The story behind The Yellow Wallpaper

In "The Yellow Wallpaper", a story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the conflict centers around the narrator's inability to maintain her sanity in a society that does not recognize her as an individual, but as a woman. The convention and resistance displayed in the story is mainly caused by the society's view of women during the 19th century. The narrator's husband and brother both exert their own will over hers, forcing her to conform to their impression of an appropriate code of behavior for a sick woman, which is pre-set by society and their view on the role of women. In the nineteenth century, women in literature were often portrayed as submissive to men. Literature of the period often characterized women as oppressed by society, as well as by the male influences in their lives. The Yellow Wallpaper presents the tragic story of a woman's descent into depression and madness. The narrator's declining mental health is reflected through the characteristics of the house she is trapped in and her husband, while trying to protect her, is actually destroying her. However, the story itself presents an interesting look at one woman's struggle to deal with both

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Gilman gives the indication that the narrator's identity is purely that of which her husband wants it to be-- her creativity and thoughts are pushed aside. "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" (Gilman 565)! It was as if the wallpaper was what was seperating her from her own self discovery. This leads to a woman who is being treated for a case of post-partum depression to be slowly driven mad by the treatment itself - enforced isolation and deprivation of her work, her writing, and her words. This code of behavior involves virtually no exertion of her own free-will. She is expected to take their own uninformed opinions on her mental state over her own. She begins to see shapes, and an unknown image which allows her to put complete focus into discovering the identity of that image. The ultimate goal being her own self discovery. This theme is particularly thought-provoking when read in today's context where individual freedom is one of our most cherished rights. When she first begins to write in her journal she talks a lot about John. This belief causes the husband to confine his wife to a plain room surrounded by old yellow wallpaper. I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still" (Gilman 561). The narrator, in a sense, realizes this and allows herself to resist the conventional norm, which she believes will ultimately lead to her getting well. "Don't go walking about like that--you'll get cold" (Gilman 560). She tries and resist her husband's demads by writing in her journal when he is not around. The Yellow Wallpaper generates tension between the desire to know and the fear of knowing: on one hand, the enigma of the bedroom invites curiosity and beckons us towards discovery; on the other hand, its over-determined organization is seated within a firm resolution to build up the bedroom, so that what it hides remains unrealized.

Common topics in this essay:
Yellow Wallpaper, Perkins Gilman, Jane I've, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, yellow wallpaper, self discovery, convention resistance, mental breakdown, seperation reality, gilman 565, descriptive elements, rise feminism, own self, own self discovery, code behavior,

Approximate Word count = 2069
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)

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