In The Yellow Wallpaper, the wallpaper is that which separates Jane from her latent desires for agency and equality in her relationship with her husband. Through a close reading of the final two pages of Charlotte Perkins Stetson’s short story, one can examine the relationship that Jane has with the woman in the wallpaper, who is representative of Jane’s inner self, and the relationship between Jane and her husband John. This examination is key to understanding the way that power dynamics manifest themselves in the narrative and how they impact Jane’s quest for agency. Jane’s relationship with the woman in the wallpaper is complicated to be sure. At face value their relationship seems to be one of collaboration since Jane’s objective is to …show more content…
If she got out “in spite” of him it implies that he was actively doing something to keep her inside of the wallpaper. This, then, must be a reference to the method by which John was trying to “cure” his wife’s mental illness. The regiment consisted of “…journeys, and air, and exercise.” (Stetson 648) Jane contested that the treatment did not help her condition. The remark about Jane in the former quote pits her against the woman in the wallpaper. Since Jane has become one with the woman in the wallpaper, and there is an implication that the woman overpowered Jane, it becomes clear that the woman was never an external entity at all. Rather, she was a part of Jane’s consciousness. If one accepts this line of reasoning, then it becomes clear that the room symbolizes Jane’s mind. Her physical presence in the room itself represents her conscious mind, while the woman behind the wallpaper represents her subconscious drive to have agency over her own …show more content…
Once John gains access to the woman in the wallpaper’s sanctum, he faints. In response Jane says, “Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time.” (Stetson 656) Her words carry an implication that she perceives his act of fainting as one of weakness. By refraining from using John’s name, Jane robs him of his identity and places him in a gender group devoid of individuality. Additionally, Jane cannot seem to understand the reason that John fainted. To her the act of fainting seems to be irrational and unwarranted. Jane’s confusion at this juncture illustrates a loss of self-awareness. She fails to realize that “creeping” across the floor in a room where she has just stripped the walls of their wallpaper is frightening. Jane also mentions that she has to “creep over” her husband every time she traverses her path around the room. The fact that she is placed above John, when she is already close to the floor, speaks to the dominance that she can now exert over him, though it is important to note that the dominance is only manifested in the room with the yellow wallpaper and not anywhere else. Whether Jane continues the exertion of this dominance is not written in the story. However, one can infer that since Jane has apparently
Due to Jane’s husband enforcing a life in confinement due to her nervous breakdowns, it only takes a little time for the isolation to drive her mad. In the beginning of the story, it is clear that the narrator, Jane, suffers from post-natal depression, which is a common effect after childbirth. The way Jane sees her living quarters is much different than it actually is. She imagines the rings on the walls, the torn up wallpaper, and the bars on the windows as a nursery or a school for boys, when those features actually lead the audience to realize that it is a room for the mentally ill. Her husband, also her physician, believes that in order for her metal illness to be cured is to forbid her from exercising her imagination, working, and to keep her locked away. However, his theory proves to be wrong when her mind begins to see a world inside the wallpaper, caused by the abuse from confinement. Although her husband is doing this for what he thinks is best for her well
The narrator finally achieves an authoritative position in her marriage, with John unconscious and her creative imagination finally free of all restraints. Her continual “creeping” over his prone body serves as a repeated emphasis of this liberation, almost as if the narrator chooses to climb over him to highlight his inferiority over and over again” (Harrison). John was a weak person, Jane suffered from a nervous disorder which was made way worse by the feelings of being trapped in a room. The setting of the nursery room with barred windows in a colonial mansion provides an image of the loneliness and seclusion she experienced. Periods of time can lead to insanity. Maybe her illness wasn’t that bad but he made it worse on her part because he was a sick husband. Some critics have argued “Is the narrator really liberated? We’re inclined towards saying “no”, given that she’s still creeping around the room and that her psyche is broken”
Being constantly alone and prohibited to leave her bedroom, she begins to start being delusional with nothing to occupy her time, but to write. With “barred windows for little children and rings and things in the walls” the bedroom is in similarity to a prison cell. (page 648). While John is keeping her away from reality, Jane begins to feel as if the right thing and she won’t be able to get out.
