Literature Response to The Yellow Wall Paper - Essay Example

The writer does manage to contrive and wrought the literary devices at one’s disposal, to create the appropriate ambience, atmosphere and mood that accompanies the mental state of the central character. The one theme that is time and again highlighted in the story is the traditional concept of womanhood, which stresses on treating woman as gentle creatures with very little capacity and ability for cerebral activity and analysis, meant to be kept content with a child like caring attitude and nurturing.

Though introduced into the story in the form of noticeable interludes amidst the isolated meditations of her wife, the character of John tends to represent an entire attitude and approach towards women. The approach of John towards his wife suffering from some mental ailment is formally solemnized and institutionalized by presenting him as a doctor. Just because John is a doctor, it gets difficult for the reader to see through the shallowness and hollowness of his suggestions to his wife, till they are systematically unraveled by the end of the story.

John’s repressions of the essential feminine instincts and feelings of his wife get amply conveyed in the suggestion that “… John says 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 (Gilman 1).” Though superficially presented as being scientific, gentle, patient and caring, the fact is that John is totally callous of the actual emotional aspirations and sufferings of his wife. He is totally oblivious to and uncaring of her agony.

“John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him (Gilman 2).” The repression tearing the consciousness of the wife soon starts to invade the outer environment and the way she perceives it. The colonial mansion in which the couple comes to seek rest for the wound up nerves of the wife evolves into a symbol of rotten and festering past order, which continually impinges upon her desire for space and freedom. The evanescent unease of the wife with this past is amply expressed by her confession that “… - there is something strange about the house- I can feel it (Gilman 1).

” This association of the all pervading repression with the surroundings culminates into the wife’s eventual obsession with the yellow wallpaper in the nursery, which continues throughout the story, till she finally tears down the wallpaper in the climax. She actually begs his husband to change the wallpaper, but “he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a mental patient than to give way to such fancies (Gilman 2).” Practically unable to get rid of the repressive patriarchal mentality symbolized by the yellow wall paper, she begins to look out for some meaning and pattern out of that wallpaper, till this effort grows into a perpetual obsession.

Ironically, the meaning that she succeeds in distilling is “The front pattern does move- and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it (Gilman 7).” Her association with the woman caged behind the pattern continues to grow till the two become a single, potent force, actually collaborating to tear down that pattern. However, the climax fails to