Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” explores how a loss of freedom affects one’s sanity. Through John’s treatment of the narrator and the narrator’s resulting thoughts and actions, the short story suggests that denying others their freedom is disastrous to their mental health. Ultimately, John contributes to this theme by assuming absolute control of the narrator’s life, which eventually drives her insane. The physical restrictions John places on his wife represent a prison. In order for her to have “perfect rest” over the summer (598 Gilman), he rents an estate that is “quite alone” (598) with “hedges and walls and gates that lock” (598). Despite her wanting a room downstairs, he places her in a top-floor room containing barred windows, “rings and things in the walls” (599), and a bed that is likely nailed down. These surroundings create an impression of a highly secure, isolated prison; and, just like in prison, the narrator cannot leave. John refuses when she asks him to let her move downstairs and to visit her cousins, and again when she begs him to let her leave the estate entirely. Moreover, he controls her daily schedule, which includes hour-long rests after every meal and absolutely no work. Consequently, the narrator is doomed to a sedentary life spent largely within the confines of her room. Her response to John’s physical restrictions suggests that they precipitate her descent into madness. She describes the torn, “smouldering unclean yellow” (599) wallpaper in her room as being “dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study” (599). She also says that she “never saw a worse paper in [her] life” (599) and that she “should hate it [hers... ... middle of paper ... ... she calls her husband “that man” (608), implying that she no longer recognizes him, and says that she “had to creep over him every time”, clearly not comprehending the absurdity of crawling repeatedly around the room and over her husband’s unconscious body. In the end, “The Yellow Wallpaper” examines the relationship between a loss of freedom and insanity. Specifically, the story uses John’s treatment of the narrator and the narrator’s subsequent reactions to demonstrate the evil that can occur when people deny others their freedom. John adds to this theme by exercising complete authority over the narrator’s life, thereby causing her descent into madness. Works Cited Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." 1892. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. 7th ed. Eds. Richard Bausch and R. V. Cassill. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006. 598-608.
...men have more authority and are better than woman and he dismissed all his wife’s fears, which led to her madness. The narrator eventually breaks from the chains that her husband had put on her, which shows how anyone can escape from entrapment. By tearing down the yellow wallpaper the narrator finds a kind of liberty and freedom from her submissive relationship with her husband. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a great story that demonstrates how a person needs stand up for him or herself to be free of what is holding them back from life.
This creeping about is certainly at odds with her husband's requests. It is irrational, in that she thinks she has escaped, when it is actually time to leave for good, and she has locked herself in. She defies his orders of bed rest, physically exhausting herself crawling about and pushing the bed and biting the bed and tearing the wall-paper. She overcomes her husband's forthright sensibility by acting so crazy that he cannot deny it, cannot make sense of it, cannot do anything but faint away, leaving her to crawl right over the top of him. She has escaped his oppression by going into her dementia and embracing it.
Ever since she has been entrapped in her room, the narrator’s vivid imagination has crafted fictional explanations for the presence of inconsistencies in the wallpaper. She explains them by saying “The front pattern does move! And no wonder! The woman behind shakes it” (Gilman 9). In the story, the narrator explains the woman mentioned creeps in and about the old house she and her husband reside in. Venturing towards the conclusion, the narrator becomes hysterical when thinking about the wallpaper, explaining to her husband’s sister Jennie how she would very much like to tear the wallpaper down. Jennie offers to do it herself, but the narrator is persistent in her desire-”But I am here, and nobody touches that paper but me-not ALIVE”(Gilman 10)! The narrator has realized the apex of her mental instability as the story
... John as “that man” symbolizing that by becoming Jeanie, the woman in the wall, she left her past life behind (Gilman 967).
Although the narrator feels desperate, John tells her that there is “no reason” for how she feels, she must dismiss those “silly fantasies”(166). In other words, John treats her like a child and gives her reason to doubt herself. “Of course it is only nervousness”(162). She decides. She tries to rest, to do as she is told, like a child, but suffers because John does not believe that she is ill. This makes her feel inadequate and unsure of her own sanity.
