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... xing her nerves already frazzled from an admixture of hysteria and postpartum depression (39). Medicine, in Johns eyes, will help his wife regain the focus to maintain a healthy life. Again, the narrator refers back to the medication and confinement- But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief (409). At this point the narrator realizes that not only do the drugs exhaust her, but also concealing her thoughts from others is paying a toll on her strength. With such disregard for the narrators feelings, John compels her to isolation that further weakens her mental condition as she notices various trends amongst the wallpaper.
She is confined, for the most part, to a big, airy room with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore (405). The narrator becomes obsessed with the wallpaper, which Gilman describes as repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight (405). Under the influence of mind-altering medication and forbidden to associate with others, the narrator can do nothing else but obsess over the minute details of her personal cell. In fact, her anguish is reflected in the way she brings the wallpaper to life, giving it characteristics similar to that of her own condition. It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study (405). John looks upon the narrator with an uncertain eye, just as she views the wallpaper.
She reacts to the color of the wallpaper just as John does to her depression in that both have jumped to conclusions. The narrators illness provokes her husband enough that he constantly reminds her that medication and rest are the best remedy. The wallpaper raises the wifes curiosity in an attempt to find the truth behind the pattern. And when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide- plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard-of contradictions (405). Gilman foreshadows a tragic end for the wife, which the character can see for herself in observing the wallpaper.
As the narrators life is filled with uncertainties without proper answers, the end of the story climaxes her paranoia as her actions reflect a loss of sanity. As a result of Johns ignorance, the narrator confides in the wallpaper, which becomes a reflection of her own life in a state of severe depression. In reference to the wallpaper, Gilman uses descriptive words with dual meanings. On a pattern like this, by daylight, there is a lack of sequence, a defiance of law, that is a constant irritant to a normal mind (411). There is a lack of sequence to the narrators life, seeming as though her mental breakdown follows such a miraculous event in the birth of her child. However, she defies gratification with her depression, and is constantly misunderstood by her husband.
For John, her condition is both abnormal and an irritation to his professional, normal mind. The narrator struggles with the idea of containing her depression and having to conquer it on her own. You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well under way in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples on you. It is like a bad dream (411). Her obsession with the wallpaper becomes a self-analy zation of her decline in mental health.
Just when she thinks she can overcome depression, like the pattern in the wallpaper, her world is flipped upside down with uncertainty. As she struggles to discover the woman behind the wallpaper, the narrator notices, she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern- it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads. They get through, and then the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside down (414).
The pattern in the wallpaper represents the overwhelming influence that John has over his wife. She is trying to break through and overcome her depression, however she is strangled with no one to listen to her wants and desires. In her final attempt to communicate with John, the narrator rips the wallpaper off the walls in defiance. Ive got out at last in spite of you! And Ive pulled off most of the paper, so you cant put me back! (417).
Such an alarming action is seen as the wifes final attempt to gain the attention of her husband, who faints in astonishment. Johns reaction is significant in that he is shocked because his prescription of rest, isolation, and medication have deteriorated his wifes mental stability. John is the overbearing male presence in the narrators life that keeps her from achieving ideal health. Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper is a struggle between the narrators will to gain self-confidence in the midst of Johns professional, medical advice. The wife has a feeling that escaping her confinement and interacting with others will enable her to be able to regain mental stability and care for her child, as well as her husband.
With each bit of hope, John is the domineering (Delashmit 33) figure that inhibits the narrators personal expression with his selfishness and I know whats best for you mentality. Behind Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper lies a woman suppressed by thoughts and desires of which are not her own, but those of her husband. Bak, John S. Escaping the jaundiced eye: Foucauldian Panopticism in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper.
Studies in Short Fiction 31 (1994): 39 - 44. Delashmit, Charles and Margaret Long. Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper. The Fishbein, Leslie. To Herland and Beyond: The Life and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The Journal of American History 80 (1993): 1116.
Bibliography: Turner 8 Works Cited Bak, John S. Escaping the jaundiced eye: Foucauldian Panopticism in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper. Studies in Short Fiction 31 (1994): 39 - 44. Delashmit, Charles and Margaret Long.
Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper. The Explicator 50 (1991): 32 - 33. Fishbein, Leslie. To Herland and Beyond: The Life and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
The Journal of American History 80 (1993): 1116.
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Research essay sample on Charlotte Perkins Gilman Yellow Wallpaper
