The Yellow Wallpaper by Feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman - Essay Example

?YourLast 1 THE YELLOW WALLPAPER ‘’The Yellow Wallpaper’’ a short story by feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman basically deals with the much talked about social issue, where women are considered inferior in front of men in all ways. The Yellow Wallpaper’s story deals with a woman who has neurosis, a mental illness due to the encounters with wallpaper in her room which she is not able to heal because of her husband, lack of believe in it. The story is mainly centered on yellow wallpaper and the woman’s obsessive interactions with it. Gillman tries to give a message of individual expression and does so successfully by recording the progression of the woman’s mental illness, through wallpaper’s state. The plot of this story is not based on her neurosis instead it gives out a completely unread message to the readers, a message by a feminist critic. In the story, it becomes really apparent that the narrator, which is the woman herself thinks very less of herself and makes herself inferior to men, specially her husband, John who is a physician himself. The only things which the husband allows the woman to do are to suppress her imagination, stay in bed and to stop writing though the woman likes writing and feels good when she writes but she doesn’t argue or say a word to him. "Personally I disagree with their ideas," she writes. "Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do?" (160). Her statement, ‘what is one to do?’ explains that, the woman does not have enough confidence to voice out he opinions as she feels her opinions are baseless and do not count at all. She thinks inferior of herself throughout the story. "I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and her I am a comparative burden already" (162). The issue here is that the woman does not have enough guts to speak up for herself which we can relate with the woman of today’s time as well who are constantly being oppressed by the men of our society and are not capable of voicing their opinion though they have it in themselves to speak up but they choose not to as they have a mindset of men being higher in authority than them. We can also compare this with the scenario of people’s uncalled visit to doctors even though they know what is right for them and what will make them feel better yet they need an advice from the doctor, because of their authority. Likewise, the woman in this story has enough guts to speak for herself, do what she wants but she is constantly being suppressed by her own personal insecurities, her brother and her husband. The woman describes the wallpaper as: “…dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide-plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions (161).” So her descriptions of the wallpaper lets the reader knows that she sees herself through the paper, which was the evolution of her illness. The description of the wallpaper by the woman very well portrays what her husband’s therapy is doing to her as well as what she feels about herself. When she describes the paper as being "dull enough to confuse the eye" and "constantly irritating and provoking study" adverts to her sense of inferiority and burden. The "lame uncertain curves" she talks about, referring to the lame suggestions which her husband John makes for her, and “suicide” is what she thinks will be her fate if she follows the given suggestions by her husband. The "unheard of contradictions" refer to the faults in John’s methods. She describes him by saying, "He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me" (165). Though he says this yet he doesn’t let his wife use her own mind or what she wants to do from her own will. As mentioned earlier, this woman felt really good while writing and considered it as "Such a relief" but because her husband told her to direct her imagination somewhere else she begins to fantasize about the wallpaper in her house which helped her a lot in her recovery. She imagines everything that could be imagined while looking at the paper like people, scenes, colorful artwork etc; the more she uses her mind to imagine and think the more confident she becomes. Initially, she notices a woman in the paper "stooping down and creeping about" (166) which scares her. She thinks about that woman hiding in the background of the wallpaper as person who fears in voicing her opinion with control. As she imagines more and more, she feels a building confidence in herself, something which she never had. The woman goes wild in her imagination, she started enjoying this. She looked and played with the wallpaper all day without thinking what anyone else would think about it, allowing herself to express her feelings. "Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it" (171). The woman now does what she wants to and destroys everything which limits her to do that stuff. Some might think that she had gone mad and mad and her illness had worsened but I feel that Charlotte Perkins Gilman intention was to show the woman celebrating her victory that she finally can speak what she wants to and do what she desires to."I've got out at last," she says to John, "in spite of you and Jane. And I've pushed off most of the paper so you can't put me back" (172). So in the end when John faints, it is now the woman who takes control of him instead of being dependant on him. We notice that Gilman who is a strong feminist does not reveal the name of the woman to the readers because she thoroughly believes that this is a story which can happen to any woman adding to the strength of Gilman’s feminist message. References Gilman, Charlotte P. The Yellow Wall Paper. Boston: Small, Maynard, 1899. Print. "But One Expects That": Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" and the Shifting Light of Scholarship,Julie Bates Dock, Daphne Ryan Allen, Jennifer Palais and Kristen Tracy, PMLA, Vol. 111, No. 1, Special Topic: The Status of Evidence (Jan., 1996), pp. 52-65, published by: Mordern Language. Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in "The Yellow Wallpaper" Paula A. Treichler, Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, Vol. 3, No. 1/2, Feminist Issues in Literary Scholarship (Spring - Autumn, 1984), pp. 61-77, Published by: University of Tulsa. Feminist Criticism, "The Yellow Wallpaper," and the Politics of Color in America, Susan S. Lanser, Feminist Studies, Vol. 15, No. 3, Feminist Reinterpretations/Reinterpretations of Feminism (Autumn, 1989), pp. 415-441, published by: Feminist Studies, Inc. Read More