The Yellow Wallpaper by Perkins Gilman - Essay Example

The "Yellow Wallpaper" by Perkins Gilman was first published in 1892. The short story depicts casualties of life faced by a woman and unveils problems of unequal treatment of female patients by male physicians. This short story is full of symbolism which forces readers to confront with and think over events depicted in the short story.In this story, "the yellow wallpaper" is both the surface and symbol. As the surface, it represents lunatic asylum where the main character is put. The surface becomes a prison for the protagonist limited her social life and physical activity.

Gilman gives detailed analysis of this setting. She describes it as: "The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others" (Gilman, n.d.). The surface is different as a human's inner world does.The yellow wallpaper is used as a symbol of depression and insanity. It uncovers inner state of the heroin and her psychological distress. Literary critics explain that the choice of "the yellow wallpaper" was not accidental, because many doctors of those times used yellow wallpapers as a treatment for neurasthenia.

Although, because social role of the wife is predetermined, Gilman underlines that she feels miserable and depressed. The narrator describes: "It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper!" (Gilman, n.d.). This symbolic meaning helps readers to grasp the idea at once shaping atmosphere of the story. Also, this symbol contemplates nature, both the natural world around the narrator and her own inner nature. She is depicted as sympathetic and compassionate, but fails inner strength essential for survival.

Personal feelings and experiences have a great influence on the narrator and her associations and allow to read the symbol. Gilman uses such important details as smell of the wallpaper and shades of color "the only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell" (Gilman, n.d.). Also, the story records the changes of the heroin nature and her desire to overcome male oppression and become free from social norms and prejudices. Also, specific detailed description of the wallpaper and feelings of the narrator forces readers to go beneath the surface and interpret this symbol.

These developments have put into question traditional assumptions about the unity and supposed homogeneity of the person. Color and settings shift away from traditional attachments to a system which is responsive to individual and societal needs. Probably, "insanity" is an indicator of what happens to people's thinking about themselves when they can no longer hold on to the old beliefs. The narrator seems to have approved of the burning of them, not on the ground that they made people go on crazy movements, but because they were idealistically poor.

The confrontation between social norms and desires of the main character becomes a symbol of imagination continually struggling and contrasted with crude reality. Besides, insanity helps Gilman to represents the eternal warfare between virtue and sin, good and evil. The yellow wallpaper creates the eternal inconsistency between the aspirations and the occupations of a human being and her dreams. Delashmit and Long comment: "The wife in "The Yellow Wallpaper" escapes by denying one self and merging with another--physically safe, but insane, at least for the moment, in her nursery-prison" 9Delashmit, Long, 1991, p. 32). The significance of the symbolic meaning of "the yellow wallpaper" becomes apparent when the wife describes that "It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper!

It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw--not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things" (Gilman, n.d.). This message sustains a special atmosphere in the story. It unveils contractions between old and new things, values and ideas. This means that the author is endorsing doubt and challenging the hero. It seems to