Orderly Struggles of Power, Persona and Reality in Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper

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Recommended: Role of Gender and Feminism in the Yellow Wallpaper

A story of feminism told through the eyes of a depressed manic, is shown within the text of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Gilman was inspired to write the story upon her diagnosis of depression, which sent her into a manic state, and by the request of her doctor was put on bed rest (A&E, 2011). However, this only motivated Gilman to pursue her writing as an attempt to recover and in turn “The Yellow Wallpaper” was created. During the 19th century, the time of which the story was written, women were expected to play the role of a wife and mother and society did not tolerate anything otherwise (American Literature, 1998). “The Yellow Wallpaper” demonstrates the struggle for power, search for persona, and the escape from reality of a female manic. In order to understand the narrator’s terrors of the phobia, the events in the story are told in chronological order to allow for the reader to experience the disease first hand. The first person protagonist narrative puts the reader in the shoes of a manic. Demonstration is shown by the first person protagonist that suggests the woman is inferior to her husband, through the first person’s interpretation of the woman in the wallpaper and within the chronological order of events that the personified wallpaper ’s progression of state symbolizes the development of the disease.

The first person protagonist narration, in the “Yellow Wallpaper”, suggests the inferiority of men occurs through the control of the husband over the struggling narrator. This is the rising action for the narrator begins to write and keep her secret journal that passively states her struggle for power. John, the narrator’s antagonizing husband, is a physician who believes that she sh...

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.... Norton, 2010. 608-19.

Mayo Clinic Staff. “Postpartum Depression: Lifestyle and Home Remedies”. Mayo Clinic. 1998.

Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, August 2nd, 2011. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/postpartumdepression/DS00546/DSECTION=lifestyle%2Dand%2Dhome%2Dremedies. November 12th, 2011.

Mayo Clinic Staff. “Postpartum Depression: Symptoms”. Mayo Clinic. 1998. Mayo Foundation

for Medical Education and Research, August 2nd, 2011. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/postpartumdepression/DS00546/DSECTION=symptoms. November 12th, 2011.

Thomas, Deborah. “The Changing Role of Womanhood: From true Woman to new Woman in

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”. American Literature: Research and Analysis Website. 7.27.1998. Florida Gulf Coast University, 1998. http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/gilman.htm. November 12th, 2011.

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