English Literature

Suffering from what would not be diagnosed and post-partum depression and finally spiraling into a full fledged mania, the protagonist of Charlotte Perkins Gilman resists the struggle within herself and against the roles of women in 19th century society to only later succumb to her own delusions and, in effect, gain freedom from these roles. Only in madness, only by accepting the woman moving behind the yellow shadows of the wallpaper does the woman overcome the restrictions of her role as woman, wife, and mother. She is once more her own person. While the affection of her husband John and his obvious distress at her complete descent into her fantasies, it is hardly far-fetched to trace the roots of her depression and breakdown to his inability to look beyond what he perceives. As the woman becomes increasingly disturbed by the motions of the woman behind the wallpaper, she wakes John one night and attempts to put aside the charade of her improvement. She is not improving but is instead becoming obsessive, rather than validating and listening to his wifes fears, John falls back on the weak femalestrong male dynamic that he allows to define his relationship with his wife. Demeaned by and made to feel guilty by the affections of her husband, the womans eventual feelings of disconnection from reality become justified. Like the woman she sees behind the wallpaper, she is struggling with a one-dimensional perspective of self. In embracing her madness in the end, she is in fact embracing her own self more fully.  Within the context of her society, as proven by the condescension and controlling nature of her husband, brother, and even sister-in-law who is masculine in her connection to John, the protagonist in The Yellow Wallpaper breaks under the caricaturized ideal.

The relationship of John and his wife, we are led to believe, is what the woman views as typical. He dominates both their private and public lives, while she remains in the background. Her depression, mounting after the birth of a child we never see, is stoked by Johns inability to either see or understand the fragility and seriousness of her sickness. Lying in bed, watching the shadows pass along the walls, on that undulating wallpaper (ll. 30), the woman resolves to attempt to explain the John the futility of the fight she has waged thus far. Feeling a prisoner within her own home and relationship, she cannot fully heal as she tries to suppress the depression and delusions of her illness in order to embrace Johns prognosis. The contradiction of the lines, It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so (ll. 126) is telling of the precarious state of their relationship. She feels safe with John and wants to have faith in his beliefs concerning her future, but the persistence of her illness teamed with his refusal to hear what she is experiencing makes trust difficult. Her inability to trust him and to find sympathy, in addition to marital love, acts as a major catalyst in her eventual psychotic break.

This passage, when the woman explains to John that despite her efforts to show otherwise she has not improved but has only grown more fragile, is illustrative of the underlying lack of respect and understanding of John for his wife. To John, she is not a grown woman but a little girl, a darling, and dear. She is weakness personified, relying on him not simply for financial support but also medical, personal, and emotional support. However, with such a support network which finds fault and shows little attention to her own perspective, she finds herself straining to be honest. Confessing to him of her fears and desire to return home, she is attempting to remove some of the charade that has surrounded their stay. When he is gone during the day, she can lay in bed all day, moving from the covers only when he returns home. From there she tries to play the happy wife by eating better and showing a feigned interest in the home around her. However, this interest without a proper and fruitful outlet turns against the woman and she begins to see the woman behind the paper. The woman knows that her struggle is real even as she attempts to believe Johns assertions to the contrary but is confronted when speaking with John about the desire to return home by his close-mindedness and belief that her sickness is a manifestation of will alone, Bless her little heart  she shall be as sick as she pleases (ll.137).

Johns belief in her inferiority to him is displayed in such language, including his continual reference and view of his wife as not much more than a girl. Though she is obviously a mother, the root of her illness in fact beginning there, she is treated with the affection of a daughter. There is little or no passion in the couples interaction with one another, in sickness John attempts to bolster his wife but more in the manner an adult would bolster a child. As the woman notes that while she appears to be getting better, she is only better in body (ll. 142), she is chastened by John. It is obvious that not only is John reprimanding this type of thinking but he also makes her feel the child. The narrator notes, I began, and stopped short, for he sat up and looked at me with such a stern, reproachful look that I could not say a word (ll. 142). With this type of language, it is often difficult to remember that the narrator speaks of the man she loves, and not a father figure. That she feels John to be a dominant, almost paternal figure in her life, is evident in her reactions to his attentions and dismissals. Much like a child who is told to go back to sleep, that her nightmares were only her imagination but still believes and experiences the fear of the dream that jolted them from sleep, the narrator feels no solace from her attempt to open up to John. She has come to feel even greater shame in her sickness, turning obsessively inward and focusing her outward perceptions on the growing details of the patterned yellow wallpaper.

In the end, both of this particular conversation and the story itself the narrator reacts in the only manner in which she feels capable. From Johns viewpoint, her depression and increasing disconnection from reality are manifestations of will. Her sickness is reduced to an instance of a woman blowing her feelings out of proportion. Chastising the narrator on her expression that her illness may not be physical but instead a mental deterioration, John attempts to explain the folly of believing it to be a mental reaction, I beg of you, for my sake and our childs sake, as well as your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy (ll. 143). In describing her feelings of disconnection and sadness in this manner, John reduces not merely the importance of his wifes feelings but also the harsh and damaging effects of unchecked mental deterioration. Depression and delusion become fascinating and fancy as though his wife were choosing her sadness as a distraction from her dull upper-middle class existence. Just as John can and does control the world around him, his wife is expected to control her emotions. Even with her own emotions and well-being the narrator begins to understand that she has little say, having grown sick she was placed within the category of patient and has continually been reduced to a mere concept of a woman. That the audience never encounters the narrator within the context of a homemaker or mother, exerting love and care over her domain and offspring, is important in showing how removed she feels from these conventional roles. In Johns eyes, her illness is preventing her from fulfilling her obligations to him and society. For the narrator, the digression of her relationship with her child and her husband, simply underlines her disconnection from what she has been taught is her inevitable reality.

In the narrators eventual psychotic break, setting the woman and herself free in this madness, she is no longer required to conform to the roles of a woman, wife, or mother. Her insanity removes her from this category and lets her break from behind the restraints at the center of her society.  This particular scene, revealing the fractures of trust and understanding that define the narrator and Johns relationship, is a turning point. No longer will the narrator attempt to turn toward her husband for solace and understanding. Instead she reverts farther into herself until she eventually comes out on the other side of her illness. She is not cured but she is free, free from the conventions and expectations imposed on her by her husband. Though tragic within the context of an individual womans descent into her own hell, it is in fact an emergence from another kind of hell. She is undoubtedly broken from experience but the freedom she experiences is also a triumph, the only kind that is in the end available to her.