the yellow wallpaper

Charlotte perkins gilman

the yellow wallpaper

Mencey González Armas // Género e identidad

Narrative of a woman’s emotional journey towards madness.

1892

Short Story

Gothic tale

Introduction

Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it. Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?

Narration

Writing as a relief

There comes John, and I must put this away,—he hates to have me write a word.

I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me.

Secret diary

The "rest cure"

So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again.

Intellectual activity: forbidden

Confined in the home sphere

It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous.

Isolated and alienated

Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do?

Post-partum depression

John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.

Polarization: men vs. women

Men: reason, science.

If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?

Women: irrationality, emotions

John is a physician, and perhaps — (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this dead paper and a great relief to my mind —) perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.

Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so?

The narrator as a woman

Infantilization of the woman

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage

I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already!

The Cult of True Womanhood

What is it, little girl?” he said. “Don’t go walking about like that—you’ll get cold. I thought it was a good time to talk, so I told him that I really was not gaining here, and that I wished he would take me away. “Why darling!” said he, “our lease will be up in three weeks, and I can’t see how to leave before. “The repairs are not done at home, and I cannot possibly leave town just now. Of course if you were in any danger I could and would, but you really are better, dear, whether you can see it or not. I am a doctor, dear, and I know. You are gaining flesh and color, your appetite is better. I feel really much easier about you.

Submission

The wallpaper

Then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed, which is all we found in the room, looks as if it had been through the wars.

Depression -> repression -> obsession

The whole thing goes horizontally, too, at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction.

Literal prison

I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper. It dwells in my mind so!

The wallpaper mirrors her mental state

The woman behind the wallpaper

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!

The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out. I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move, and when I came back John was awake.

Patriarchy = wallpaper

The front pattern does move—and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over. Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard. And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern—it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads.

Doppelganger ghostly double

I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard!

As soon as it was moonlight, and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her. I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.

Ending of the story

It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please!

Victory or defeat?

I’ve got out at last,” said I, “in spite of you and Jennie! And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!

The Yellow wallpaper is a symbolic representation of all the cages, prisons and barriers women have found in society

Conclusion

This is not a story about a woman who becomes mad. But, instead, it is a story about a woman who is driven mad by metaphorical and literal cages.

the end