The wallpaper, the center of the story, the perceived reason for her madness, was simply just wallpaper that she disliked. Every time she would describe it, her delusions would continually get worse. "I never saw a worse paper in my life." (Gilman) is her first observation of the paper. She strongly believed that there was a woman, "A strange, provoking, formless sort of figure." (Gilman) behind that paper who was creeping outside and around her room. She strongly believed that she needed to help this woman be free of the wretched wallpaper. She strongly believed that the wallpaper had a "yellow smell" (Gilman). No one could possibly make her disbelieve for one second that the woman didn't move about and yearn to be free of the strangling pattern. She believes that she is the only person who understands and can get the woman out of her
...ow Wallpaper" and Henry Isben’s play A Doll's House both prove that independence is key in a woman’s life in order to feel free; yet social norms of the Victorian Age cause freedom to come at a high cost. Nora, the heroine in A Doll’s House, escapes from her husband’s confinement by leaving her family. While this seems revolutionary, Nora’s freedom will only cause confusion in her life. Had she not had her personal awakening on individualism, she would have remained happy with her family. In the “Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator achieves freedom through madness. The narrator thinks she is free when she goes mad, yet this is only a brief feeling, as she will most likely realize the publicity of her mental state will only increase the restrictions upon her. In both texts, the heroines break for freedom will only result in more confusion and confinement in their lives.
Her tense mind is then further pushed towards insanity by her husband, John. As one of the few characters in the story, John plays a pivotal role in the regression of the narrator’s mind. Again, the narrator uses the wallpaper to convey her emotions. Just as the shapes in the wallpaper become clearer to the narrator, in her mind, she is having the epiphany that John is in control of her.
The Yellow Wallpaper as a Guide To Insanity "There comes John, and I must put this away- he hates to have me write a word" (p659). As evident by the above quote, Gilman places the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" as secluded as she could be; she is placed in a large house, surrounded only by her husband and by little help (Jennie), when it is unfortunately clear that her relationship with her husband is based on distance and misunderstanding: "It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so"(p 663). Gilman further confines her narrator as it becomes clear that the poor soul has absolutely no one to talk to; that is, no one who can understand her. The narrator is cornered by her loved ones, she is isolated from the world under her husband-doctor orders, she is thus physically confined to her shaky mental realm. The next aspect of the narrator that zooms us into her state is her tone: "I really have discovered something at last..
In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, through expressive word choice and descriptions, allows the reader to grasp the concepts she portrays and understand the way her unnamed narrator feels as the character draws herself nearer and nearer to insanity. “The Yellow Wallpaper” begins with the narrator writing in a journal about the summer home she and her husband have rented while their home is being remodeled. In the second entry, she mentions their bedroom which contains the horrendous yellow wallpaper. After this, not one day goes by when she doesn’t write about the wallpaper. She talks about the twisting, never-ending pattern; the heads she can see hanging upside-down as if strangled by it; and most importantly the
The short story titled, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is given its name for no other reason than the disturbing yellow wallpaper that the narrator comes to hate so much; it also plays as a significant symbol in the story. The wallpaper itself can represent many various ideas and circumstances, and among them, the sense of feeling trapped, the impulse of creativity gone awry, and what was supposed to be a simple distraction transfigures into an unhealthy obsession. By examining the continuous references to the yellow wallpaper itself, one can begin to notice how their frequency develops the plot throughout the course of the story. As well as giving the reader an understanding as to why the wallpaper is a more adequate and appropriate symbol to represent the lady’s confinement and the deterioration of her mental and emotional health. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the color of the wallpaper symbolizes the internal and external conflicts of the narrator that reflect the expectations and treatment of the narrator, as well as represent the sense of being controlled in addition to the feeling of being trapped.
The narrator is trying to get better from her illness but her husband “He laughs at me so about this wallpaper” (515). He puts her down and her insecurities do not make it any better. She is treated like a child. John says to his wife “What is it little girl” (518)? Since he is taking care of her she must obey him “There comes John, and I must put this away, he hates to have me write a word”. The narrator thinks John is the reason why she cannot get better because he wants her to stay in a room instead of communicating with the world and working outside the house.
Signs of the depth of the narrator's mental illness are presented early in the story. The woman starts innocently enough with studying the patterns of the paper but soon starts to see grotesque images in it, "There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a...
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.
John prescribes rest for her and places her into a room which is covered in yellow wallpaper that she finds repulsive. One thing that is very important is how the room used to be a nursery. This is ironic because she is almost treated as a...