The narrator of Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" comes to realize that women in her society are trapped by the patriarchal structure of their world. The narrator has been confined to a bedroom with hideous yellow wallpaper as part of her "rest cure" for what we would now call postpartum depression. Because she is basically imprisoned in this room, she begins to lose her mind, but this descent into madness also reveals truth about the world around her.
The narrator starts to "see" a woman behind the wallpaper, and later, many women. The narrator says, toward the end of the story, "there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast." She associates the paper with bars, keeping the women in, so she eventually wants to tear it down and let them out. Ultimately, the story ends with the narrator exclaiming, "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!" She says these lines to her husband, who then faints in shock. The narrator ends the story by "creeping over" her husband repeatedly as she crawls around the perimeter of the room.
The story reveals that women in the late nineteenth century were seen as inferior to men and almost as childlike. Men like the narrator's husband thought they knew what was best for their wives, daughters, sisters, and so on. In the story, the narrator's husband is her doctor as well, so she is under his authority in more than one way. Although she tries to voice her opposition to his treatment and insists that she needs creative outlets and social interaction, he refuses and confines her to the room where she steadily loses her mind. The story is also a critique of the real "rest cure," which Gilman had personal experience with herself.
Jane's (the narrator's) husband and brother are physicians. She believes that the best thing for her condition is to work and have some excitement in her life. But her brother and husband tell her that she needs to take certain medications and avoid work. She accepts their verdict because they have the authorial position of being physicians and because they are men. She must share her thoughts only with pen and paper. She is forced to hide her own thoughts. "I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal -- having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition."
Her husband, John, says the worst thing she can do is think about her condition. In other words, he will do the thinking for her. This shows how the husband makes all decisions for the wife. She is clearly in an inferior position and reluctantly accepts this dynamic because these are traditional male and female roles.
The fact that Jane must hide her writing is significant. John forbids her from even thinking about her condition. He treats her like a child. He certainly doesn't want her to put her thoughts on paper. John's idea is to close her up in the room in the house, keeping her from any engaging activity. It is like a prison sentence. She feels closed in, isolated, and this leads to her having a breakdown.
When Jane hallucinates about the woman trapped in the wallpaper, she is envisioning her own trapped feelings. At the end of the story, it is Jane who has escaped from the wallpaper. This is symbolic. It shows her desire to escape from that room and from her traditional female role which is subservient to the male, John. "I've got out at last," said I. "in spite of you and Jane? And I've pulled off most of the paper so you can't put me back!"
In "The Yellow Wallpaper," how does Gilman describe women's roles and their consequences?
''The Yellow Wallpaper'' was first published in 1892, during the Victorian
Age.The Victorian Age had a great impact on the social values in the United
States. These values stressed that women were to behave demurely and focus
almost entirely on home and family. Gilman examines this role including the
relationship between husbands and wives, the economic and social dependence of
women on men, and the repression of female individuality and sexuality.
Suffering from post-partum depression after the birth of her son, the main
character is
advised to get complete bed rest by her husband and brother, despite her
suggestions that she would like to write and read. While she does secretly
write in a journal, it is made clear that her husband is to be the final
decision-maker and that she has no role other than to be a charming wife and a
competent mother. In fact, John often treats her like a child, calling her his
"little girl" and his "blessed little goose." When the narrator has a "real
earnest reasonable talk" with John during which she asks him if she can visit
some relatives, he does not allow her to go. The obvious cost to the narrator
is her sanity. By being treated as a child, she begins to act like one and then
becomes more and more separated from reality. Thus Gilman reveals the cost of
treating women like second-class citizens.
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