What Is The Symbolism In The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, published in 1899, is a semi-autobiographical short story depicting a young woman’s struggle with depression that is virtually untreated and her subsequent descent into madness. Although the story is centered on the protagonist’s obsessive description of the yellow wallpaper and her neurosis, the story serves a higher purpose as a testament to the feminist struggle and their efforts to break out of their domestic prison. With reference to the works of Janice Haney-Peritz’s, “Monumental Feminism and Literature’s

She has been trained to trust in her husband blindly and sees no other way. He calls her “little girl” (352) and “little goose” (349) and states “She will be as sick as she pleases!” (352) whenever she tries to express her issues. Instead of fighting for what she thinks will make her better she accepts it and keeps pushing her feelings aside, while he treats her like a child. We get an instant feel for her problem in the first page when she says, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that” (pg 346). A woman shouldn’t expect her husband to laugh at her concerns. Even after briefly writing about her condition she remembers her husband telling her the very worst thing she can do is think about it and follows his instructions. This is when she begins to focus on the house instead of her problems and the obsession with the wallpaper starts. She has nothing else to think about alone in the home; they don’t even allow her to write, which she has to do in secret.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short-story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was first published in 1892. This short-story is written in the first-person point of view. This helps show a collection of journal entries by a woman who is oppressed, suffering from what we now know as post-partum depression and denied a chance to express herself by her physician husband. This condition frustrates her health in the end, becoming psychotic and paranoid about any human contact, even delusional. She is locked in a solitary room for most of the story. She is only accompanied by old, peeling, yellow wallpaper. At the end of the story, the narrator talks about her freedom, further indicating the position of women at that time. This analysis of the short story focuses on the theme of gender brought forth in the story as well as the position Jane takes in furthering this theme.

When her focus eventually settles on the wallpaper in the bedroom and she states, "I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling, flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin" (Gilman 260). As the narrator resigns herself to her intellectual confinement, she begins to see more details in the wallpaper pattern. This can be seen as the slow shift from the connection to her family, friends and colleagues to her focus inward as she sinks deeper into depression. She describes that "—I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design" (Gilman 262). As she focuses inward, sinking deeper into her depression the figure in the wallpaper takes shape and she states that, "There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will" (Gilman 264). And she begins to describe the form of a woman behind the wallpaper pattern, "Sometimes I think there are a

Charlotte Perkins Gilman is widely recognized for her support of feminism and calls for awareness to her mental condition by voicing her ideas through her original writing. One of her works, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, describes a woman who suffers from severe anxiety and is isolated in a room in order to “heal” according to her husband. While in the room, she becomes obsessed with the ugly wallpaper, which leads to her fall. In the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author discusses the Narrator’s deteriorating mental state, her inability to differentiate reality and imagination, and her desire to rebel against

John, the narrator’s controlling, but loving, husband represents the atypical man of the time. He wants his wife to get better and to be able to fill the role of the perfect wife that society expected from her. John, being a doctor, did not quite believe that her mental illness was out of her control and insisted on

The narrator goes on to show the dominance that her husband has over her as she tells the reader that her husband is a doctor, but she believes that he is the reason that she is not getting well is because “he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do?” (8) and that he also thinks that “there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency” (9). This tells the reader that John does not believe that the narrators mental illness is real and there is nothing that she can do about it, because her role is to be submissive in their relationship. It is not only John who does not believe her, but her own brother who is also a physician agrees with her husband. They believe that rest is what will cure her illness, and she is forbidden from writing and working until she is better. The narrator disagrees with the advice of the men in her life, as she thinks that some excitement may help her condition, "I sometimes fancy that in my condition, if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition” (16). This tells the reader

Jane a young wife of a physician narrates Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. She embodies an oppressed woman who is subjected to isolation. The author uses the yellow wallpaper that surrounds Jane as symbolism to her inner struggle of oppression and her desire for freedom. The woman who resides in the wallpaper is Jane herself. As the story unfolds Jane realizes she is the only one who can set herself free.

