). In this wallpaper, she tries to see the figure out the patterns and comes to find a woman. In comes to conclusion that she is living life like the woman in the wallpaper. In the statement, “And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody can climb through that pattern, it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads” (Gilman). She empathizes with the woman in the wallpaper because they are both in pattern that they cannot break through. The pattern being in a home that feels that haunted and with a man that watches every move and empowers her through her

Forced to lie in bed all day and take it easy, the narrator becomes obsessed by the wallpaper and is drawn into trying to interpret it. She imagines a woman trapped within the paper. The narrator decides to strip off all of the wallpaper in her room, this is the moment of ultimate rebellion for the protagonist, and she is taking action towards independence. When John comes home to find the door locked, he begins freaking out. When he finally gets into the bedroom the narrator’s actions are so extraordinary and shocking that her husband faints. Through everything that is going on the narrator keeps creeping around the room in circles stripping all of the wallpaper off to free the woman that is trapped within.

The narrator in the start of the story is only slightly insane. She believes she is being cared for by John and that her case is nothing more than temporary. As the story progresses she becomes more secretive and even begins to questions John’s true intention. Then in the later part of the story she begins to stop trusting John and sees people in the yellow wallpaper. By her not realizing how bad her case is she makes her case even worse. The same can be said for the progression of the deterioration of the wallpaper. In the beginning it is described as “...revolting and an unclean yellow.” Around the time where her case begins to get more serious the wallpaper to the narrator is like a labyrinth and puzzle of lines. Each very complex with structure and meaning. With the end of the story the wallpaper is torn in all places and scratched up. The wallpaper didn’t start this way. The narrator describes it as trapping and how she was the one to solve

I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines” (318). Women in this time period were all experiencing this kind of control in their marriages. Men have to stay over the women and it was expected for the women to do as they were

This ideology is reflected throughout the story in the narrator’s confinement to the bedroom; the room symbolizes power and control that men have over women during this time. Women were not thought to be workers or students; they were to manage the children and house and little more. Symbolism can be defined as, “the use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense” (“Symbolism”). These symbols are used to represent occurrences in our daily lives. The windows of the woman’s room are barred; this represents confinement and power that the husband exerts over his wife, as if she were a child (Gilman 678).

The narrator’s feelings of inferiority and powerlessness parallels the female figure she sees trapped behind the pattern in the wall-paper adorning her room. She gradually withdraws from both John and reality by locking herself in the room and ultimately merging with the figure. Through the changing image of the pattern from a “fait figure” (Gilman 46) to a “woman stooping” (Gilman 46) behind the paper and “shaking the bars” (Gilman 46) as if she wanted “to get out” (Gilman 46), we can see her becoming one with the figure: “I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.”(51) Her collapse into madness as reflected in her behavior with the “bedstead [that] is fairly gnawed” (Gilman 51) and her “creeping all around” (Gilman 50) is a direct result of her passive submissiveness to John’s control of her life.