My Analysis of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Short Story, "The Yellow Wallpaper"

                                              

                                              Picture Credit: Simon & Schuster

While the late nineteenth century in the United States progressed in industry, equality for women regressed under the patriarchal power of men. Deviant women (women who defied their gender norms by questioning society, refusing to remain confined and silent) began to acknowledge damage of the patriarchal power being exercised over them by their male colleagues. Rather than remaining submissive under the “natural ruler,” women began to interrogate their involvement in the patriarchal philosophies which constrained them to the private sphere (Parsons 1). Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, focuses on the (female) narrator’s inability to exercise her power and voice over her hysteria and physical health. The extreme isolation in the upstairs bedroom (nursery) of the mansion miles away from the town is tortuous for the infantilized narrator who cannot express herself freely, due to relinquished control of her intimate thoughts; she secretly writes her thoughts in her journal. She is unable to have her own life and physical autonomy. Her lack of power leads to the devastating consequences. The Yellow Wallpaper is Gilman’s warning against the “frailty myth” and the running of the bed rest cure on women from the higher class (Dowling 3). Married women (like the narrator) were property of their husbands, while single women were property of their fathers or other male family members. Male doctors (such as, John-the narrator’s husband) found their “medical evidence” to keep all women under control. The narrator’s confinement accentuates women being treated as controlled objects and their voices being suppressed. The Yellow Wallpaper is a metaphor for a patriarchal society maintaining control over women’s minds and bodies by not seeing them as equal human beings, but confined to men’s objects/property.

The “frailty myth” has lived in many cultures and societies for many generations (Dowling 3). Women’s bodies have been and are still socially dominated; women who choose to use their bodies for purposes other than reproduction are seen as deviant and ending the human race. “The theory behind the frailty myth was this: Women could not be allowed to follow their own pursuits-physical or mental-because every ounce of energy they could generate was needed for maintaining their reproductive processes” (3,4). Under men’s control, women were given a role-‘“femininity,’ an appropriate ‘character,’ an appropriate ‘look”’ (4). The purpose of the narrator being brought to the confined estate is to enable her recovery from her “slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 1).  She is “absolutely forbidden to ‘work’ until” she is well again (1). She desires the stimulation to be creative. She believes using her creativity (keeping her mind busy) will bring her order rather than chaos and allow her to recover from her illness quicker. “Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good” (1). “The nature of woman is that of creator, and he (John) is stifling her creative process” in multiple ways (Sullinger). She reasons that being prohibited to work or socializing while living at the estate will prevent her from recovering.  She is forced to keep this thought to herself; she does not want to dishonor John and have him assume she is ungrateful for being cared for.

In order for the narrator to recover, John wants her to avoid thinking about her condition; it’s “the very worst thing [she] can do” (Gilman 2). Thinking about her condition or mentioning it to John makes her feel worse. “He does not believe” that she is “sick” (1).  He “doesn’t really try to understand his wife, that’s because he thinks she is just damaged” (ENGL 310). “It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so” (Gilman 8).Whenever she attempts to speak with him regarding what she thinks or wants, he treats her like a child. He calls her pets names such as, “blessed little goose,” “little girl” or “darling” (4), (8), (7). He laughs at her pleas and insists he has all of the answers “including finishing her ‘thoughts’” (ENGL 310). He claims to know what is good for her, but needs her to recover for “my sake and for our child's sake” (Gilman 8). He uses his expertise and (patriarchal) authority as a physician to control her mind and body and imply her condition is her fault. “There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so?" (8).

The narrator’s sickness prohibits her to fulfill her role as “Angel of the house:” the domestic wife and mother. “John’s overbearing, loving care is not allowing her womanhood to breathe, exhibited in our narrator’s inability to be a good wife and mother, though she may truly want to” (Sullinger).

Picture Credit: MRFRADE11THGRADEENGLISH

The narrator’s journal becomes her creative stimulation and her only companion, but she has “to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition” (Gilman 2). She hides her writing from John and Jennie (her sister-in-law) due to John hating “to have me write a word” (3). The narrator has little interaction with Jennie. The house being “quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village” prohibits the narrator from making new friends and exploring the village (2). She has nobody to share her work with. “It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work” (4). The private sphere is in her feminine role-being less social and independent, financially depending on her husband and having comfort, reassurance and purity.

 “Hysteria,” from the Greek word, “hystera” (uterus), has been classified as a woman’s disease. Women who “misbehaved” in society were forced to have unnecessary hysterectomies. The uterus was blamed for the behavior. “Its symptoms were nervousness, fatigue, anxiety, insomnia, faintness, muscle spasms, shortness of breath, irritability, headaches, heaviness of the abdomen, fluid retention, lack of concentration, depression, loss of appetite for food or sex, ticklishness, and making trouble. Doctors claimed two out of every three women suffered from this awful affliction” (The Guerilla Girls). Lack of sex was presumed to make the uterus too light, too airy and too dry. Wandering Uteri Condition was blamed for pathologizing a woman’s unhappiness.  

