Gender in the Gilbert Text

The gender binary portrayed in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman assesses society’s lack of respect for women with mental illness and their subsequent isolation, concluding that the binary hinders a woman’s recovery. In the story, Perkins creates a situation where in order for Jane, a woman with post-partum depression, to overcome her illness she must first utilize her insanity to eradicate the restrictive, inhibitive social expectations placed on her. Only then can Jane retake control of herself and demand the treatment she knows is necessary. The story is told in the present tense and the narrator speaks in first person, creating a sense of intimacy between the narrator and the reader. Perkins capitalises on this intimacy, highlighting the narrator’s normality and later juxtaposing it with her insanity at the very end of the story, in order to demonstrate the extreme measures Jane takes to treat her own mental illness. Dispersed through the text, Perkins leaves hints about Jane’s condition and her transformation into the creeping woman. The first example of this is when the narrator calls her husband a “young man,” addressing him from the perspective of the creeping woman, to whom John is a stranger. By calling him “young” the creeping woman suggests that she is wiser than him as well as older. Although this change in perspective is slight and hardly noticeable, it foreshadows Jane’s future transformation.

The creeping woman is Jane’s mental illness personified, and it affects Jane’s behaviour by making her more assertive. Although she does not speak to John, she wants to tell him that he “can’t open [the door]” and “it’s no use,” both of which are uncharacteristic of Jane’s passive nature. The absur...

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... is the second doubling in this section and adds to the story’s gothic nature. In the final line, John faints and the creeping woman continues to ignore him, creeping around the room and walking over him. She complains about “[having] to creep over him every time.” “Every time” not only references the narrator’s annoyance, but allows the reader to made an educated guess about what happens after the story ends: the creeping woman continues creeping, and John is no longer in control of her. John’s fainting is his final act in the story, and the femininity of the action finalises the short story’s claim that the gender bias must be destroyed in order for mentally ill women to receive the treatment they require. Even though Jane’s condition is worse than it was at the beginning of the story, she is now able to help herself get better instead of relying on others.