The Yellow Wallpaper

In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman explores the effects of isolation and mental illness through the eyes of unnamed narrator.

As she becomes increasingly obsessed with the disturbing wallpaper in her room, the story deals with the themes of control, self-expression, and the oppression of women in the 19th century.

**What is The Yellow Wallpaper?**

In the short story The Yellow Wallpaper, a woman whoa may be experiencing depression after childbirth is dealing with mental illness. She is taken to a remote home by her partner, who serves as her physician, to get better.

She is not allowed to work, write, or even think too much since he believes that total relaxation is the best course of action for her. The woman is kept in a room with yellow walls, which she starts to get progressively more intent on.

As the narrative goes on, the way she deals with the wallpaper pushes her to the brink of her belief that a lady is trapped within it. Her mental degeneration is largely caused by the lack of agency in her life, enforced silence, and isolation.

The story reflects the era’s limited understanding of mental health and the damaging effects of such treatment on the individual.

Although, The Yellow Wallpaper is a psychological type story. It is often categorized as a feminist and gothic tale, exploring themes like mental illness, gender roles, and the oppressive nature of societal expectations.

It also relates with Shakespeare’s plays, it shares thematic similarities with some of Shakespeare’s plays, especially in its exploration of psychological conflict and the unraveling of the mind.

For example, much like characters in Shakespeare’s tragedies, such as Hamlet or Macbeth who grapple with their inner demons, the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper faces a mental breakdown due to oppressive forces, both external and internal.

Additionally, the sense of entrapment in The Yellow Wallpaper might echo themes in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, where characters grapple with isolation and psychological struggles. However, while Shakespeare focuses on grand political and moral dilemmas, The Yellow Wallpaper focuses more on the intimate psychological and social struggles faced by women.

**Why is The Yellow Wallpaper Important?**

This story is much more than just a tale about a woman’s mental health. Here are some reasons why it remains important:

Mental Health Awareness

The Yellow Wallpaper highlights how mental health was misunderstood and mistreated in the 19th century. The situation for the woman in the narrative only gets worse because she doesn’t get the right care and therapy for her illness.

She is kept in a room and encouraged to rest in place of therapy or assistance, which is a treatment that makes her illness worse. This illustrates the ignorance of the time regarding mental health conditions, particularly those that impact women.

Women’s Rights

The story also discusses women’s roles in this period’s culture. In the story, the woman’s husband treats her as if she is unable of making decisions for herself, and she has very little control over her own life.

The gender discrimination that was common at the time is highlighted by the narrator’s inability to make decisions for herself, especially those relating to her surroundings and healthcare.

A major element in the story is this fight for freedom, which illustrates how women were often prevented from having control over their own lives.

Freedom and Expression

The story serves as a lesson in the value of individual expression. Because she is unable to express her ideas, wants, and disappointments, the woman’s mental health decreases. Gilman uses this to illustrate how a breakdown can result from suppressing someone.

She uses writing as a kind of resistance, allowing her to be true to herself despite her difficult situation. The narrative serves as a warning on the risk of restricting people’s freedom of speech and thought, especially women.

Summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

Setting: The Room with the Yellow Wallpaper

The novel begins with the nameless narrator and her husband, John, spending the summer in a big, remote home. John, a doctor, has advised his wife to take no medicine at all in order to address her “nervous condition,” which seems to be depression of some kind.

Although the house is said to be lovely, she is given a room that is old and has yellow walls. The narrator continually mentions how the wallpaper bothers her, and she describes it in graphic detail.

The room starts to represent her mental and physical slavery. The story’s setting is crucial because it highlights the narrator’s loneliness and her separation from the outer world. John used control when he decided to keep her in this room.

He is certain that she should just rest and not write or work. The narrator feels even more oppressed since she is given so little freedom. After spending more time in the room, she develops a relationship with the odd patterns on the yellow wallpaper.

The Woman’s Growing Obsession

The narrator starts to notice movement in the wallpaper’s design as she stays in the room longer. She starts to believe that a woman is trapped in the wallpaper and is trying to get out. The woman is first only a faint figure, but the narrator’s attraction develops over time. She looks at the wallpaper all day long, examining its patterns and seeking to understand its meaning.

The narrator’s confused and difficult-to-understand mental condition is symbolized by the wallpaper. Her increasing attachment with the wallpaper is a reflection of her poor condition and growing sense of being imprisoned The fact that John refuses to recognize her concerns or thoughts increases her mental state even more.

She feels even more alone and confused as a result of his contemptuous behavior. She becomes so fixated that she starts to think the woman in the wallpaper is actually coming to life.

The Deterioration of Mental Health

The narrator starts to lose her sense of reality as she stays in the room longer. She becomes increasingly fixated on the woman in the wallpaper and begins to think that she is trying to escape. The narrator begins to feel as though she is the woman in the wallpaper, stuck and trying to get out, and her thoughts become increasingly tense.

How much her mental health has decreased is evident in this change from viewing the lady as a distinct person to being the woman herself. Her illusions are getting worse because of how alone she feels in the room.

The more her husband ignores her experiences, the more tense their encounters get. The narrator has a flash of insight and understands that she is evolving into the woman she has been watching, but she is too far gone to do action at this point.