“The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out.” The woman had started seeing another female in the wallpaper, imprisoned behind bars and shaking the paper to be freed. The wallpaper began depreciating, and so did the conquering influence that male hierarchy forced on women. Women arose to reason out of line, be conscious of their overthrow, and conflict patriarchal statute. The development of the yellow wallpaper and the narrator, within the story, indicates to a triumph over John.
At the end of the story Jane has it in her mind that there is a woman in this wallpaper. This lady that Jane says that in the wallpaper needs to be set free. Jane begins to tear down the wallpaper, the next day Jennie comes in tearing down this wallpaper and Jane see her and gets mad. Jane provides this evidence by saying “How she betrayed herself that time! But I am here, and no person touches this paper but me,—not alive!”(Dulaney) So Jane then gets the key and locks herself in this room. Jane takes the key and throw it out the window. “I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper
When the narrator got up in the middle of the night to see if the yellow wallpaper was moving John said to her, “What is it, little girl?” he said. “Don’t go walking about like that—you’ll get cold” (Gillman). Throughout the entire story, the woman or her husband never reveals her name. The woman is referred to names that carry a subordinate connotation, such as “little girl.” All sense of individuality and self worth is taken way from the narrator when her name is never revealed to the audience. Furthermore, John continues to belittle his wife by giving her the command to not walk around at night. Although the John thinks in his mind that he is looking out for the best interest of his wife, in actuality, he is taking away his wife’s abilities to make choices for herself. There is a possibility that John’s controlling personality is one of the factors that led to his wife’s psychosis. Such a controlling life style more than likely limited the narrator’s ability to live any life outside of the home. Towards the end of the story, the narrator exclaims, “"I 've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jane” (Gilman). The woman had escaped her gender role as being subservient to men, and is possible that the narrator’s real name is Jane. If this is true, then she had relinquished that identity associated with the struggles that she had during her relationship with John. Her
When his wife, Jane, delivers their first child, Jane begins having symptoms of a nervous condition. She seems to be getting worse every day and trying to overcome the symptoms of depression and loneliness. John restricts her behavior from involving any activity and is controlling every decision of her life. In the passage, she says “I don't like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings! But John would not hear of it” (2). In this case, John seems very stubborn when forcing his wife to stay in a room that does not make her happy and comfortable. John feels very confident when he states to his wife, “You know the place is doing you good” (3). But unfortunately, it turning out very badly. The way John treats his wife is like a prisoner. He detains her in the room and leads her to become an introverted
...ecause john stifles her writing and creativity, the narrator begins trying to make some sense of the wallpaper. She begins creeping, as the woman appears to be doing. She replaces her feeling of being watched and studies it coming to the conclusion that the woman is trapped. She levels with the woman because she is trapped behind bars(on her windows), while the figure is trapped behind the wretched designs. At the end of the story when she completes her removing of the wallpaper it seems as if she believes she has freed herself from John saying, "I've got out at last in spite of you and Jane (p. 36). It is not known who Jane is but it could be her name. This would mean she has driven herself to the point where she is so mad that she now believes she is the woman from the wallpaper. She could also be referring to the housekeeper, or someone not mentioned.
As the reader knows, Jane does most of her sneaking around at night when her husband is not around because she knows he would not approve. Jane begins to make it her life’s mission to free the woman trapped behind the pattern of the wallpaper, which could be interpreted as society holding the woman back from freedom. Jane becomes rather obsessed with the wallpaper and taking it down from the walls. She becomes very sneaky and secluded to the room where she watches for the woman to appear behind the
When Jane is isolated from the world, she spends most of her time in the barred room, staring at the wallpaper for hours and trying to figure out how it is organized. She spends countless hours and days doing this and this slowly brings down her mental health as she becomes convinced that her fellow housemates are against her and that there is a woman trapped behind the wallpaper. The yellow wallpaper becomes a symbol for Jane’s mental health. The woman trapped behind the wallpaper is a symbol for Jane’s craziness(the mental breakdown waiting to come out) and the actual wallpaper can be a symbol for Jane’s mind, body, and/or her family, trying to help Jane get better. Eventually the isolation takes it toll as Jane is left to the wallpaper for too long and ultimately loses it as she has nothing else to do but think about the wallpaper. Anthony Liccione, an American author and poet, said, “Thoughts are like an open ocean, they can either move you forward within its waves, or sink you under deep into its abyss.” In Jane’s case, her isolation led her to over think the wallpaper and it sank her deep into the abyss of
Finally, the yellow wallpaper presents perspectives of how men control females. As stated previously, In the story, John uses his power as a doctor to control his wife. He encaged his wife in a summer home, placing her in a room filled with barricades and many faults. As a human she is deprived of her rights and her ability to form house duties is taken away so she can rest as he calls it. Without a doubt, she fell into insanity because of the situation she was placed in. When she ripped the paper off the wall, it was a sign of freedom from her husband, and the bars that held her captive for weeks. Certainly she has a vivid imagination and being placed in bondage and unable to write which in turn lead her to mental health problems.
