The Importance Of Captivity In Charlotte Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

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It is not always easy to see the ties that bind us. Many people feel they are restrained some way in their everyday life. Their job, their families, the society around them, all of this holds them back. It is up to the individual to decide how to break out of their captivity. In Charlotte Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, Jane’s captivity is both physical and mental, and her struggle to break this physical captivity only reinforces her mental captivity. Her inability to recognize both of these causes her only to fall further into captivity, as her mental stability fractures. Stockholm syndrome, as defined by the FBI, is “a psychological response of a hostage or an individual” (De Fabrique, et al. 11) where the victim will “[wind] up emotionally …show more content…

Her room that is meant for resting a weary mind is maintained like a jail with “barred windows, [a] gate at the head of the stairs” (Gilman 649), and a “great immovable bed... nailed down, I believe” (Gilman 650). It provides her no rest, as she sees horrible patterns in the wallpaper. Even looking into the expansive yard supplies no freedom, as the property is surrounded by “hedges and walls and gates that lock” (Gilman 648). She fully rejects this captivity when she embraces her mental captivity, she locks the door from the inside and throws away the key. She fully encompasses her captivity, and by doing so, escapes it. All along it was she that was trapped inside, and now it is John that is trapped outside. The role reversal completes when John does get into the room, as he faints at what he sees, a traditionally feminine reaction, while Jane stays strong. However, he does still physically block her, as he falls “right across [her] path by the wall, so that [she] had to creep over him every time” (Gilman 656) she wanted to enter or exit the wall. In the end, Jane is free to roam as she pleases, and her physical captivity is …show more content…

As her physical captivity grows and weighs on her more and more, her mental stability decreases, and she gets confined to a fantastical illusion. She wants to rescue the woman behind the wallpaper, but does not recognize the wallpaper might as well be a mirror. As her physical and mental containment grow, she also begins to develop stockholm syndrome. The room is her captor. Jane fails to recognize the unreality of her illusion, and because of this she falls to

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