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A Psychological Aspects Reflected in The Short Story “The Yellow Wallpaper” By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wallpaper can be said as a short story included in feminist literary works. At first, when I read this story I felt the narrator would tell one of the horror stories like in a horror film with haunted houses and the horrific things that happened around the house made the people in that house live miserably. But actually, the story goes far from what I imagined. This story is told from the first-person perspective.

One thing to know is that the narrator doesn't have a name. I think the writer did this on purpose so that the narrator in the story could be anyone. She can be any woman in this world who faces the same condition. Because the author wrote this novel in a strong feminist tone, the narrator took the role of all women who suffered from unfair gender laws in that time period. I think this story is more seen as a story dealing with the psychological disorders of the narrator. The author wrote this story to stage back most women in general.

The narrator of this story is a woman who clearly has a mental problem, but there are more who contribute to her despair. She was trapped between her own psychological problems but also the problems that her husband brought to her too. It seems that the narrator is suffering from Postpartum Depression, which means that her negative feelings are formed after giving birth to a child. But throughout the story, her husband, a doctor repeatedly explained to her that there was nothing wrong with her even though it was clear to the reader that the narrator was mentally unstable.

The narrator feels trapped under the care of her husband because he doesn’t treat her as if she is a patient with a mental problem, and he refuses to provide any real diagnosis or treatment. Her brother is also a doctor and he treats her the same way her husband does, telling her that all she needs is rest and to calm her mind. John thinks that he knows what's best for his wife, even though he's only getting in the way of her condition. This is an example of the struggle between gender roles through the lens of feminism because the husband believes that he knows what is best for her just because he has a degree in this matter and because he is a man. He has the mindset that if he doesn't see anything wrong with it then it can't be right.

John decides that the only way to help her recover is to take her out of where she currently lives. He didn’t understand that it wasn’t a place that created the narrator's depression. Unfortunately, the house he brought didn't make her feel relaxed or better at all. All John did was confine her in one room and take her away from the community. Instead of working with her to get better, he isolates her as if she just needs to be alone to be better.

In the past, that was the case for women. They are forced to depend on their husbands because they are not allowed to take care of themselves by working or doing anything that men must do. The narrator needs to express herself and handle his emotions in a healthy manner instead of being told by John that it is all in her head and that she has no real mental problems.

The narrator lets her imagination get the best of herself because she becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper. The wallpaper mocked her as if it were a living person. She has suffered from her imagination in the past but has never been like this. It consumed all of her thoughts and made it even harder for her to get better. John helped destroy it by not realizing that there was a woman in his wife who was struggling to be herself and showing her true feelings.

The yellow wallpaper pushed her imagination further than before, and she lost herself in provoked thoughts. She saw the figure on the wallpaper and began to think about all the other women who were imprisoned just like her. The narrator begins to question herself and how many others. She further opened her mind to the number of people their husbands had to hold, and this only added to her madness.

At the end of the story, the woman spoke as if she herself had actually come out of the wallpaper and wondered if all the trapped women would escape from it just like her. The narrator tore the wallpaper and reached the peak of her madness. She began to talk about her husband but did not realize who he was. What the narrator saw was the body passed out on the floor that she had to pass.

Throughout this book, male characters make all decisions and look at things excessively. Slowly the narrator starts to go completely crazy under the complete control of John, her husband, who never listens to what the narrator says. What she needs is to be treated as a human being, to be able to read and write, go out and work. Instead, she was harassed and told not to do anything to drive her crazy.

The wallpaper serves as a symbol for women and the way they are treated. The woman behind bars, who wanted to come out to represent the women of that period. Men forbid them, they have fewer rights and are not treated equally. Trapped woman, like the pictures on the wallpaper. They are expected to be perfect housewives, to cook, clean, and care for children. They are trapped in a world ruled by men. Over the years, women have been oppressed through the men's image have given them. Women have been constrained by the image that women are helpless, and that men know what is best for them.

Looking at this story through the lens of psychoanalysis, I concluded that when someone has a real mental illness, they need more than just a change of scenery. There is no easy way to escape from a mental disorder, like someone who is as serious and painful as depression, especially in the narrator's case. The narrator not only cannot escape her mental illness, but she also cannot escape the obstacles she receives from her husband. She felt helpless, hopeless, and truly crazy. The narrator knows that she has lost herself, and her husband doesn't seem to bother trying to find it.

During this time, men were dominant, and John contributed to this image by imprisoning his wife and her mental illness. The narrator has a way to give her experience an unhealthy component. She allowed her restless tendencies to become obsessed. This story written by Charlotte Gilman shows the oppression of women through the narrator's battle between being trapped by her mental illness and also trapped by the way her husband treats her.

 

References

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/introliterature/chapter/reader-response-criticism/

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Psychoanalytical-Critique-of-The-Yellow-Wallpaper

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/yellowwallpaper/

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