The Yellow Wallpaper Analysis

The Yellow Wallpaper was originally seen as more of as a horror piece about a woman that was insane. The piece resurfaced in the twentieth century and readers began to look more into the story and analyze it. Naturally a piece of literature that contradicts a male dominant society would get written off at first, which was the case here. The Yellow Wallpaper challenges the societal norm for women back in that time period. The author is stating that the life expected of women is outdated and needs to change. By association, the author also challenges the gender inequality at the time, which led to women remaining second-class members of society. It is worth noting that Gilman was an outspoken feminist during the time of Susan B. Anthony and other women’s rights activists and that is the core of a lot of her works including this one.

I believe that Gilman is questioning what is expected of women. The simple answer is nothing; women should be able to do decide for themselves what they want to do with their lives. After marriage women are expected to become housewives and basically submit to men. Throughout the story the narrator is constantly berated so much so that by her only time she feels heard is her writing and by the end of it she is all but mad. Although the end result was a bit extreme that Gilman is clearly saying that type of life is outdated and to some extent should have never been in place. Beyond that, Gilman also challenges the “rest cure;” which was basically isolated bed rest that was thought to treat certain nervous illnesses. She was even put through this treatment herself and in response wrote this piece and sent it to her doctor.

The yellow wallpaper itself is the biggest symbol in the story and it becomes more and more evident as the story progresses. Throughout the story the wallpaper begins to be shaped more and it soon becomes what the narrator describes as a cage, which has a woman, and later women, trapped within. Seeing as this was written in 1892 it is safe to assume that cage represents women being trapped by the lifestyle that marriage brings with it. In a male dominant society it gives a lot of insight on a lot of the things that are wrong with that misogynistic way of life. By the end of the story the narrator was going insane and said she herself was the woman trapped showing how cut off women were from their own personal aspirations for their lives. Even the room itself seems to be a metaphor itself, “It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways.” Maybe it is a stretch but that brings to mind a birdcage and seeing as the theme is being trapped in marriage it fits fairly well.

One of the bigger character developments that I found was in the husband and it is reflective in how he treats the narrator. At first his behavior towards her seems like he really cares for her health, but later we see that he just wants to be right, in a sense. While the narrator backs this up from the beginning as an audience we don’t see that until later. In just a short time he goes from, “Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, ” to “Whether you can see it or not. I am a doctor, dear, and I know.” Although short the first quote seemed like it could have been genuine and without context it would seem like he really cared for her. He becomes such an arrogant character when he insists that she is getting better even when she tries to tell him otherwise. This behavior clearly is not something new either as evident when she cut herself off just by looking at her with a stern look. However, it can be argued that John was not trying to be the villain; on the contrary, maybe he was simply ignorant. When one is an expert in a field they usually tend to brush off another’s opinion relating to that field, and that could be a reason for John’s actions. Who is to say that John did not have his wife’s best interests in mind? He may have been blinded by his arrogance to see the problem at hand. In his defense it was a different time back when this story was taking place so that mindset was acceptable to have. As stated before, that was a male dominant society so if there were a problem with his behavior he would not have been able to see anything wrong with his actions.

While it seems like this story was about the decline of the narrator’s health and mental state I would argue that this was a tale of the narrator discovering who she really was as a person. From the start we see how imaginative the narrator is with how she gave herself nightmares because of monsters she imagined. She has both internal and external conflict, both of which hold her back as a character. The external conflicts being John and Jennie, John’s sister, held her back by keeping her from really doing anything at all. From the beginning she is told that exercising her imagination will make things worse but as time progresses we see that the opposite is true. She yearns for an outlet both emotionally and imaginatively which drives her to keep the secret journal and ultimately making her go insane. She listens to her doctor by dissociating herself from people but her secret journal is what kept her mind active and helped her discover more about herself than before. She was constantly having her thoughts and feelings brushed away and on top of that she had to live with the responsibility of being a wife and the life that entails. She is subject to a stay at home life where her main concern is her husband’s happiness and, possibly, in the future her children’s well being, which clearly is not what she wants.

A lot of Gilman’s work revolved around her, at the time, radical, progressive way of thinking and this one is no different. The tone of this narrative was used to, in a sense, get the audience on the narrator’s side. Gilman wants the reader to get a look into what her life was during the time of her rest cure. The changes in tone are what allow this story to become so dark over time. Initially, the narrator is almost cheery and her life seems pretty appealing. As the story progresses we get more insight into her life and we see how deceptive that life is. Her husband becoming increasingly more controlling and her mental state beginning to drastically deteriorate are examples of how the tone changes throughout the narrative. Through this Gilman invokes feelings of sympathy towards the narrator so much to the point that the doctor that prescribed the rest cure to her stopped using it, along with Virginia Woolfe.

Overall, I would say that Gilman was very successful in her response to her doctor’s treatment. This story truly immersed the reader into the experiences of Gilman herself and does a wonderful job of swaying them in Gilman’s favor. Adding onto that, this piece also helped contribute towards women’s rights movements in the twentieth century. Literature is a form of art and is also used as a way to speak against social constructs and things of the like, and Gilman did just that. Her philosophy was that the life expected of a married woman barred capable women of contributing to society and that it is detrimental to their health and that is evident throughout this short story.