The narrator suffers the symptoms of insomnia, nervousness, anxiety, depression and “making trouble” (The Guerilla Girls). The yellow wallpaper in her bedroom keeps her up at night; “I don't sleep much at night, for it is so interesting to watch developments; but I sleep a good deal in the daytime” (Gilman 10). Along with secretly writing in her journal, she begins to fixate on the wallpaper and its pattern. The wallpaper and the mysterious woman trapped behind it become the narrator’s “society and stimulus” (2). The narrator’s mental health takes a major demise through locking and isolating herself in the bedroom to study the pattern and catch the woman behind the wallpaper. “I lie here on this great immovable bed—it is nailed down, I believe—and follow that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we'll say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I WILL follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion” (6).

                          

                        Picture Credit: Wayne State University Library System 

Locking herself in the bedroom, throwing the key out of the window, tearing the wallpaper, tying herself with a rope to catch the other woman, attempting to move and gnawing on the bolted bed and refusing to open the door for John play roles in the narrator’s troublemaking. The narrator is finally taking control of her life. Attempting to catch the other woman is the narrator “rescuing” her from her yellow patterned patriarchal prison. Another female victim of patriarchy could be trapped in the bedroom in the future. The narrator is unwittingly liberating herself along with another woman who was hidden away as a shameful secret to her husband’s and/or powerful family’s reputation.

The woman behind the wallpaper, sometimes “a great many women,” is Gilman aiding her readers in union of the oppression of one woman being the oppression for all women (Gilman 11). The social structure uniting women to subjection of men needs to unite women to resist what needs to be unacceptable. Women need to support each other rather than compete and “strangle” each other (11). The public sphere should be for EVERYONE, not just white, wealthy men.

Gilman, who was depressed after the birth of her first child, was treated under the “bed rest cure” (a treatment for hysteria) by “a noted specialist in nervous diseases” (“Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper”). The bed rest cure consisted of extreme treatment; six weeks with isolation from loved ones, continuous feeding of a fatty, dairy-based diet, and reducing patients to infantile dependency. Patients were prohibited from stimulation and work-writing, talking, reading and sewing. Similar to the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman’s physician did not believe she was ill, advised her to “live as domestic a life as possible, to have but two hours’ intellectual life a day and never touch pen, brush, or pencil again” as long as she lived (“Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper”). Following this advice led her “near the borderline of utter mental ruin” (“Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper”). Gilman was becoming the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper; no creativity allowed and very little social stimulation. Fortunately, Gilman’s intelligence remained and had a “wise friend” to help her return to work and a normal life, regaining her power. The Yellow Wallpaper rescued at least one woman from the same fate as the narrator. The story rescued people (specifically women) from becoming crazy; proving work and creativity are tools to refrain one from losing sanity.  

The narrator breaking through the glass windows of the nursery symbolizes breaking through “the glass ceiling” (women’s patriarchal prison). Her incoherency freed her from her glass ceiling prison. She is no longer property nor an object to be controlled. Crawling over John and his fainting switches their societal gender roles. Fainting, a perceived woman’s weak behavior, allows the narrator to gain power and John to lose it. The narrator no longer fears John, the “little boy.”

                                          Picture Credit: jwelsstreasure

                           Below is the link to the The Yellow Wallpaper. 

                                                The Yellow Wallpaper

Works Cited

English 310: Collected Essays and Interpretive Insights from Students’ Free-writes on The      Yellow Wallpaper. 2017. 1-3. Print.

Dowling, Colette. “The Frailty Myth.” The Frailty Myth: Redefining the Physical Potential of     Women and Girls. New York, NY: Random House, 2001. 3-41. Print.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Other   Stories. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1997. 1-14. Print.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper.” The Forerunner October 1913. Print.

Parsons, Barbara A. “Aristotle on Women.” Women’s Studies Encyclopedia, ed. Helen Tierny.            Greenwood Press, 2002. 20 Feb. 2017. <http://www.gem.greenwood.com>

Sullinger, Cherokee. “Illuminating Ruminations on the Color Yellow, Smells, Gender, Power,             and Creativity As Presented in The Yellow Wallpaper.” English 310. 2017. 1. Print.

The Guerilla Girls. “The Hysterical Herstory of Hysteria and How it Was Cured From             Ancient Times Until Now.” Guerilla Girls, Inc., 2009. Print.