THE YELLOW WALLPAPER
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Meaning of “I’ve got out at last, in spite of you and Jane” and relation of "descent into madness" to the powerfully subversive nature of Gilman's short story
-Venus Anand
‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ was first published in 1892 in ‘The New England Magazine’. It’s a short story focusing on the genres of feminism, captivity, women’s health & mental illness, written by American feminist, sociologist, and novelist named Charlotte Perkins Gilman. She used her writing to explore the role of women in America at the time. She explored issues such as the lack of a life outside the home for women and the oppressive forces of the patriarchal society. ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ and ‘Women and Economics’ are her most notable literary works. [I intend to show] The implication of “I have got out at last, in spite of you and Jane?” spoken by the narrator. I’ll talk about narrator’s representation of women and their miserable position in male commanded world. The need for awareness of women’s rights and the narrator’s decision to understand herself will also be mentioned.
“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!' Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!" The narrator of the story was a representation of all women in the society who were trapped by their men. Women in that time period unfortunately were better seen, not heard. They just stood by their husbands and became imprisoned by the power of their own lovers. Men assigned and defined women’s roles and women before the 20th century did not have much of a say.
When the narrator gradually begins to see a female figure trapped behind the bar- like pattern of the wallpaper, it is realised that both she and the figure are suffering from oppression and imprisonment. This urges the narrator to look for solutions in decoding the male repression on their female counterparts. She urges, in her own world, that all women, including her, needed to have the opportunity to work, to grow, and to make connections outside of home. Constraints on women are not healthy for anybody – the husband, the children, the family or the woman herself. Freedom to women must match with that of men so that the active participation of enthusiastic women population enriches both domestic and national lifestyle and conditions. Recognition to female section shall bring prosperity, auspiciousness, and success to humankind and its heights.
It’s pretty tough to miss the way the story communicates one of its most prevalent messages that women are kind of kept in a prison in marriage and in life when forced to live a domestic life without personal growth. The doctor advises the husband to look after the narrator, wife, in order to catch up with swift mental recovery. He advises that the narrator must not indulge in any physical activity as this consumes most of the brainy effort. In earlier times it was believed, psychologically, that women suffer nervous breakdown due to their hard work in domestic terms. Since they weren’t allowed outside much, the only ethical manner of recovery was to remain at home idle, doing absolutely nothing. No way in this “theory” were the women asked for their suggestions.
The doctor’s advice can be seen as a symbol of oppression over women. (Psychologically, it is clear now that in order to deviate mind from one thing, other things should take over the mental thinking.) Narrator’s husband backs the doctor and seems to act accordingly to his wife. For example- He allots a room on the top floor for her so that she can remain in peaceful and calm environment, away from noises of the household. Unknowingly, he traps the narrator in kind of a prison.
Stooping behind the bars is a metaphor for narrator’s existence (and women in general), which is one that is limited by society and dictated by the men around them.
One can say the ordeals that the narrator felt trapped inside a ‘big room’ with animated and dynamic ‘yellow wallpaper’ acted entirely opposite to the supposed treatment of her mental illness. The environment that was specially considered optimum for the recovery had altered its purpose. Generally a calm surrounding is ideal for mental illness, but in narrator’s case it was the freedom she needed from her husband’s system of actions. Therefore the narrator had to indulge in the process of writing a journal. The horror of this story is that the narrator must lose herself to understand herself. She has untangled the pattern of her life, but she has torn herself apart in getting free of it. An odd detail at the end of the story reveals how much the narrator has sacrificed. During her final split from reality, the narrator says, “I’ve got out at last”
Gilman used the short story form and a compelling tale of psychological decline to convey what she felt with very dire circumstances of women in a male dominated society. She, via her literary works, represents the situation of women of her time. The insecurities, dilemma, oppression women face should be eradicated as soon as possible; but can only be done if there is a rise of awareness among all of humans for the conditions and rights of women.
Here I would like to quote Benjamin Franklin’s words – 'Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.'
‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ which was considered almost unprintably shocking in its time and which unnerves readers to this day is a short work of fiction, which deals with an unequal marriage and a woman destroyed by her unfulfilled desire for self-expression. It also deals with the same concerns and ideas as Gilman’s non-fiction but in a much more personal mode. Indeed, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ draws heavily on a particularly painful episode in Gilman’s own life.
The story is a critique of the way things worked among genders and the ways in which the
lives of women were controlled and limited.
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