Which is what the narrator’s feeling of her own life are, even though she won’t show them, as to not act out of character in front of her husband. The characters presented in story all have their own way of contributing to the mental breakdown of the narrator. John, The husband (and doctor, one in the same) uses their title as power over the narrator. He does this by always telling her how she feels and that he is the doctor and knows what’s best.

It is the wallpaper, alive and a character in itself, that charges our main character 's mind and helps her break free from the dull and husband driven life she has been living. The wallpaper itself, so marvelously described, becomes our storyteller 's best enemy and best friend. More like a mirror, this yellow consuming wallpaper reflects what our main character is really going through and feeling and the woman that stirs and creeps within the wall is literally herself which is found out by us, the readers, when the housekeeper mentions the yellow stains on all of her clothes. She wants to tear the confining wallpaper down that holds this imaginary woman in just as she wants to tear the confining way of life her husband has chosen for her. The story continues to progress as she deconstructs and analyses the wallpaper until the climax when our main character locks herself in the yellow room to finally tear all of the wallpaper down so that the woman can never be put back and imprisoned forever. The story concludes with her husband fainting, and our main character "creeping" and paying him no concern at all except that once again he is in her way but this time, not able to stop her voyage along the wall and for the rest of her life.

But the location is not necessarily as important as the time of which the story is set and that is in late 19th century America. A time when medicine was still rather coarse and unrefined with treatments coming from doctors who have never truly tested their theories. It is these kinds of treatments that John will administer to his wife without truly knowing what ails her causing her to spiral into a rather abnormal mental state. The late 19th century was still a time when woman had very little say in the world and were still considered inferior to men without the capacity for in-depth rational thought. While the wife knows she is sick and her husband’s treatments won’t help her she knows there is nothing she can say that will convince him

The wife is the main focus in this story and as the story continues she begins to realize that her sickness results from her controlling husband. She learns that John is crippling her health and understands his reasoning behind why he chose the “nursery” to place her in. The wife is a dynamic character who gains insight as the story progresses. In the beginning of the wife’s diagnosis, her husband forbids her from working until she is well again. The wife writes in her journal, “Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change would do me good” (489). This begins a trend of the wife’s disagreement with him. Instead of listening to John’s “professional” advice, she challenges his statement within the safety of her journal. The journal is a way to express herself freely, although John believes it does her more harm than good. The wife continues to write proclaiming “John would think it absurd. But I must say (write) what I feel and think in some way- it is such a relief” (494)!

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.

She starts to take account of things around her, but slowly becomes obsessed with a wallpaper painting in her room. To her the wallpaper is yellow in color and everything else about it is also yellow including the smell (Gilman 8). It has scrawling patterns and parts of it have faded, she reasons the faded parts are due to her continuous brushing on the wallpaper. This is because she has noticed most of her clothes are stained with the yellow color around the shoulder line. Regarding the room, she believes it was once a nursery, due to the barred windows and thinks that it stopped being one because the children hated the place as much as she did. As days progress she notices that the wallpaper continues to fade, she also notices that the wallpaper produces different shades dependent on the illumination. Constant analysis of the wallpaper shows thrilling patterns and designs and she finally makes out a figure within those patterns (Gilma 9). The figure depicts a crawling woman; she is seeking refuge from her current prison characterized by bars and shadows. At this point her obsession with the painting has completely taken over; this coupled with the concern and need to free the woman leads her to stripping the wallpaper. She is aware that she has to do this in secret because if her husband realizes this, she may be given another diagnosis and the sister will not leave.

It is obvious in this story that the woman allows herself to be set lower to men, specially her husband, John. Being a Physician, he puts special orders for her to follow: To stay in bed, relax her imagination, and most important to stop her writing. Though she always felt better when she wrote, and felt it helped her, she does not argue or complain, But speaks “What can one do?” (655). This shows the lack of herself confidence and the feeling of inferiority she had. She speaks ask if anything she said did not count anyway, but she was very accepting of the situation. She expresses herself unimportant several more times through the story. “I meant to be such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already” (656).