Introduction
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is arguably the most famous short story by the American author and feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In a concise narrative evolving in a deliberately confined setting, the author paints a frightening picture of a slow descent into madness facilitated by the internalized misconceptions of mental health and women’s place in society. Although loved dearly by her husband and cared for by the best physicians available, the main character still loses her mind because society is not culturally or scientifically equipped to understand her condition. Despite the brevity of the story, Gilman utilizes a broad range of literary devices to create a vivid and impactful narrative. Setting and linguistic choices stress the dynamic protagonist’s spatial and social isolation, and remarks on the society she lives in draw a picture of the well-meaning but ultimately oppressive materialist patriarchy.
Plot Overview
Before analyzing the story’s elements in detail, a brief plot summary is in order. The text, represented through diary entries, reiterates the story of a young woman Jane living in a rented cottage with her husband, John. The couple has moved there on the woman’s account – John believes she had overstrained her nervous system, and the place would do her good (Gilman 648). As a means of treatment, John, a physician himself, forbids Jane to engage in any activity that stimulates the nervous system, such as writing or painting. The narrator, though, laments that those around her interpret her condition as a nervous overstrain rather than a genuine sickness affecting the mind instead of the body (Gilman 647). Confined to the nursery with nothing to do, the main character focuses her mind on the complex designs of the yellow wallpaper, ultimately coming to believe there is a crouching woman hidden behind it. As those around her continue ignoring the mental nature of her problems, the poor woman slowly descends into madness. The plot’s significance mainly lies in the way it portrays the treatment of women in late 19th-century America.
Point of View
As mentioned above, the story unfolds as a series of diary entries written from the first-person perspective. This approach allows the author to emphasize Jane’s deteriorating mental capacity and present it in a way that affects the reader step by step. For example, the changes in the main character’s attitude signal how she goes from being tired and dissatisfied to a paranoid belief that everyone around her is plotting against her. For instance, in the beginning, she admits that John loves her “very dearly” – yet, closer to the end, sarcastically notes that he only “pretended to be very loving and kind” (Gilman 651, 655). Moreover, Gilman makes full use of the unreliable narrator to further emphasize the protagonist’s predicament. At one point, the narrator notes that her bed “is fairly gnawed,” blaming it on the unknown children who presumably lived in the room before (Gilman 655). However, several sentences later, Jane admits biting off “a little piece” of the bed due to being angry (Gilman 655). Such remarks serve to illustrate the protagonist’s mental degradation by highlighting the deterioration of her ability to perceive reality.
Characters
Although the story uses several characters, none except the protagonist get any development. Jane is both a dynamic and round character because she undergoes a transformation in the story and gets ample characterization. She simultaneously respects her authoritative husband and rationalizes his control as being “very careful and loving” yet detests his refusal to admit she might need another cure except for rest (Gilman 648). In terms of development, she comes from being a subservient 19th-century woman following her husband’s will to rebelling in the only way that is accessible to her – by forsaking her sanity along with societal expectations. Other characters, though, are pretty one-dimensional and barely developed. John is briefly described as “practical in the extreme” and dismissive of his wife’s concerns, presuming he always knows better (Gilman 647). Jane’s brother is only characterized as “also a physician, and also of high standing,” and Jennie, John’s sister who watches over Jane, does not go beyond being a simplistic plot function either (Gilman 648). The only character with genuine development has the least agency within the story, further stressing her isolation and helplessness.
Setting
The setting of the story pursues the same goal of creating the oppressive impression of creeping madness and depersonalization. For most of the story, the main character is confined to the “atrocious nursery” with the titular yellow wallpaper on the cottage’s top floor (Gilman 649). When the narrator is still in full control of her mental capacities, she openly describes the room as “inharmonious,” suggesting it could have a negative effect upon her (Gilman 650). However, once she goes completely mad and identifies herself with the imaginary woman behind the wallpaper, she finds strange comfort in creeping around in what she now calls “this great room” (Gilman 656). This shifting attitude toward the nursery that serves as a setting for most of the story is yet another indication of the protagonist’s deteriorating mind.
