Individualism In The Yellow Wallpaper

The Unravelling of an Unstable Mind In Charlotte Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, she portrays the true importance of individualism in desperate times of need. In the story, Gilman depicts the unraveling of an unstable woman battling what could be postpartum depression. The narrator and her husband John, who also happens to be her physician, move into a rental home for the summer so that she is able to rest and recover. Shortly, she finds herself frequently examining the pattern of a hideous yellow wallpaper that resides in her room. What begins as a curious observation, soon leads to a frightening obsession of the wallpaper. The narrator’s growing fascination of the wallpaper is symbolic because, it portrays how she is slowly

On one occasion she shares, “There are things in that wallpaper that nobody knows but me, or ever will” (475). She has become so fixated on the wallpaper, that it has caused her to constantly lie in bed all day, giving into her disconnection from reality. Gilman’s intention of this statement, was perhaps, to help show how nobody will ever know what’s going on in the narrator’s head, but herself. Later she explains, “Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit. I wonder—I begin to think—I wish John would take me away from here!” (476). Here, Gilman exposes that the narrator is anxious to confront her condition because, she knows she is not well. She also, acknowledges that John neglects her wish to leave the house. The narrator also describes how, “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out” (476). This means, that the narrator does want to recover and overcome her depression, but her inability to do so is rendered when she slips into this fantasy world; in which, she sees a trapped “woman” behind the wallpaper’s top pattern, which she describes resembles bars. This “woman” trapped within the wallpaper is a symbolic form of her dilemma, therefore, we can

Prior to this, she expresses, “I’m feeling ever so much better! I don’t sleep much at night, for it is so interesting to watch developments” (478). This statement conveys, that she has lost her senses from the outside world and lives completely in her own imagination. She has become so obsessive of the wallpaper now, that she does not want anybody else touching it. She too, does not want John to find out about her obsession because she’s afraid he’ll take her away at once; she does not wish to leave until she has figured out the pattern. On the last day of her stay, once she has ripped off as much wallpaper as she can, she admits, “I don’t like to look out of the windows even—there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of the wallpaper as I did” (482). Here, Gilman uncovers, that “the woman” and the narrator are in fact the same woman. The narrator identifies that she is the trapped woman. The “woman” she had envisioned trapped behind the wallpaper, was her all along trying to escape from depression. During the last event of the story, she says, “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!’” (482). She has freed herself at