“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gillman first published in 1892. This is a story about a woman who is undergoing a course of rest therapy due to postpartum depression. The heroine faces completely objective hormonal changes in the body and their psychological consequences, but her husband does not recognize her condition as a physical illness. This paper aims to discuss The Yellow wallpaper short story and the tragedy of its heroine.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is usually seen as a revolutionary story, which aims to provoke a feminist response in the reader. But perhaps the author intended to convey a simpler idea that lies on the surface. Due to forced rest treatment, the heroine found herself in complete isolation – from her husband, family, social circle, even from her child: “Such a dear baby! And yet I CAN NOT be with him, it makes me so nervous” (Gillman 7). Isolation significantly worsens her depressive mood, forcing her to focus on empty fantasizing.
The heroine misses her childhood, when she was never bored, even in such a terrible empty room she found herself. She says, “I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy store” (Gillman 9). It seems that looking at the walls is not an attempt to return to a safe place, but simply an attempt to have fun. However, the fluctuation of hormones in the body, which causes postpartum depression, forces the heroine to overly dramatize and look for a hidden meaning in everything. Over time, she begins to see “a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design” (Gillman 10). Eventually, these visions lead the heroine to become insane when she follows the dark figure into the garden.
Thus, the tragedy of the heroine of “The Yellow Wallpaper” short story was discussed. Hormonal changes in the body due to postpartum depression and improper living conditions led to the fact that the heroine invented an incredible world of the yellow wallpaper and the woman who lives behind it. Most likely, this is because the heroine was very bored and sad in the forced isolation necessary for the success of the ‘rest treatment.’
Work Cited
Gillman, S.P. (2022). The Yellow Wallpaper. Web.