The Yellow Wallpaper by Grace Novascone
“The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Gilman is regarded as an early feminist piece that predates a woman’s right to vote in the United States. Loss of identity for women in the 19th century was a common scenario in many cases. Women during this time did not have much of a voice. The male-dominated society controlled females. When Charlotte Gilman’s daughter was born in 1855, she suffered from postpartum depression and was treated by one of the best doctors, Dr. Weir Mitchell. However, She was driven to near madness and later wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” to protest this treatment of women like herself. This story has a feminine approach and challenges male dominance that roots in most households.
From the start of this short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” gives this idea to the audience that they are about to read about an “untenanted” haunted house, a horror piece. The female narrator thinks why else would this beautiful house be so cheap unless it was haunted or something was wrong? And why would it be unoccupied for so long? However, as you continue reading you begin to realize this wasn’t a haunted house or a house with ghosts and demons besides those in the narrator’s mind. This chilling psychological horror story shows the narrators evolving into madness.
This short story has the structure and style of a diary. The narrator can only write about her experiences with her husband John when he is not around, since he forbids her to write until she is well. On the first day, the narrator says “There comes John and I must put this away.”
Her husband John is manipulative and controlling, and does not take her illness seriously or her seriously. When she told her husband John about her thoughts, John laughed at her and ridiculed her. This woman is discouraged from doing anything by her husband even though she thinks some “excitement and change” will do her good. She thinks she is sick, but John ignores her and says she is totally fine. The story was created in the 1800’s where women during this time did not have much of a say and seeing the way John treats her wife in this story you can see she has no voice.
John also treats her like a child. He makes all of her decisions for her. Even the room she is kept in is not the one she wanted. The room used to be a nursery symbolizing how she needs to be taken care of like a little baby. The windows in this room being “barred for little children” shows how she is being treated like a child and a prisoner. This window is a symbol for escape or a new beginning, but since that window is “barred” that possibility of change went away with it. John does not give her treatment and thinks she is fine when the narrator says repeatedly she is not fine. But the narrator later says how John “is very careful and loving,” almost as a way that saying this out loud might make it true or at least make the narrator think that it is true.
The narrator hates the yellow wallpaper. She asks to stay in another room throughout the story, but John does not allow that to happen. As the story continues, her fixation on the wallpaper grows. In the time between July 4th and their departure, the narrator becomes fixated on the yellow wallpaper. She stares at it all day and night and is certain the pattern on the wallpaper is changing and it is coming alive. Later in the story, as the narrator’s obsession deepens, she believes that there is a woman in the wallpaper changing the pattern and watching her. As time goes on, she sees more women under the wallpaper but the trapped women have come out of the wallpaper. The woman in the wallpaper is a symbol that the narrator is the trapped woman, and she is trapped by her husband John.
In conclusion, Gilman in “The Yellow Wallpaper” uses literary devices and tone to explain how women felt during this time in history in their life. She explains how she feels voiceless and not heard. Gilman uses the hideous yellow wallpaper to symbolize the domestic life that so many women were trapped into.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Isabella Grigsby
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story that is a compilation of journal entries following the daily life and thoughts of a woman trapped physically and emotionally. Charlotte Gilman found inspiration for this story through her own experiences and struggles with postpartum depression. It is believed that the main character is based on events that happened in Gilman’s life and her opinion on the effectiveness of the rest theory. Weir Mitchell is the founder of the “rest cure” that targets hysterics and mental health issues by removing all stimulants for a period of time. Gilman was one who was treated with this new method, and her poor encounters can be seen all throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
The story starts right after the unnamed woman gave birth. Her husband, a physician, decided to rent a house for the summer as the women’s mental health declined. The husband thought it would be best for them to stay in the room upstairs, which was formerly a nursery. Unfortunately for this woman, the room had bars on the windows, the bed was nailed to the floor, and most importantly, had dreadful yellow wallpaper.
Gilman emphasizes the diminished role of females during this time. Throughout the story, the main character constantly is put down and dismissed by her husband, especially regarding her mental needs. The woman describes how “he does not believe I [she] am sick,” and continually believes his way of treatment is right, even though she is the one living with the affliction. Living in a consistent state of belittlement further drives the level of insanity because of the feelings of loneliness and isolation. Gilman displays the abuse of male authority and how women were forced to accept what they did not necessarily believe was right only because a man told them it was. In relation to her course of treatment, the woman “disagree[d] with their ideas,” and “believe[d] that congenial work, with excitement and change would do me [her] good. But what is one to do?” It is apparent that the woman feels trapped in a toxic relationship that forces her to choose between what is socially correct and what she believes would be best for herself. Another theme Gilman incorporates into “The Yellow Wallpaper” is infantilization with the endless patronizing of the woman. The small detail of the room formerly being used as a nursery is an example of Edgar Allen Poe’s single effect theory, because it foreshadows how the woman will be treated inside of the room in the future.