While the linguistic choices in describing the nursery are telling, the protagonist’s attitude toward her name is even more so. The narrator remains unnamed until the last page of the story, when she proclaims that she got out “in spite of [John] and Jane” – that is, herself (Gilman 656). Throughout the entire story, the protagonist remains unnamed and, thus, depersonalized and deprived of agency – a subservient creature obedient to John, Jennie, and others. The ability to invoke her name comes simultaneously with her rebellion, which finally gives her the power to act on her own behalf, albeit at the cost of madness. Thus, the deliberate choice to leave the protagonist unnamed until the last lines of the story highlights her unprivileged and depersonalized social status.
Cultural Context
This status is a defining feature of the story’s cultural context because “The Yellow Wallpaper” unfolds in the patriarchal society of the late 19th century. All the male characters of the story, be that John, Doctor Mitchell, or Jane’s brother, demonstrate a complete disregard for the narrator’s misgivings about her situation. It is particularly notable in the case of John, who refers to his wife as “blessed little goose” and “little girl,” essentially downgrading her to someone less than an adult human being (Gilman 649, 652). Özyön summarizes it well when noting that John controls the protagonist’s life “totally and even makes decisions instead of her and the only thing she can do is cry” (118). It was already noted how Jane’s language in referring to John demonstrates “her full submission to her husband” (Salayo and Macam 53). It is worth noting that John has no ill intentions – on the contrary, he genuinely loves his wife, “hates to have [her] sick,” and helps her to the best of his professional ability (Gilman 651). Yet patriarchal social structures prove oppressive enough to crush Jane’s sanity even without any ill will.
Another crucial characteristic of the story’s cultural context is materialism combined with an arrogant belief in omniscience. John, as described by the narrator, has “no patience with faith,” “an intense horror of superstition,” and shows no regard for things that cannot be quantified and calculated (Gilman 647). He is the epitome is the late 19th-century medical professional who has no consideration for anything not proven scientifically. While this attitude may be generally laudable, the fanaticism with which John believes in science fails to account for the imperfections and insufficiencies of scientific knowledge of the time. He refuses to believe Jane is genuinely sick because “he knows there is no reason to suffer,” and he is convinced of that because psychology as a science does not yet exist (Gilman 649). The protagonist’s fate is the result of not only patriarchy but medical misconceptions as well, and Roethle is right to refer to “medical/social” rather than merely “social” structures as the facilitator of her insanity (147). Thus, arrogant materialism and belief in science constitute the second defining characteristic of the story’s cultural context, along with the overwhelming patriarchy.
Conclusion
To summarize, “The Yellow Wallpaper” utilizes a broad range of literary devices to explore the subservient state of women and the neglect of their mental health in late 19th-century America. The protagonist, whose psychological degradation is stressed through ample characterization, setting, and language choices, finds her only escape from the oppressive social structures in madness. Even without ill will on her husband’s part, the combination of patriarchy and materialism devaluates the main character and reduces her to less-than-human status, leaving her unable to live productively and eventually driving her insane.
Works Cited
Gilman, Charlotte P. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” National Institutes of Health, Web.
Özyön, Arzu. “A Journey of Feminist Rebellion Through Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Short Story The Yellow Wallpaper and Her Novel Herland.” International Journal of Language Academy, vol. 8, no. 5, 2020, pp. 115-124.
Roethle, Christopher. “A Healthy Play of Mind: Art and the Brain in Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.” American Literary Realism, vol. 52, no. 2, 147-166.
Salayo, Juland D., and April Lontoc Macam. “From Fancy to Feminist Frenzy Fight: An Ideational Grammatical Metaphor of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.” Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Translation Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, 2020, pp. 41-66.