"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Gilman does show male domination through male superiority within society and a woman's status is seen as being a child in society. The short story is a study of social degeneration into madness. The narrator sees herself increasingly depressed and indefinably ill. She is then sent away, along with her husband, to “recover” from her illness.
In Loralee MacPike’s journal Environment as Psychopathological Symbolism in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” she describes the narrators room as being her very own prison. With the room being a nursery at one time, it shows the status of the narrator in the story as being child-like. MacPike states a woman’s status in society as,
“The woman is legally a child; socially, economically,
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and philosophically she must be led by an adult- her husband; and therefore the nursery is an appropriate place to house her.” If the narrator gains her recognition in the adult world by having a job, it not only threatens to destroy her status but her husband’s as well.
Thus, the nursery is a perfect symbol of childlikeness vis-a-vis the adult world her husband wishes to enforce (MacPike).
The narrator’s room is furnished with “symbols of restraint” such as, the bed nailed down to the floor, a gate blocking the stairs, and rings in the walls. According to Jeremy MacFarlane’s journal “Enough to make a body riot”: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Chester Himes, and the Process of Socio-spatial Negotiation, all the things in the room normalize the “repression and self-denial” practice for women. And, of course, the yellow wallpaper reinforces a state of “grotesque, idiotic cheerfulness,” which is the key to a woman’s assent in the status quo (MacFarlane, 8-9).
While in the prison like room, the narrator’s husband first places the idea in her head she is in a mental state and needs to be sent away for a while to recover. After a while she does not want to be in the house any longer. When she states her desire to leave her husband’s responds by giving her “such a stern, reproachful look that [she] wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain.” The husband, John, refuses to let her make her own decisions. She is trapped by her husband in the prison of her room with nowhere to go (MacFarlane,
9). Gilman writes about male domination in her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” and researchers state that by showing how the husband, John, makes all the decisions for his wife. He takes his wife away so she can recover from her mental illness. He does not put her wishes in mind when caring for her. He closes her in a prison-like room with no way out.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “Woman Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros, and “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid are riveting short stories that focus on the roles of females in a world dominated by unmitigated male dominance. The Yellow Wallpaper is about a subservient woman who is sick and prescribed the rest cure by the will of her husband. She disregards her own physical and emotional wellness, allowing her husband full control of her actions and health until she eventually loses her sanity. Woman Hollering Creek focuses on a woman named Cleófilas who marries a man that later begins to inflict physical and mental harm upon her. However, She does not leave her relationship because she is stricken with love for him. Moreover,
Nevertheless, her attempts are futile as he dismisses her once more, putting his supposed medical opinion above his wife’s feelings. The story takes a shocking turn as she finally discerns what that figure is: a woman. As the story progresses, she believes the sole reason for her recovery is the wallpaper. She tells no one of this because she foresees they may be incredulous, so she again feels the need to repress her thoughts and feelings. On the last night of their stay, she is determined to free the woman trapped behind bars.
When first reading the gothic feminist tale, “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, one might assume this is a short story about a women trying to save her sanity while undergoing treatment for postpartum depression. Gilman herself had suffered post-natal depression and was encouraged to undergo the “rest cure” to cure her hysteria. The treatment prescribed to Gilman resulted in her having a very similar experience as the narrator in the short story. The “perfect rest” (648), which consisted of forced bed rest and isolation sparked the inspiration for “The Yellow Wallpaper.” This story involving an unreliable narrator, became an allegory for repression of women. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman illustrates the seclusion and oppression of women in the nineteenth century society by connecting the female imprisonment, social and mental state, and isolation to the objects in and around the room.
At the time Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” she was considered a prominent feminist writer. This piece of background information allows the readers to see Gilman’s views on women’s rights and roles in the 18th century; “The Yellow Wallpaper” suggests that women in the 18th century were suppressed into society’s marital gender roles. Gilman uses the setting and figurative language, such as symbolism, imagery, and metaphors to convey the theme across.
