How Does The Yellow Wallpaper Cause Distress

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The Writing on the Wallpaper
There are few things less distressing than the inability to express yourself, especially if you believe you are withholding something very important. This is a realization we arrive to quickly while reading “The Yellow Wallpaper”, a short story written by Charlotte Gilman. Published in 1892, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is one of Gilman’s most famous works and it established Gilman as a feminist and a reformer. After being diagnosed in 1887 with postnatal depression, a condition we come to find is shared by the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman was instructed by her physician to never write again and to seek a domestic life. Already in disagreement with traditional Victorian gender roles, Gilman disregarded this …show more content…

The main characters in this short story are the unnamed narrator, John, our narrator’s husband and physician, and John’s sister Jennie, who is the couple’s housekeeper. The story begins as the couple travels to a colonial mansion in the countryside for a summer vacation, along with their baby, the baby’s caretaker Mary, and Jennie. After being diagnosed by John with anxiety and depression, though making it clear he does not believe she is really ill, our narrator is prescribed a get-well regimen that includes a great deal of rest; her schedule is laid out for her by the hour. Though admitting she could be more grateful for her husband’s concern for her, our narrator reveals she disagrees with these methods, and that what she would really like to do is write and work. Nevertheless, she spends most of her time alone in the room John selected, a room that had previously been a nursery, resting as she is instructed to do. However, she still continues to write. While in this room, she spends a great deal of time describing the wallpaper. Our narrator states, “I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling, flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.”(Gilman 590) She continues to describe the paper by writing, “The color is repellent, almost revolting: a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded …show more content…

Though she acknowledges her husband’s affection towards her, and we come to believe John truly is well-intentioned, we can pick up on our narrator’s growing frustration in not having her wishes respected. Being both her husband and her physician, it is clear that John has the final say in things, which seems to make the protagonist’s depression and anxiety only intensify. As she informs us of how well Jennie takes care of her and the house, and how well Mary cares for the baby, it becomes clear she does not hold the same principles as they do. While she admires their dutifulness, our narrator longs for excitement and expression, things it seems Jennie and Mary give very little thought to, if any at all. It seems strange to our narrator to think that they could be content with such a life, but she bears this as a reflection on herself for not confining to the role society has for her, not as a reflection on women such as Jennie and Mary. As she lies in bed unable to sleep at night, she studies the wallpaper. She begins to develop an obsession with it, as she studies it to find some sort of organization, symmetry, or order for it being the way that it is.

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