The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - Essay Example

 The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Introduction and Thesis Statement The title of the story is fascinating in itself. It urges the reader to get hold of the book and get to know what it actually talks about. The title is very important in the context of the story. The author’s use of this particular title portrays the great talent and creative skills that she possesses and her amazing ability to visualize things in an abstract manner. The title of the story, The Yellow Wallpaper, is well suited to the ideas expressed by the author. The mystery is not only about the wallpaper, but also a story about a woman whose mental sickness makes her a prisoner in her own house. The author presents the life of the woman to be imprisoned or veiled under wallpaper that keeps changing colors but does not give her the chance to see the true colors of life. She escapes from her family as she is not allowed to do any sort of work, whether it is reading or writing, taking stress while thinking over something or doing housekeeping work as her husband is a doctor and he thinks she is in depression and needs to come out of that (Gilman 18). The caring nature of her husband forces a woman into a mental sickness, and this is an ironical situation presenting the main theme of the entire story. They move to a summer house in order to make her feel some change as her family believes that house will help her get better soon. In spite of being told not to write, she still does, as she thinks that rather than lying down alone most of the time, she would feel better when writing. All that she writes is about that “yellow wallpaper” which diverts all her attention in the room. She is kept in a “nursery” which is totally hates as all the walls in the room are covered with that horrible wallpaper (Gilman 32). Even if she tells her husband that she is afraid of the surroundings of that room, he would laugh at her. She would have got better through some kind of activity and excitement but she is confined to a dull life. The notes that she takes during her illness in that room are the focal point of this story. “Agony of mental imprisonment” The narrator’s husband thinks that she is sick while she keeps on telling him that she is not. He puts her in a nursery with yellow wallpaper surroundings instead of keeping her in a room where she would not be scared or bored. But John (narrator’s husband) thinks this is the best place for her to recover for the windows of the room overlook the garden and there’s a lot of fresh air and light in the room. The narrator’s irritation and sickness with that wallpaper grows day by day and she feels more ill, even worse than before. Her loneliness and boredom force her to concentrate on the wallpaper and draw characters out of it (Gilman 45). The wallpaper that was actually placed for the lighting up the environment actually serves to make the patient feel even sicker. During the daylight she can’t see or concentrate clearly on the wallpaper, but in moonlight she can feel and see some woman behind those patterns. This is very annoying to her, and now that she has noticed the woman, who is sneaking behind those weird patterns, she no longer feels alone most of the time. Not only the images that she sees behind that paper, but also a smell of that wallpaper is all around the house, irritating her even more. She feels that smell is with her wherever she goes and this does not make her feel better. Due to her increasing interest in that wallpaper mystery, her health appears to be improving to her husband and he was in no mood to take her away from there. Even the narrator decides that she would get to the end of this wallpaper mystery that she has been writing about all the time. The wife allows the wallpaper to take control of her mind and she literally starts imagining the characters there in the streets and everywhere she goes. She thinks that not only a woman has come out of that wallpaper, but actually, she herself has been set free too and that now both of them are free from prison which makes her think when she says: “…that not only her husband but her sister in law has also contributed to her imprisonment” (Gilman 60). The narrator and the woman who she saw crawling outside are always afraid of being caught by someone. All these episodes demonstrate the narrator’s mental instability. The reason of keeping her in this nursery is to keep her away from jumping out of her window out of despair and mental sickness. Analysis of the story The story is a great work of imaginative skills of the author, however, an irony of ideas is observed throughout the length of the story. The author initiates the narration and takes the reader to a point where the reader is almost convinced that a caring brother and husband mean a lot to a woman and her wellbeing. Furthermore, in the middle of the story, the author seems to have caught the wrong train and the scenario reverses completely in contrast to the expectations of the reader. The caring nature of husband and brother actually breaks it for the woman, the central character of the story. The husband and brother recognize the need for the lady to retreat in isolation and take her to the bed. This effort goes in vain as the things take a U-turn and the mental state of the woman goes from bad to worse. All of a sudden, the heroes in the story are transformed into foes. The mental sickness of the lady is described to be of a unique nature. The room, to which she is confined, has yellow wallpaper, and out of sickness she starts visualizing various characters and scenes in that wallpaper. Initially, she is scared of the wallpaper, but eventually, her illness grows and so does her imagination and she sees a woman inside the wallpaper that has been trapped in there and who also seeks freedom. The author is considered to be gender biased in most of her stories and The Yellow Wallpaper is one of her famous works which is still remembered by the reading public. This short story is based on her own experience of post-partum depression. She described her personal life in this story after giving birth to her baby, what depressions she went through and how she struggled to come out of them. Many people labeled the author a feminist supporter and even more people were confused about the title of the story and nobody could judge or give comments without reading it. Apart from discussing the truth of her life, the author has also kept suspense in the story. One cannot just quit reading it without getting to the conclusion. The story brings about a wonderful world of fantasy and imagination to the reader. The aesthetics used in the narration serve to develop a greater understanding of the underlying message and interest of the reader. The story is much deeper than its face value and the overall message and it takes the reader to a point where he is curious to know more about the nature of woman and her desires in real life. The Yellow Wallpaper is not confined to one particular woman and her view of the world and the scenarios that she is subjected to in her life. In actual fact this story could be the voice of women in general as perceived by the author herself. The irony that has been a showcase and hallmark of this story is the change in opinion and stance of the woman in her views and perceptions of various events in her life. The changes in her opinion of similar events tell a great deal about the chain of thought that the woman experiences and so do the changes in her definition of the events that she witnesses in everyday life. How the central character of the story visualizes the wallpaper and plays with her imagination is indeed a thought provoking aspect of this story which keeps the reader into the story until it reaches the end. Works Cited Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. New York: The Feminist Press at the City Univ. of New York, 1892. Print. Read More