Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, chronicles a woman’s steady descent into madness while on a recuperative holiday with her family. The story is told in the first person from the perspective of the woman as she writes down her thoughts. The story provides clues that reveal to the reader the progression of the narrator’s instability. Two continuing themes we found important to the story are powerlessness and ignorance, both of which contribute to the eventual breakdown of the narrator’s sanity. Because nearly every aspect of the narrator’s life is controlled and the severity of her illness is not acknowledged she begins to loose touch with herself and projects her feelings onto the wallpaper in the form of the woman she believes is trapped behind it.
From the very first page the reader can sense that the narrator has very limited control over her situation. Her husband, John, makes most of her decisions for her. She writes on page 298, “ he hardly lets me stir without special direction”. Even her movements were restricted and when John finds her up in the middle of the night he says, “What is it, little girl? …Don’t go walking about like that- you’ll get cold.”(P. 303). He does not even approve of her writing because he thinks it exacerbates her “nervous condition” and she says, “There comes John, and I must put this away”(p. 298). The boundaries he puts on her force her to internalize her feelings and cause her mind to weaken. The narrator’s sense of powerlessness can also be sensed in the fact that she leaves herself nameless. A name is a person’s ultimate sense of identity and it is obvious that the narrator has lost her own.
Her surroundings also allude to her powerlessness. The way she describes the house makes it appear extremely isolating: “It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village…there are hedges and walls and gates that lock”(p. 297). The house seems like another way to keep her under control and can even be seen as a manifestation of her feelings of restraint and separation. One of the features of the room her husband has chosen for them are the barred windows which are describes on page 298. This is an allusion to prison and further supports the idea that she is restricted.
The severity of her illness is also never acknowledged until the end of the story. Early on she explains to the reader that her husband does not believe that she is really sick because he can see no physical symptoms: “John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is not reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.”(P. 299). She expresses her helplessness in trying to get him to understand: “That is “He does not believe I am sick! And what can one do?” (P. 297). When the narrator decides to tell her husband that she is not progressing in the house he insists otherwise: “I told him that I really was not gaining here, and that I wished he would take me away… ‘I am a doctor, dear, and I know. You are gaining flesh and color, your appetite is better, and I feel really much easier about you.” (P. 303). Then she replies, pleading for him to understand, and is once again dismissed: “Better in body perhaps-“ I began, and stopped short, for he sat up straight and looked at me with such a stern, reproachful look that I could not say another word… He said, “I beg you…that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind! ...Can you trust me as a physician when I tell you so?” (P. 303). He believes she has a “nervous condition”. It’s a possibility that the narrator was experiencing a version of postpartum depression. She says she cannot be around her baby because he makes her nervous and she hardly even references him in the story. Whatever her “nervous condition” is, it eventually progresses into something disconcerting.
The narrator’s evolution towards insanity becomes evident when she begins to restrict what she tells her husband and starts to completely internalize her feelings. She says, “I don’t (cry) when John is here, or anybody else” (P. 301). She forces herself to limit her display of feelings to when she is alone because she is afraid of being reproached. The exhaustive process of hiding her thoughts begin to take their toll and she writes, “if I feel so I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself- before him, at least, and that makes me very tired.” (P. 298). This is what causes her to eventually break, but never understand that she has broken. Even at the very end of the story she is unaware that what she has gone insane and continues to circle the floor in an attempt to free the woman in the wallpaper.
Joseph and Trapper
I agree with your analysis. I feel that the narrator's condition was totally ignored in regards to what care she really needed. It is easy for John and everyone else if she stays shut up in the room all day and night so they do not have to deal with her. That--and extreme boredom--causes the narrator to go completely insane.
ReplyDeleteIf you read the section "Why I Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper'", you see that Gilman is trying to make a critique of the rest cure given to women with supposed nervous conditions. Gilman herself was under this treatment until it nearly drove her to insanity. After Gilman began writing again, she noticed her health improved dramatically. If the narrator was able to continue her writing, she probably would have found a healthy outlet for her emotions, just like Gilman did.
Great analysis y'all! I definately agree that powerlessness is one of the main themes in this story. I think the narrator feels extremely helpless right off the bat. She says on page 297, "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?" I think she is nervous-depressed because she lacks excitement and change from her everyday routine due to the restraint her husband puts on her life. So, she has to make up the woman in the wallpaper in order to stimulate her mind. This ultmiately drives her into insanity, while her husband has been standing by ignorant to her condition the entire time.
ReplyDeleteI agree!
ReplyDeleteI think the biggest influence that leads to her insanity is the husband, John. He dominates her and make every decision for her. He talks to her like a child, which results in her childish actions at the end of the story. She crawls and creeps around the room and mutters to herself. She diminished herself to what her husband treated her like. John's attempt to confine her is such an environment backfired. Her only way of overcoming John was to be pushed to the edge of sanity.
I also think the woman in the wallpaper was representing the narrator. She saw herself as a trapped woman inside the old nursery and created this image of a trapped woman behind bars in the paper. The nursery had bars on the window so this was a connection. Her goal was to free the woman in the wallpaper but all along she was trying to free herself.
I, too, agree with your analysis!
ReplyDeleteI did not understand why John would not allow her to think about her condition, let alone talk about it. He said it was the worst thing she could do (297). I would think that ignorance would be one of the worst things for someone in her condition.
He would also tell her that nothing was wrong with her and all she needed was air, exercise, and journeys. That does not really seem like a good solution to her condition and in the end seems to be what leads to her insanity. Her husband just helps her along to this final downfall by ignoring that she is even sick and not letting her think about it.
I loved your analysis. I think you captured the theme of the story perfectly. I agree with your assumption that she was suffering from Postpartum depression and I also think it is significant to note that maybe she feels useless and incompetent as far as a woman's roles go. John has Mary, who takes care of the baby and Jennie who "seems to do everything now." (p. 300). I am not sure how exactly it would tie in, but it seems to be a reoccurring thing.
ReplyDeleteThe thing I found most interesting was the significance of the wall paper that mirrors her increasing insanity and her situation in the house -they both are trapped.
Great job!
Great analysis!
ReplyDeleteTHis story was very similar to the other stories we have read that show a women that feels repressed in her marriage, or "role" in the marriage at least. The narrator submerges herself in wallpaper for Christ's sake... and luckily rescues herself when she unlocks the inner workings (or mis-workings) of her mind. The resting cure utilized in the story was an actual practice used in the 19th century and the author of this story "escaped" from insanity when she rebelled against the treatment and began to write. This leads me to believe that our author wants the reader to understand the importance of self-expression, outside of the mind.
One last thing, do you guys think that the "Jane" at the end of the story is the narrator? Just curious...
Fran
I just wanted to add more thoughts to the theme of isolation.
ReplyDeleteThe narrator is isolated in every aspect of her life. She is unable to talk to anyone about her feelings or condition, she is trapped in this house that haunts her, her husband refuses to listen to her, she is unable to care for her child, and she cannot write nor do any type of work. This isolation leads to repressed feelings which are shown later in the story when she believes there is a woman behind the wallpaper that is unable to get out. This woman in fact, symbolizes herself and these feelings she has trapped within.