The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper explores one woman's struggle with society's view of a woman's role and takes the reader through the main character's psychological journey. A vast amount of criticism has been written about this story, most of it focusing on the influence the story has had on feminism, along with a close look at what the story achieves. What the story is, at its core, is an autobiographical novel that presents a critique of the relationship between men and women and society's suffocation of a woman's ability to be an individual and live with an independent state of mind. To truly understand what The Yellow Wallpaper is about, one must first have a general background understanding of the author. In 1887 Gilman suffered from a severe and ongoing nervous breakdown that lead to depression. Gilman sought treatment from a nervous diseases specialist by the name of S. Weir Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell essentially misdiagnosed Gilman through sexism. He ordered "the rest cure" which required her to "live as domestic a life as possible" and forbidding to "touch a pen, pencil or brush" and engaging in no more than "two hours of stimulation a day." Although Gilman did attempt to follow these instructions, a
However, these suggestions are readily dismissed by the male physician due to, according to the feminist interpretation, stereotypes that she is an irrational being and therefore not qualified to offer suggestions in regards to her own condition and therefore, in a sense, suffocate her from her own mind. The result is a suffocation of the feminist mind, which, when trapped, is enough to drive anyone mad. Yet even this act fails at freeing the women because it is seen as being insane and crazy by society and therefore the quasi-free woman is placed back in the wall, so to speak. The patterns and colors of the wallpaper are the only form of stimulation she has, and thus she becomes engrossed in it, eventually seeing designs such as a figure of a woman. Underneath these most basic layers is a complex story, a societal critique, of the way women are treated by basic stereotypes and the fears of men. The longer she is in the room, the more see allegedly sees the wallpaper "mutate and change, especially in the moonlight". This feeling of being traps enrages the narrator, causing her to attempt to free the women by tearing the wallpaper off the wall. The story is made to read like an actual, true account as it is presented as a first-person journal that documents the writer's spiral into madness. However, Gilman had difficulty getting the story published as editors thought it was enough to drive any reader crazy. fter three months she gave up and returned to work. Clearly, The Yellow Wallpaper is, at its most basic foundations, a personal critique of Dr. Yet, the escape was not so simple as the wallpaper also contained bars, which held (or trapped) the women to their traditional roles. However, from this wallpaper, the figure of women emerge, symbolizing the arrival of the feminist movement, which urged women to stop being wallflowers. The treatment ordered is the rest cure, where the narrator is essentially confined to bed, from which she really does go mad. Clearly, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper is a more than a story.
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Acceptance Essays