She, as the narrator, starts off with revealing that she is very open to how she see’s things. Her description of this summer vacation leads to the recollection of herself remembering her nightmares growing up, and she insists the house they are staying at this time is haunted, “I use to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store.” (Gilman 650) She can’t rely on John so she turns to writing instead, causing her to be secretive instead of confiding in what is supposed to be her life partner. She then proceeds with the growing mystery of this “yellow wallpaper”. With john’s notorious attitude towards her about this infatuation, “He said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies” (Gilman 649), her character played like she was not interested anymore only to satisfy her husband’s demands when really she is still persistent on the issue. She begins to be devious around John, causing climax in the end with the realization that it is herself that she helped “escape” from behind the bar designs within the wall, “I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did?” (Gilman 656). With that being said, the author illiterates that the use of control on this woman not only drove her to madness but was produced by being in such
Advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men, Charlotte Perkins Gilman speaks to the “female condition” in her 1892 short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by writing about the life of a woman and what caused her to lose her sanity. The narrator goes crazy due partially to her prescribed role as a woman in 1892 being severely limited. One example is her being forbidden by her husband to “work” which includes working and writing. This restricts her from begin able to express how she truly feels. While she is forbidden to work her husband on the other hand is still able to do his job as a physician. This makes the narrator inferior to her husband and males in general. The narrator is unable to be who she wants, do what she wants, and say what she wants without her husband’s permission. This causes the narrator to feel trapped and have no way out, except through the yellow wallpaper in the bedroom.
In the final moments of this story, the woman’s husband returns to see her. She writes, “He stopped short by the door. ‘What is the matter?’ he cried. ‘For God’s sake, what are you doing!’ I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder. ‘I’ve got out at last,’ said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!’ Now why should that man have fainted, but he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!’” This final passage shows that, when this woman rebels, and “escapes the wallpaper”, it is not highly looked upon. The woman made a power statement, by telling her husband that she had, in essence, found a new role in life, and he can not push her back. When he can not handle her actions, she continues her new ways right over him.
John probably sees the house as a place of healing for his wife and a get-a-way for the time being while their house is remodeled. I'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the wall-paper. Perhaps because of the wall-paper. It dwells in the mind so! Here the narrator tells the reader her feelings for the room that she has been forced to live in, as it grows on her. At this point it becomes quite apparent, to the reader, that she is not getting any better. In later lines she talks of herself laying on the bed and trying to follow the lines to their destinations, wherever they might lead. He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me...."My darling," said he, "I beg of you, for my sake and for our child's sake, as well as for your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind! 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?" So of course I said no more on that score, and we went to sleep before long. Again, John is manipulating the narrator. In the second passage the narrator becomes comfortable with the room, now she likes the room enough and is curious enough to open up to her husband and tell him what she thinks she has been seeing. John becomes terrified of these ideas she has in her head and what she might believe to be real and not real. He begins to plead with her and tries to convince her that she must control all of her ambitions and act sanely. Later John is trying to manipulate the narrator with guilt. He is implying that she must think of herself as getting better, mind and body, for the sake of other people, rather than herself. The narrator is, however, doubting that she will ever recovery mentally. Although, John says her appearance has improved, she believes that she is not physically better.