English Literature

The short story of Charlotte Perkins Gilman s  The Yellow Wall paper  is an affirmation of a woman s need for independence. The narrator in the Yellow Wallpaper  settles for the consolation of illusion  to exercise her sense of individuality (Gilman p.4). She finds fortress in the wallpaper, but later on, she finds herself in the midst of reality. She approached the wallpaper positively because it became useful in acquiring various realizations. In an effort to temporarily liberate herself in her restricted world dominated by men, the effort meets with success. As the narrator descends into madness, her views on society change as she acquires constant bond with the women in the wallpaper.

Illusion and reality are usually two extremely opposite concepts. However, in the case of this classic short story, the two concepts are closely interrelated. The usage of illusion and reality is ironic in the sense that the narrator s illusions are directing her into the reality. The narrator s product of illusions becomes an important component to reveal the writer s social messages reality of women s condition in a patriarchal society. Apparently, the writer creatively used the wallpaper to draw pictures and images on how she, as a woman, perceives herself in the society of men.  The story is presented as if it were the narrator s private journal, with the section breaks demarcating her putative diary entries  (Gray 8). The narrator is a woman whose rational husband   a physician   has confined her in a place or a situation where she cannot exercise her free will, mind, and innate creativity. With nothing to stimulate her, she becomes obsessed by the pattern, color, and smell of the room s wallpaper.

However, upon applying her creativity, the woman in the story begins to see that there is something deeper in the yellow wallpaper that tells about a terrifying reality that has been ignored for a long time. The wallpaper becomes her outlet to express herself and her creativity that has been stolen from her. In her illusionary fantasies out of the wallpaper, she describes women, along with herself, creeping behind the patterns of the wallpaper. This image created by the narrator is associated with the concept of domestic sphere that women were held during this period.

As she continues her imagination, her uncanny sense of connection to the women behind the wallpaper is heightened. She comes to a realization that she is seeing herself together with other women at that time who are trapped in a restricted world where their full self is impossible to achieve. The pictures she created out of the wallpaper describe the silent plight of women which is not easy to disclose because of the intimidating men s society. Hence, the narrator s imagination gives the readers a glimpse of reality. Though one might say that the illusions of the narrator are caused by her mental abnormality or insanity, it is very apparent that the writer genuinely wanted to make a point of comparison between the narrator s imagination and the restricted women s role in domesticity and motherhood during 19th century.

The wallpaper in relation to reality has a dual purpose. First, the wallpaper temporarily separates the narrator from the reality of her confinement. She apparently uses the wallpaper as the closest thing that she has in order to exercise her passion in creativity. The realization of her situation as a woman in the community comes out immediately.

It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw   not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things. But there is something else about that paper   the smell ... The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper A yellow smell. (Gilman 11)

Thus, the narrator uses the wallpaper as the main symbol to describe critically the position of women within the institution of marriage during 19th century. This work ensures that during the creation of this literature, women remained second class citizens wherein the society kept them in a confined world of domesticity and motherhood with the assumption that women are unable to stand up for themselves. This confinement restricted them to develop their full potentials.

The main character in this story is an emotional servant who is a victim of confinement, most specifically mental constraints. However, as the narrator loses involvement with the outer world because of her assumed mental health problem, she comes to a greater understanding of the inner reality of her life as a woman. She is highly imaginative, but her husband forbids her to exercise her imagination, as he says that shutting his wife inside the room is a significant part of the curing process. Hence, the Yellow Wallpaper is a story about the wickedness of confinement. In this story,

Charlotte Perkins Gilman wished to symbolize this confinement to the current situation of women who were locked up in their role as merely wives and mothers. They were exclusively isolated to fulfill domestic purposes only without any right to identify themselves as an individual person. Thus, the story wishes to open people s mind to the dangers of restricting women not only in the literal sense but also in the sociological and mental aspects. It aims to convey that this confinement can risk a person s mental and physical health as portrayed by the psychosis brought about in the narrator s mind as she struggles inside the room.

The writer of this short story uses also imagery and psychoanalysis to express her political idealism about the inequality of marriage where women are always regarded as less capable than men, restricting the former of self expression. She also stresses that the resting cure, which entails inactivity, can deteriorate one s mind. In reality, during the 19th century,

the diagnosis of hysteria or depression, considered a conventional women s disease, sets in motion a therapeutic regimen which involves language in several ways. In the story for example, the narrator is forbidden to engage in normal social conversation her physical isolation is in part designed to remove her from the possibility of over stimulating intellectual discussion (Benstock 62).

The woman behind the wallpaper is the narrator herself. Being confined alone in the room only provides herself as the only company that she has. The wallpaper becomes the mirror of the narrator s situation as she sees her situation and the situation of other women struggling free from the  cage  which has already formed in the patterns of the wallpaper. She found fortress in the wallpaper but later on she found herself in the midst of reality. The wallpaper is approach positively because it became useful in acquiring various realizations. In an effort to temporarily liberate herself in her restricted world in male dominance, the effort meets with success. As the narrator descends into madness, her views on society change.