Analysis of Patriarchy, Feminism, and Gender in The Short Story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is one of the feminist literary studies that was first published in 1892. The story is written like a kind of secret journal by the narrator. This story illustrates the development of the narrator's mental illness from the perspective of the first person in her journal. The narrator's identity is not revealed in the story, but she can be identified as a woman who is described as having a mental illness. John, the narrator's husband, described her mental illness as temporary nervous depression but she felt her illness was more serious. Despite the narrator's request, that she has a more serious illness, John refuses to change his treatment. The story begins with a mystery: the house seems to have "something queer about it". If we read further, it can be seen that the house is not the only strange thing in this story.

John’s diagnosis and the women’s treatment

It can be seen in the story, that the narrator's husband, John, does not take his wife seriously. The narrator suggests believing that John's diagnosis of her is incorrect. She asked, "If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression- a slight hysterical tendency- what is one to do?". Here the narrator states that her illness is more serious than temporary nervous depression, but she feels powerless because of John's public diagnosis, here John's diagnosis serves to control the narrator's behavior. This diagnosis was also verified by the narrator's brother; It is noteworthy that these two figures are both males. This proves that the doctor's diagnostic language is combined with the husband's paternalistic language to create a set of formidable controls over his wife's behavior.

Women have been restrained by images that women are helpless, and that men know what is best for them. This really applies to “The Yellow Wallpaper”. John does not give the narrator control over the treatment of her illness. John's treatment and diagnosis can worsen the narrator's condition. Instead of working with her to get better, he isolates her as if she needs to be alone to be better.

The yellow wallpaper

The Narrator is placed in a room she doesn't even want; instead, it was a room that appeared to be a nursery, so it emphasized her returning to infancy. "windows are barred for little children,” again showing that she was treated like a child, and also she was like a prisoner. The narrator's relationship with her husband, John, proved to be the key to her symbolic situation. Totally condescending, he often called her as if she were a child, demanding, for example, “What is it, little girl?” He seems to have imprisoned her. When the narrator suggested to John remove the yellow wallpaper in her room because it made her feel uncomfortable, John refused. The wallpaper makes the narrator uncomfortable, but as a male authority figure, John has a final decision about wallpaper.

John ignores the narrator's request for a more serious diagnosis. John ignores the narrator's concerns as a female speech. Because of that the narrator's illness is not treated, develops until she is interrupted, and rips the wallpaper. In this case, the yellow wallpaper serves as an allegory about the importance of taking a woman's words seriously. The gruesome detail of the suicide wallpaper pattern creates an unpleasant tone, even paranoia: “There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down.”  The description of gruesome violence seems to express extreme frustration. Namely, women who cannot survive when they try to oppose cultural norms. Such a parable could show her image as a monster because she refused or failed to play the role of a good mother or a kind of feminine perfection in the 19th century: angels at home.

Becoming a creeping women

Eventually, the narrator becomes a creeping woman. The first indication is when she says, somewhat surprisingly, "I always lock the door when I creep by daylight." The narrator writes, "[T]here are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast." So the narrator is one of many. In this interpretation, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is not only a story about a woman's madness, but also an annoying system. At one point, the narrator watched as the woman crawled from her window and asked, "I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did?" She came out of the wallpaper - her freedom - to coincide with her crazy behavior, tearing paper, locking herself in a room, even biting into an unshakeable bed. That is, her freedom came when she finally revealed her beliefs and behavior to those around her and stopped hiding.

Writing as rebellion

Because the narrator does not feel free to speak honestly -to a living soul-, she links her mind to a journal -dead paper- instead. She revealed this personal thought in her personal journal because she was prevented from talking about the severity of her illness. John prevents the narrator from talking and thinking about her illness. As a woman, the narrator is helpless about her condition. In the late 1800s, when “The Yellow Wallpaper” happened, the man controlled the science and medicine institute. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the influence of John,  men, and the narrator's brother determines the diagnosis and the situation. So the narrator is discouraged to do something intellectual even though she believes some excitement and change will do her a favor. She must write in secret and she was only allowed to meet and be accompanied by certain people. In short, John made all the decisions for her and isolated her from the things she cared about.

Conclusion

This story has become a popular feminist text about the male mistreatment of women which is illustrated by John's treatment of the narrator, his wife, who acted on his belief that he knew what was best for his wife. This can be likened to Gilman's story of how society when she wrote this story, suppressed women's equality. The way to treat women is thus in the spotlight.

More broadly, in this story, we can see rooms such as prisons that are inhabited (with barred windows, a gate on the stairs, rings in the walls, and a nailed-down bed) as a symbol of the narrator situation as an upper-middle-class woman from a certain time and place (patriarchal society 19th century). Living under a patriarchal government, she was not advised to express herself and productivity through work and writing.

Ironically, when the narrator wants to achieve her freedom she is restricted. The narrator finally loses her grip on the fact that we all share and leap into the world of her creative imagination or hallucinations. Narrators and women trapped in wallpaper patterns become one and the same. By extension, they symbolize all women who live under this particular form of oppression. Writing itself became her work and her rebellion, because she had denied this outlet, access to creative production and expression, and this meant finding a voice and thus establishing an identity.

The conclusion proved ironic with the childish image of her “creeping” or crawling, like a baby. Somehow, she had built up the fact that she could live to live. However, she became very alienated from herself. At the end of the story, the narrator finally gathers the freedom to express herself who is ultimately authentic, independent.

 

Reference

Sustana, Catherine. 2019. Analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper by C. Perkins Gilman. (https://www.thoughtco.com/analysis-of-the-yellow-wallpaper-2990476 accessed November 8, 2019)

Wyman, Sarah. 2018. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: an analysis. (https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/literary-analyses/charlotte-perkins-gilman-yellow-wallpaper-1892-analysis/ accessed November 8, 2019)