During this time period women did not encompass the same rights as their male counterparts, nor where they encouraged to participate in the same activities as they. Gillman describes the yellow wallpaper to the readers as a rationalization of what it means to be a woman during this time period. Women were expected to be child-like and fragile as noted, within the text, “What is it child(Gilman, 1998)?” The color yellow is often associated with sickness; in Gilman’s case her sudden illness refers to oppression. She notes as the story, progresses the wallpaper makes her feel sick. Gilman notes, “I never saw a worse paper in my life,” as a symbol in which refers to the restrictions and norms society places on women. Within her literature she addresses restrictions placed on women. Gilman states, “The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.” Meaning, she believed men denying women the right to equality was absurd, and when they did grant women’s freedom it was not equivalent rather a “slap in the face [it knocks] you down and tramples you (Gilman, 1998).” Through her essay she consistently refers to a figure behind the wallpaper. “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out (Gilman, 1998).” Meaning, women during this time period seek to feel free from oppression. The women behind the wallpaper represents the need to speak out, “you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow (Gilman,1998).” Creeping placed significance on the experience of being a woman in regards to, how they should think, feel, act, dress, and express themselves. Gilman notes, “And I 've pulled off most of the paper, so you can 't put me back! " The author used this quote to signify, the woman realized she was
In the 19th century, women were not seen in society as being an equal to men. Men were responsible for providing and taking care of the family while their wives stayed at home not allowed leaving without their husbands. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman writes about a woman named Jane who is trapped by society’s cage and tries to find herself. Throughout the story, the theme of self-discovery is developed through the symbols of the nursery, the journal and the wallpaper.
The bars on windows, bedstead nailed down, and a gate at the top of the stairs suggest an unsafe place. The narrator’s preference for living in the downstairs room is undermined by John’s control over her. Furthermore, John puts his wife into an environment with no communication, making her socially isolated. The protagonist is home alone most of the time while John is at work. She is not allowed to raise her own baby, and Jennie, John's sister, is occupied with her job.
The unnamed narrator finds herself trapped within a large room lined with yellow wallpaper and hidden away from all visitors by her husband-physician John. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a summer spent in the large ancestral hall to find healing through rest turns into the manic changes of her mind. The overbearing nature of her husband inspires a program designed to make her better; ironically, her mind takes a turn for the worse when she believes the wallpaper has come to life. In Janice Haney-Peritz’s “Monumental Feminism and Literature’s Ancestral House: Another Look at ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ ”, she tells that until 1973, Gilman’s story was not seen with a feminist outlook. “The Yellow Wallpaper” was misunderstood and unappreciated when it was published. The patriarchal attitudes of men in this era often left women feeling they had no voice and were trapped in their situations. Although originally interpreted as a horror of insanity, this initial perspective misses the broad, provocative feminist movement that Gilman supported. With the changes in perspective, over time this work has come to have a voice for women and the husband-wife relationship through the theme of feminism.
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.
Traditionally, men have held the power in society. Women have been treated as a second class of citizens with neither the legal rights nor the respect of their male counterparts. Culture has contributed to these gender roles by conditioning women to accept their subordinate status while encouraging young men to lead and control. Feminist criticism contends that literature either supports society’s patriarchal structure or provides social criticism in order to change this hierarchy. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts one women’s struggle against the traditional female role into which society attempts to force her and the societal reaction to this act.
For decades now critics have viewed, Gilman’s novella, “The Yellow Wallpaper” mainly in a feminist way, focusing on the way women acted and how they were treated in the 1800s. Although there are good points to the feminist criticism, one could go more in depth by psychoanalyzing it because feminism fit more into the 1800s when women did not have the roles they have today, by looking at the psychoanalytic effect the restrictions had on her, and observing the effects the room had on her.
This ‘insane’ act serves only to show how lost the narrator’s mind is. The narrator also reveals that she has a rope that she will use “if that woman does get out, and tries to get away, I can tie her” (236). The woman is a symbol of the narrator’s pre-nervous disorder personality. She essentially uses the statement to say that if the woman she once was escaping, she will hang herself. Finally, the story reaches its climax, in which John and the narrator have a final standoff in the now wall paperless bedroom (237).
In the 19th century society was from different from what it is today. Women were not in the workforce, could not vote, or even have a say in anything. Women were not permitted to give evidence in court, nor, did they have the right to speak in public before an audience. When a woman married, her husband legally owned all she had (including her earnings, her clothes and jewelry, and her children). If he died, she was entitled to only a third of her husband’s estate. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wanted to change this. She wanted people to understand the plight of women in the 19th century. In her short story The Yellow Wallpaper she tries to convey this to the reader not just on a literal level, but through various symbols in the story. In The Yellow Wallpaper the author uses symbols to show restrictions on women, lack of public interaction, the struggle for equality, and the possibilities of the female sex during the 1800s.
The roles in which gender is the main factor has been fought over but the fact of the matter is that it is still being fought over today. Not only is a gender role an old disagreement, but it is also the hidden symbolic meaning behind Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. In her short story published in 1899, author Charlotte Perkins Gilman effectively use symbolic patterns to comment on how societal oppressions create insanity.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was originally read and interpreted as a horror story but from the authors perspective, it was an accurate representation of the troubles most women of her time period went through. It's also considered the The text is most commonly viewed from a feminist and a psychoanalytical perspective which brings to light the apparent symbolism within the story as well as digging beneath the wallpaper and understanding the purpose behind the story.