The Yellow Wallpaper - Literature review Example

 Exploration of Symbol and Character Development in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper” Name Date ‘'The Yellow Wallpaper'’ is a short story written by the prolific author Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892 and then was forgotten. Fifty years later Gilman and her works were rediscovered and this particular short story has become a quintessential piece of 1800s feminist literature. Married women during this time were “'freed' from the necessity of contributing to society outside the home, presumably because marriage befit her for motherhood and motherhood required all of her energies."(O'Donnell). This short story was based on Gilman’s real life experience with depression and the “rest” treatment. 'The Yellow Wallpaper' was not only an intimate autobiographical work but one of the few instances where in text, a real life 19th century woman spoke out. A major theme in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is the medical mistreatment of women which plagued the 1900s which is explored by Gilman's use of symbolism and character development. ‘'The Yellow Wallpaper'’ is a short story written by the prolific author Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892 and then was forgotten. Fifty years later Gilman and her works were rediscovered and this particular short story has become a quintessential piece of 1800s feminist literature. Married women during this time were “'freed' from the necessity of contributing to society outside the home, presumably because marriage befit her for motherhood and motherhood required all of her energies."(O'Donnell). On the surface it was the story of a woman who has a child and suffered from depression. Her husband, who is also her doctor, prescribed the “The Mitchell Treatment”. This was a standard treatment for all mental disorders during this time which consisted of isolation and rest. The woman, the main character, was placed in an attic for a month of recovery. Her only companion was the peeling yellow wallpaper. Slowly the unnamed narrator slipped into deep depressive psychosis. It is not until she shirked off the treatment and the invisible societal chains that she becomes well again. "'The Yellow Wallpaper,' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman ... present image[s] of women imprisoned within a labyrinthine underworld that represents the threat of madness; and in each case the myths become metaphors for poesis, hermeneusis, and psychogenesis.” (Smith 227). This short story was based on Gilman’s real life experience with depression and the “rest” treatment. 'The Yellow Wallpaper' was not only an intimate autobiographical work but one of the few instances where in text, a real life 19th century woman spoke out. A major theme explored in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is the mistreatment of women which plagued the 1900s which are developed by symbolism and character development of the narrator. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is clearly depressed and in need of medical attention but is offered mistreatment instead of help. Many critics believe that the narrator is suffering from postpartum depression after having her child. "The apparently stable figure of the invalid woman in turn-of-thecentury women's fictions is related specifically to issues of women's power through and over illness."(Herndl 113). Her depression is accompanied by lack of sleep and appetite. The narrator in 'The Yellow Wallpaper' complained of sleeplessness. She even explains how she pretended to sleep so that her husband will not find out. Her husband states “"But now let's improve the shining hours by going to sleep, and talk about it in the morning!"" (Gilman 24). The narrator pondered and explained "we went to sleep before long. He thought I was asleep first, but I wasn't, and lay there for hours trying to decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or separately." (Gilman 25). The husband in 'The Yellow Wallpaper' commented "nor as much; and my appetite may be better in the evening when you are here, but it is worse in the morning when you are away!""(Gilman 24). Depression, during the 19th century, was seen as a “woman's disease” and was attributed to the weak nature of women. Women suffering from the disorder, like the narrator, were often “prescribed” rest and isolation. In reality, rest and isolation, increased the problem associated with depression and enhanced the depressive state. Gilman actively asserts through her use of symbolism and the mental deterioration of the narration that women, at the turn of the century, suffering from mental illness were mistreated. Her husband, who is also her doctor, prescribed the “The Mitchell Treatment”. This was a standard treatment for all mental disorders during this time which consisted of isolation and rest. The woman, the main character, was placed in an attic for a month of recovery. Her only companion was the peeling yellow wallpaper. Slowly the unnamed narrator slipped into deep depressive psychosis. It is not until she shirked off the treatment and the invisible societal chains that she becomes well again. "'The Yellow Wallpaper,' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman ... present image[s] of women imprisoned within a labyrinthine underworld that represents the threat of madness; and in each case the myths become metaphors for poesis, hermeneusis, and psychogenesis.” (Smith 227). Throughout her tale, the narrator's expressed concern about her own child often seems perfunctory, if not disingenuous. Although she claims that she thinks it "lucky that John kept" her in the room with the "horrid wallpaper" since she can "stand it so much easier than a baby"(Hume) John, her husband, a "wise" man of medicine, inflicts a loutish and gender-biased "cure" on her--and this tale, as Gilman claims, exposes such boorish barbarism. However, Gilman's mad narrator unveils not only the ills of the rest cure treatment and a repressive domestic culture filled with Johns and Jennies, but also her hatred for a domestic (and maternal) role she has no desire to assume. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" not only rejects, as Gilman intended, the gender-biased rest cure of the nineteenth-century, but also indicts, less successfully, gender-biased definitions of mental illness. Despite her triumphant unmasking of medical (predominantly male) gender bias in this tale, Gilman's narrator falls apart so completely in the end that she tends, unfortunately, to reinforce the common nineteenth-century gender stereotype of the emotionally and physically frail nineteenth-century woman. A major symbol in 'The Yellow Wallpaper' is the wallpaper itself. "Yellow wallpaper was a familiar character in realist fiction and was often found to be distasteful." (Roth). The narrator is annoyed and eventually repulsed by her only companion, the yellow patterned wallpaper. The evolution of what the wallpaper symbolized and parallels the mental state of the narrator. When the narrator first settled down to her month's worth of rest in the attic of her house, it is the wall paper she hated most. It was old, tattered, and a dirty yellow color. She commented that the worse part of the wallpaper was the dull pattern. She pondered about the wallpaper : It is 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. The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight (Gilman 24). The pattern became the focus of much of the narrator's time. She attempted on many occasions to figure out what the pattern was with no success. "She is mad, of course, by this time, reduced to a paranoid schizophrenic who writes, "I've got out at last ... in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!" (36)."(Bak). After several days of trying she began to see a sub pattern which can only be seen at certain parts of the day depending on the amount of light being filtered through the windows. She decided that the sub pattern is that of a woman who is creeping along the floor on her knees, not even being able to stand and “There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down” (Gilman 25). This woman was imprisoned by the main pattern and wished only to escape her cage. The main pattern became clear to the narrator. She believed the main pattern were heads of those women who attempted to escape but were caught between the bars. It was clear that as the month passed the mental state of the narrator became increasingly unstable. The wallpaper and it's pattern also represented the societal chains (treatment, family, and marriage) which have imprisoned her for so long. The yellow wallpaper has become synonymous with the domestic bars which trapped women in their inferior roles as wives and mother in the 1800s. The narrator's perceptions in "Through This" indirectly raise questions about the narrator in "The Yellow Wall-Paper." Is this the same narrator, and is she still mad or isn't she? "The very first sentence constructs the narrator in class terms, imagining an America in which, through democratic self-advancement, common (British) Americans can enjoy upper-class (British) privileges. "(Hesse-Biber, Gilmartin, and Lydenberg 204) .She is perhaps "healthy" by conventional nineteenth-century gender standards, but the dashes, the abrupt paragraphs, the uneasy fusion between the natural world outside and domestic sphere inside suggest that she is neither healthy nor happy. With a whining insistence, this narrator reveals that she, like the narrator of "The Yellow Wall-Paper," feels trapped in a tiresome daily cycle of uneventful sunrises and sunsets that she barely notices. This "natural" cycle is very much like the one her own "Mother" went through-her "Mother" who evidently now lives with her, looks "real tired," has no outside interests, and "needs rest" because she "brought up one family" ( 71). How long this narrator can be the artificial yellow "sunshine" for her family or how close she is in spirit and type to the narrator of "The Yellow Wall-Paper" is a question that Gilman raises. The theme of this story is the mistreatment of the narrator's depression combined with the societal pressure on women to exist only for their husband and children. To fully explore this theme Gilman uses both symbolism and careful character development. The main symbol found in this story is that of the decaying yellow wallpaper that is in the attic where the narrator is sent for isolation. It's decay parallels the decay of the narrator. IIn addition, Gilman details this decline and explores the inner workings of the narrator through the character development leading up to the narrator's decision that she did want to live. Works Cited Bak, John S. "Escaping the Jaundiced Eye: Foucauldian Panopticism in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper."." Studies in Short Fiction 31.1 (1994): 39+. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wall-Paper. Revised ed. New York: Feminist Press, 1996. Herndl, Diane Price. Invalid Women: Figuring Feminine Illness in American Fiction and Culture, 1840-1940. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. . Hesse-Biber, Sharlene, Christina Gilmartin, and Robin Lydenberg, eds. Feminist Approaches to Theory and Methodology: An Interdisciplinary Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Hume, Beverly A. "Managing Madness in Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper"." Studies in American Fiction 30.1 (2002): 3+. O'Donnell, Margaret G. "A Reply to "Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Reassessing Her Significance for Feminism and Social Economics." Review of Social Economy 54.3 (1996): 337+. Roth, Marty. "Gilman's Arabesque Wallpaper." Mosaic (Winnipeg) 34.4 (2001): 145+. Smith, Lansing Evans. "Myths of Poesis, Hermeneusis, and Psychogenesis: Hoffmann, Tagore, and Gilman." Studies in Short Fiction 34.2 (1997): 227. Read More