The walls of the room start to shut in on her as her mental state worsens. Her fixation on the wallpaper and the lady imprisoned behind it is now more than just a metaphor; it symbolizes her own sense of mental and physical slavery.

A Breakthrough or Breakdown?

The narrator’s decline into insanity climax in the story’s last scene. Feeling that the restricted woman is finally getting out, she locks herself in the room and begins to pull down the wallpaper.

She feels that she is freeing herself by releasing the woman. Her violent reaction represents her intense desire for freedom and control. She is actively interacting with the wallpaper, trying to ruin it in an effort to escape her own psychological and emotional captivity, rather than just looking at it.

John feels terrible as he storms into the room and discovers her crawling on the floor. The narrator doesn’t care that he passes out in shock. She believes that she has finally let the woman in the wallpaper free, and she has also set herself free in the process.

Her freedom, nevertheless, is not the beneficial healthful release she may have hoped for. It is the terrible result of being caught in a system that dismissed her opinions.

Her collapse serves as a reminder of the negative effects of neglecting mental health concerns as well as a terrible moment of release.

The Yellow Wallpaper Analysis

Famous Lines from The Yellow Wallpaper

“I’ve got out at last… and I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!”

This line is spoken close to the story’s conclusion, when the narrator feels she has finally been released from the mental confines that have imprisoned her.

She has “escaped” the wallpaper figuratively as well as literally, but her liberation comes at a high price: her sanity. The narrator feels free, yet she is no longer able to act in a sensible, healthful manner, which illustrates the difficult aspect of freedom.

“John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that.”

John treats his wife in an arrogant way, as this line makes clear. She feels even more alone because he rejects her ideas, feelings, and experiences.

The extent of the power disparity in their relationship can be seen by the fact that she tolerates his laughter without reacting. This line also highlights how society at the time typically dismissed women’s concerns as unimportant or illogical.

Character Analysis in The Yellow Wallpaper

Character	Explanation
Narrator (Unnamed)	The protagonist, who suffers from mental illness, confined to a room by her husband.
John	The narrator’s husband and a physician, who believes that complete rest will cure her condition.
Jennie	John’s sister, who helps care for the narrator and represents the ideal, submissive woman of that time.

Themes in The Yellow Wallpaper

Mental Health and Misunderstanding

Mismanagement of mental health is one of the primary points in The Yellow Wallpaper. Despite the narrator’s obviously critical condition, she is told to relax and is kept in a room rather than receiving the proper treatment.

Instead of improving her health, this treatment makes it worse. Through this narrative, Gilman challenges the dominant views of her era regarding mental illness, specifically the dismissal and disregard for women’s mental health.

Given the ongoing growth and evolution of mental health awareness, this issue is still important today.

Freedom and Control

The conflict between control and freedom is another element in the narrative. The narrator is mentally as well as physically confined to the room. Her views, behavior, and even her capacity for self-expression are all controlled by her husband.

The story shows how women were frequently limited in many facets of their existence. It make this issue particularly potent in the context of women’s rights.

The narrator’s journey reflects the hardships faced by numerous women who battled for freedom and autonomy during a period when their voices were frequently stifled.

The Power of Expression

One of the only ways the narrator can express herself is through her writing. She uses her diary as a covert way to express her feelings, even though her husband has told her not to write.

Writing turns into a way for her to express herself and rebel against the authority that has been forced on her.

This theme highlights how crucial it is to provide everyone, especially women, the freedom to express themselves. It also emphasizes how writing can be a healing and way of coping.

Symbols in The Yellow Wallpaper

The wallpaper symbolizes the constraints placed on the narrator. It turns into a mirror for her mental condition, reflecting how she feels imprisoned by her own thoughts and existence. Her growing frustration and inner struggle are reflected in the wallpaper as it grows more unsettling to her.

The Room

For the narrator, the room symbolizes a mental and physical prison. She is imprisoned there, and the stifling atmosphere of the room reflects her psychological and emotional slavery. Like the wallpaper, the room starts to represent the restrictions imposed on her.

The Woman in the Wallpaper

The narrator’s own imprisonment is represented by the woman stuck in the wallpaper. The narrator’s internal fight for independence is reflected when she starts to recognize herself in the woman.

The woman in the wallpaper symbolizes the narrator’s own repressed needs for independence and self-expression, making her more than just a creation of the narrator’s mind.

Conclusion

The Yellow Wallpaper is a captivating tale that covers topics like freedom, mental health, and women’s place in society. Its topics are still relevant today even though it was written more than a century ago.

The narrative reminds us that isolation and quiet can have negative impacts and emphasizes the value of listening to others, especially those who are dealing with mental health issues.

Gilman also illustrates the value of free speech and the perils of repressive authority via the journey of her character. We can gain important insights about the value of empathy, freedom, and the necessity of treating mental health with kindness and care by reading and considering The Yellow Wallpaper.

We also see The Yellow Wallpaper explained in the way it portrays a woman’s descent into madness, symbolizing the effects of oppression and lack of freedom. The story powerfully reveals how mental health can suffer when one’s voice is silenced.