An Analysis Of The Yellow Wallpaper

Behind Bars, A Woman's Escape Through Madness:

An Analysis of “The Yellow Wallpaper”

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1892 “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the short story takes the form of secret journal entries chronicling the mental deterioration of a young woman forced to undergo the rest cure, as prescribed by her physician husband, during their stay at a vacation estate. The protagonist refutes that she is neither nervous nor depressed and simply fancies “less opposition and more society and stimulus” (216). However, instead of her receiving visitors or enjoying the countryside during her stay, her cure restricts these activities and demands solitude, which forces the protagonist to be confined to a room where she begins experiencing vivid fantasies

As she studies the incoherent pattern in the wallpaper she becomes determined to make sense of it and begins to see a pattern “like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down” (219), and begins to distinguish a woman creeping secretively behind the pattern. Here, through symbolism, Gilman is able to portray the wallpaper pattern as a metaphoric prison, and the protagonist’s mind as this new mysterious figure in the pattern, trapped and having to covertly move around. Although the protagonist studies the pattern in the wallpaper, it never makes any sense to her and likewise, no matter how hard she tries to recover, the terms established by John for her recovery never make any sense to her, either. Further, the protagonist view’s John’s sister, Jennie, more as a prison guard than a beloved in-law, so when she hears Jennie coming up the stairs to check on her, she quickly puts away her writing and adopts a more restful position in order to not alert them to what she is

She is now fearful that everyone around her is wanting to understand the meaning of the wallpaper, predominantly Jennie. There is even an instance where the protagonist finds Jennie touching the wallpaper and becomes overwhelmed with anger and has to confine herself in order not to alarm Jennie, “She didn't know I was in the room, and when I asked her in a quiet, a very quiet voice, with the most restrained manner possible, what she was doing with the paper” (224). The symbolism here is that everyone was so quick to write off the protagonist’s mental wellbeing thinking that the rest cure would solve her hysteria, and now that they can see that there are more prominent issues, they are trying to examine her more closely, and it appears they are now too late and her ability to rationalize their intentions is