Charlotte Perkins Stetson, was an author in the late 1800s who suffered from mental illness and was able to mostly avoid the maddening resting cure used to treat mental illness at the time. She wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a warning to doctors and families of women with minor mental illnesses to allow them to continue in their normal activities to help them recover. “It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy,” Stetson claimed, “and it worked.” The intention of the short story was to show how a sane woman can be driven to madness by the constraints put on women who “misbehave” by their husbands and society. The narrator, Jane, was simply a nervous and depressed woman and may have had mild postpartum …show more content…
She becomes paranoid, and delusional. Her symptoms become extreme even for postpartum psychosis, as she has been driven so beyond her breaking point that she had truly descended into psychosis. She dreads leaving the room because she is so attached to the wallpaper. When there are two days left, Jane begins to worry that John knows of her need to tear the wallpaper down. She begins to believe that she was she was one of the women in the wall paper and “wonder if [the creeping women] all came out of that wallpaper as [she] did?” (656). She constantly creeps around the wallpaper, spreading the yellow color. She notes that the wallpaper has a line around it in the exact place she wants to walk, indicating that she was not the first be forced into madness by the room. It is clear that the narrator no longer was aware of her own identity, when she referred to “Jane” as person separate from her who tried to prevent her triumph of escaping from inside the wallpaper. “I've got out at last," she exclaims " in spite of you and Jane? And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!” (656). Her mental state has degenerated so severely that her captivity has driven her
Until she sees a woman creeping behind the pattern one night tempting her to go see if the wallpaper is actually moving which is when her husband catches her. He always seems to talk down to her treating her like a child in this particular instance calling her “little girl”. In spite of this she sees this as an opportunity to talk to let him know her concerns informing him that she is not getting better as he so adamantly believes. Nevertheless, her attempts are futile for he dismisses her once more putting his supposed medical opinion above his wife’s feelings. The story takes a shocking turn as she finally discerns what that figure is: a woman. As the story progress she believes the sole reason for her recovery is the wallpaper. She tells no one of this because she foresees they may be incredulous so she again feels the need to repress her thoughts and feelings. On the last night of their stay, she is determined to free the woman trapped behind bars. She begins to tear strips of the wallpaper and continues to all night by morning yards of the paper are stripped off. Her sister in law Jennie offers to help but at this point the narrator is territorially protective of the wallpaper. She locks herself in the room and is determined to strip the wall bare. As she is tearing the wallpaper apart she sees strangled heads in the pattern shrieking as the wallpaper is being torn off. At this point, she is furious and even
Due to Jane’s husband enforcing a life in confinement due to her nervous breakdowns, it only takes a little time for the isolation to drive her mad. In the beginning of the story, it is clear that the narrator, Jane, suffers from post-natal depression, which is a common effect after childbirth. The way Jane sees her living quarters is much different than it actually is. She imagines the rings on the walls, the torn up wallpaper, and the bars on the windows as a nursery or a school for boys, when those features actually lead the audience to realize that it is a room for the mentally ill. Her husband, also her physician, believes that in order for her metal illness to be cured is to forbid her from exercising her imagination, working, and to keep her locked away. However, his theory proves to be wrong when her mind begins to see a world inside the wallpaper, caused by the abuse from confinement. Although her husband is doing this for what he thinks is best for her well
Ever since she has been entrapped in her room, the narrator’s vivid imagination has crafted fictional explanations for the presence of inconsistencies in the wallpaper. She explains them by saying “The front pattern does move! And no wonder! The woman behind shakes it” (Gilman 9). In the story, the narrator explains the woman mentioned creeps in and about the old house she and her husband reside in. Venturing towards the conclusion, the narrator becomes hysterical when thinking about the wallpaper, explaining to her husband’s sister Jennie how she would very much like to tear the wallpaper down. Jennie offers to do it herself, but the narrator is persistent in her desire-”But I am here, and nobody touches that paper but me-not ALIVE”(Gilman 10)! The narrator has realized the apex of her mental instability as the story
The Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an enigmatic read. The story is about a woman, the narrator, who is suffering with depression. John, the husband of the main character, will be the focus of this paper. Gilman wrote John’s character in such a way as to leave interpretation open to the reader. Some may perceive John as a caring, loving husband; treating his wife as men did during the era in which the story was written. John decides that his wife needs to be isolated; free of all responsibilities and stimulation. John’s wife disagrees with the decisions he has forced upon her. She feels “…that congenial work, with excitement and change…” would help her through her depressive state (Gilman 376). The narrator is told what would be best for her, what to
“The Yellow Wallpaper” speaks of a woman who struggled of more than mere insanity, but also the pressures of life. Her life continuously seemed to weigh her down and she felt trapped by what was expected of her along with her mental disease. Her environment, marital relationship, and desire to escape her illness thrust Jane deeper into insanity. In the end Jane finds a way to truly escape her disease.
