Kamara Bellis Buckner English 1301 25 JUN 09 The Victorian Woman’s Insane Treatment in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” During the Victorian era, woman were to be dependant and obedient of their husbands. They were not allowed to pursue careers or interests. Gilman, being a woman of this time experienced this oppression first hand. She had been diagnosed with a nervous condition and was ordered to bed rest after the birth of her child. This ill-fated treatment prescribed by her physician Weir Mitchell, whom she referenced in her story, drove her to the brink of insanity.
Wallpaper Symbolizing Jane’s Insanity In the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman, the wallpaper causes and symbolizes Jane’s imprisonment which eventually causes her decent into insanity. Gilman shows this through the patterns and colors in the wallpaper itself, through the woman that she believes is stuck in the wallpaper, and when then wallpaper is finally taken down. As Jane continues to study the wallpaper, the different aspects that she discovers contribute to her eventual madness. The physical appearance of the wallpaper is directly symbolic of Jane’s situation. The yellowish color is affiliated with the weakness, and the powerlessness that she is feeling.
As a result of her husbands control, the woman develops and obsessive attachment to the wallpaper which masks the walls of her bedroom. Gilman composed the short story to make determined statements about feminism and individuality to oppose the male authority that ruled over her during her lifetime. Gilman does this by describing the narrators decent into madness, which is caused by many factors, all being linked to her husband. It’s immediately apparent in “The Yellow Wallpaper” that the woman allows herself to be inferior to men, in particular her husband, John. This ultimately leaves the reader with many questions about 19th century male-female relationships and perhaps insanity.
The Significance of Voice in Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator’s dynamic voice exemplifies the her struggle with insanity as she becomes infatuated with the wallpaper in the attic room where she holds herself prisoner. With instruction of her physician and approval from her husband, the narrator is to only rest while staying in the summerhouse recovering from “temporary nervous depression” (Gilman 2). As the story plays out, the narrator begins to lose touch with reality and we witness her collapse from beginning to end through her own storytelling. From the start, the narrator confesses to not liking the attic room where she is staying at all and immediately explains that the “windows are barred”, “there are rings and things in the walls”, and that the wallpaper is “stripped off in great patches all around the head of my bead” (Gilman 4). At this point, the narrator appears normal and healthy, as anyone would be aware and curious of his or her surroundings in a new environment.
The unnamed narrator of the story is advised to abstain from any and all physical activity and intellectual stimulation. May it be reading, writing, or even to seeing her new baby. To ensure the narrator receives the full effect of this form of treatment, the woman’s husband takes her to a country house where she is kept in a former nursery decorated with yellow wallpaper. Over time she becomes obsessed with the wallpaper in every aspect whether it be the look or even smell of it. She eventually becomes so absorbed by the wallpaper that she sees a woman trapped inside of it and then tries to free her by peeling off the wallpaper.
It is, therefore, the motivating factor behind the two women’s search of liberation. Both women are oppressed by their husbands, and this curtails their happiness. In The Yellow Wallpaper,” John, a narrator’s spouse, confines his wife in a room with barred windows and hideous wallpaper that is yellow by its color at the countryside vacation house because she is ill. He deprives her freedom of communication by confining her in the room. He also puts her under the intense scrutiny.
Once the woman character in this short story develops her own sense of control apart from her husband she can plan her flight to freedom. This occurs when she rebels and rips down the wallpaper that has driven her insane. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is told by a woman whose husband, a physician, confines her to the upstairs bedroom of a house the family has rented for the summer. Forbidden from working and thinking, the woman begins to crave stimulation. Her husband, John, confines her to the nursery, because he treats her as a child, “It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story that explores the advancing depression and psychosis of a woman during a time in which women had few rights and were given little respect. The overall theme of this piece is to explore the gender roles of women during the nineteenth century. The Victorian era was one of extreme restrictions on the economic status as well as the individuality and sexuality of women. Perhaps the most important aspect of this story is the author’s use of symbolism to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions about the dynamic of the main character’s relationship with her husband, as well as her mental state. One aspect of the story that is striking relates to the fact that the entire piece is
ii. She has so much holding her back that John might think it’s better for her but in reality it is making her condition worse. b. But what of the illness itself, the increasing confusion between inside and outside, between what is in the wallpaper design and what is read into it and between the creeping women in the wallpaper and the heroine as the creeping women (Stephen L. Post) Pg 4. iii. This quote shows the irony of how her illness remains untreated after she is noticeably ill. iv.
The narrator’s insanity is caused by her husband, the treatment prescribed for her, and her obsession with the yellow wallpaper. One cause of the narrator’s insanity is the relationship between her and her husband. The narrator’s relationship with her husband is one of a father to daughter relationship. The narrator state, “John laughed at me but of course, one expects that in marriage” (Gilman 746). She is forced to live as a young child would live.