The yellow wallpaper progressively has a stronger effect on the woman as the story unfolds. At first, the wallpaper absolutely disgusts the woman as it is the “worst paper” and an “artistic sin.” As the story goes on however, the woman becomes intrigued by the wallpaper and fixates on every detail of the pattern. Eventually, the wallpaper seems to drive the narrator insane, causing her to think there is “a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern” and that “there are things in that paper that nobody knows but me [her].” It is thought that this woman seen in the wallpaper reflects the woman in the story because of her struggle for freedom and her want to escape. The efforts made to tear down the wallpaper and free the woman inside, shows how unhappy the narrator was and how she did not have an outlet to express how she was feeling other than secretly writing her journals.
Overall, Gilman shed light on the fact that because of her husband’s constant neglect of her needs, the woman’s depression grew deeper and caused her insanity to only increase. Gilman paved the way for women to find a voice and have a place in society.
Sigmund Freudian Psychology in The Yellow Wallpaper by Maggie Foster
Sigmund Freud was a psychologist who developed his own theories about the connection between the unconscious and the conscious mind. During the 1880s Freud developed these theories to explain why some people do what they do under certain circumstances. His main theory involved childhood trauma and how all of someone’s responses to harm, danger, and fear grew from what happened in someone’s childhood. These reactions are called defense mechanisms and the ones Freud believed in were repression, regression, displacement, sublimation, projection, and rationalization.
In the story, The Yellow Wallpaper, Freud’s defense mechanisms are prevalent in the story. The story follows a young woman who is suffering from a mental illness that no one truly believes she has. In the story, she had just given birth, and to recover she is meant to be on something called the “rest cure”. This was something doctors prescribed in the 1800s most often to women. This was a very strict regimen that consisted of being completely isolated from society in a plain room. In the book, the narrator is locked in a creepy summer house with her husband, who does not believe she is sick, and she is confined to her room. Slowly she starts to lose her mind and sees things in the yellow wallpaper. Throughout the book, the defense mechanisms Freud theorized are recognized such as displacement and rationalization.
One of the most used defensive mechanisms throughout the book is displacement. Freud defines displacement as “redirecting unacceptable feelings from the original source to a safer, substitute target” (Freud, Psychoanalytical Criticism). In the book, the narrator writes to herself in some sort of journal to free her thoughts. Since she lives in a time that is very suppressive of women, she feels that this writing is the only true way she can feel free. She writes whenever she is in secret so as to not upset her husband. She would often “… write for a while in spite of them…”(Gilman 649). This means that she could only use a healthy outlet for her fear and troubles in secret, causing more pain. She did not feel safe in the house and in her room which is why she felt compelled to write. When talking about the house she says that “there is something queer about it” (Gilman 647), and when she is describing her room she says that the walls were “dull enough to confuse the eye…” (Gilman 648). Both of these descriptions add to her mental illness and the displacement she felt. In addition to displacement, rationalization was another Freudian defense mechanism seen in this story.
Rationalization is “creating false excuses for one’s unacceptable feelings, thoughts, or behavior” (Freud, Psychoanalytical Criticism). In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator uses rationalization to make herself think she is fine when she is losing it. Throughout the story, her husband, John, does not believe that his wife is sick. He keeps pushing this idea onto her so much she starts to rationalize her actions and believes she is not sick anymore. She even acknowledges when she believes that she is “… feeling ever so much better” when in reality she is getting worse (Gilman 653). She thinks this because of what John keeps suggesting to her and when she finally eats a bit or sleeps a bit she thinks she’s getting better. This proves to be a great danger to the narrator because of how her condition leaves her. In all, she thinks that when she does something insignificant, she is getting better through her internal rationalization.
In summary, Sigmund Freud created many psychological theories. One of his main ones consisted of defense mechanisms rooted in childhood behavior. These mechanisms are repression, regression, displacement, sublimation, projection, and rationalization. In the story The Yellow Wallpaper, two of these mechanisms are relevant. The two main elements seen in this story are displacement and rationalization. Freud’s mechanisms are recognized in the narrator and ultimately lead to her demise.