She does not accept their diagnosis but has no other choice but to follow it’s harsh procedures, much like the woman of the 19th century. The wallpaper, rules, and opinions of others stood between the narrator’s imagination and intellectual desires, eventually driving her to insanity. However, she is not the only woman in the story to feel this snared feeling. John’s sister, Jennie, claimed that she wouldn't mind tearing the wallpaper apart herself, proving she also felt oppressed by the strict rules of society. The narrator finds Jennie studying the wallpaper, trying to solve the puzzle behind the bizarre rules and restrictions upon women at the time.
Jane’s husband does not allow her to write because he feels that with her imaginative power and nervous condition it would lead to fancy. “John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies” (Gilman 649) without her outlet of writing Jane begins to see women in the wall-paper creeping around from the inside of the wall-paper to the outside in the gardens. She also feels that the women are trapped behind the first layer of design on the paper as if it was bars keeping them trapped. “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as is she wanted to get out. I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move.” (Gilman 652) Jane also begins to believe that the wall-paper know what it was doing to her “This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!” (Gilman 653) Jane starts to relate to the women being trapped in the paper and like she is trapped with-in the bedroom. Jane becomes one with the women in the wallpaper and referrers to the women as I. Jane begins creeping along the baseboards trying to release the women from their prison of wall-paper, which will release her from her
At the end of the story Jane has it in her mind that there is a woman in this wallpaper. This lady that Jane says that in the wallpaper needs to be set free. Jane begins to tear down the wallpaper, the next day Jennie comes in tearing down this wallpaper and Jane see her and gets mad. Jane provides this evidence by saying “How she betrayed herself that time! But I am here, and no person touches this paper but me,—not alive!”(Dulaney) So Jane then gets the key and locks herself in this room. Jane takes the key and throw it out the window. “I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper
They both feel trapped within their own lives, emotionally and physically. She saw the woman in the wallpaper as a companion in her days of isolation and self-meditation, and she realized that she needed to break free of her husband’s expectations and live her life her desired way. This gave readers insight to the emotional tendencies of the main character and motivations from discovering the meaning of the intricate wallpaper design. This is achieved when she states, “I’ve got out at last in spite of you and Jane. I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!”
The narrator first describes the wallpaper as “repellent, almost revolting” but she cannot ignore it. Her attraction to the yellow wallpaper grows as she attempts to figure out its pattern. She keeps looking at the yellow wallpaper and determines that the pattern is a woman trapped within the wallpaper, “shaking [the bars] hard”, trying to escape (542). This ultimately leads to the climatic ending with the narrator ripping the wallpaper apart, crawling on the floor alongside the rooms’ walls, and completely “losing it”. Even though the narrator’s obsession of figuring out the wallpaper’s pattern is the primary impetus that causes her to go insane, there is a greater underlying reason as to why this happened.
Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells her readers the story of a woman desperate to be free. Gilman’s use of symbolism is nothing short of brilliant in telling the story of a new mother suffering from postpartum depression and fighting her way through societies ideas of what a woman should be. When her husband, John, also known as her physician, tells her nothing is wrong with her mind, at first she believes him because she knows that society tells her she should. However, with her husband’s misdiagnosis, or attempt to keep his wife sane for the sake of their reputation, comes a short journey into madness for his wife, Jane. Jane’s downward spiral, as one may call it, turns out to be not so downward when the reader
Signs of the depth of the narrator's mental illness are presented early in the story. The woman starts innocently enough with studying the patterns of the paper but soon starts to see grotesque images in it, "There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a...
Once John gains access to the woman in the wallpaper’s sanctum, he faints. In response Jane says, “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.” (Stetson 656) Her words carry an implication that she perceives his act of fainting as one of weakness. By refraining from using John’s name, Jane robs him of his identity and places him in a gender group devoid of individuality. Additionally, Jane cannot seem to understand the reason that John fainted. To her the act of fainting seems to be irrational and unwarranted. Jane’s confusion at this juncture illustrates a loss of self-awareness. She fails to realize that “creeping” across the floor in a room where she has just stripped the walls of their wallpaper is frightening. Jane also mentions that she has to “creep over” her husband every time she traverses her path around the room. The fact that she is placed above John, when she is already close to the floor, speaks to the dominance that she can now exert over him, though it is important to note that the dominance is only manifested in the room with the yellow wallpaper and not anywhere else. Whether Jane continues the exertion of this dominance is not written in the story. However, one can infer that since Jane has apparently
In the final moments of this story, the woman’s husband returns to see her. She writes, “He stopped short by the door. ‘What is the matter?’ he cried. ‘For God’s sake, what are you doing!’ I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder. ‘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!’ 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!’” This final passage shows that, when this woman rebels, and “escapes the wallpaper”, it is not highly looked upon. The woman made a power statement, by telling her husband that she had, in essence, found a new role in life, and he can not push her back. When he can not handle her actions, she continues her new ways right over him.
While it may seem as though the speaker is becoming deranged, her bold action of tearing down the wallpaper is symbolic of her finally breaking free of the stereotypical roles of a woman. The author illustrates this in the last lines of the story, “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!” (pg. 167)