The Yellow Wallpaper is a fictional story that speaks about how a woman struggles under the patriarchal culture of the late 1800s and how she becomes depressed by the unfulfilled desire for self expression and autonomy. Written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1899, this story remains significant today. This essay will examine the gender issues, characters, in relation to the psychological problems raised.
One aspect that is clear in the story is the issue of gender, and its relationship to power and authority. In the older times, and even now, there is still the idea that it is proper to place a woman under a man’s control, known as patriarchal power. It is acceptable in some countries where many women are still considered to be “second- class citizens.” Women should not have activities outside the house; they are only responsible for keeping the house as they are often “absolutely forbidden to work.” (p. 1). Women do not have autonomy for theirselves, the independence to make decision by theirselves. They ca not decide to work outside the house, they are not give a right to make opinion, to decide what they want to do and reach as women. Patriarchal power does not let women have that autonomy. Men are the ones who have the authority on everthing, include women.
Jane, the narrator is on a summer vacation with her husband, John, a doctor in a mansion. Jane becomes depressed because John, on medical advice, forbids her to go out of the nursery. She rarely even sees her baby. Consequently in the past two weeks, Jane has become depressed, nervous, and anxious. As the summer passes, her mental state get worse. Every day, every week, another mental problem afflicts her, as she said, “Of course I never mention it to them any more—I am too wise, -- but I keep watch of it all the same,” shows that she here is suffering from paranoia, when she has secrets that need to be protected from other people (p. 6). She also, slowly, begins to like the condition of the room. She enjoys it by finding out and exploring the pattern. The place where she is reined and tortured is getting too comfortable for her. It shows she now is experiencing Stockholm syndrome. The time she is spending in nursery is influencing her emotional and mental state.
Jane realizes that she is being confined but she does not dare to struggle. As a grown woman, Jane must be realize this fact but she complies because her gender beliefs about masculine authority are so strong. As she is a traditional women, she accepts the social inequality between men and women. Being control by a man is an usual thing for her because it has been the culture. Jane is a an obedient wife who obeys what her husband says even though she knows that is not what she needs. The food John gives her is to keep her awake enough to feel the torture, but keeps her weak to struggle. She is therefore “[f]orced to hide her anxieties and fears in order to preserve the facade of a happy marriage and to make it seem as though she is winning in the fight against her depression”. She does not want to look weak and desperate in her marriage in front of John.
John, as the “front” pattern in the wallpaper, is a traditional upper class male, with his “all-encompassing authority.” (p. 7). He takes his role as both husband and physician, and so he believes he knows what is best for his wife’s health. When he is at home, he patronises her, by calling her “little girl”, “darling”, and always convinces her that she’s getting better. (p. 6) The problem is, as the dominant person in the family, he cannot overcome and understand his wife’s creativity, for he is “an intense horror of superstition, and he’s scoffs openly at anything not openly seen and put down in figures.” (p. 1). Once she tries to talk to John about the wallpaper, John says that she should not think like that and he convinces her that her condition is getting better. He ignores her every time she tries to talk about the pattern (his abuse). John, as a traditional man, his gender beliefs are that women must be under men’s authority. That is why he puts Jane under his control.
The “back” pattern in the wallpaper is the image of women (p. 7). First it starts when the narrator see a “broken neck and bulbous eyes.” (p. 3) Then her mental disorder becomes worse until finally she clearly sees that the pattern is a woman who is struggling, under masculine violence and trying to escape. The back pattern of the status of women is then related to the front pattern which symbolises the status of men. She is tortured by both her culture and her husband. At last, the wallpaper not only influences her, but the whole society is influenced, by the discrimination against women, for it is “stained everything it touches.” (p. 8). The narrator uses the “[h]ideous paper as a symbol of the domestic life that traps so many woman.” The women in the wallpaper represent her condition of being trapped in the house and how struggle to escape.
The narrator is actually the new-self of the main character, Jane. In her view, Jane is a weak woman who has no desire to save her life. By the end of the story when she says “in spite of you [John] and Jane,” it clearly shows that the narrator has already separated herself from Jane, her husband, and her culture (p. 11) At this point the narrator “[l]oses touch with the outer world.” She is paranoid when she said “I have found another funny thing, but I shan’t tell it this time! It does not do to trust people too much” (p. 9). She no longer trusts the reader and does not want to confide. At the end, she has a psychotic break, she starts to forget herself, and thinks that she is the woman in the pattern, which, actually, is an image of her situation.
When she said “Well, the Fourth of July is over” she realizes her condition as both obedient wife and the victim of his husband’s man power(p. 4). Although, the fourth of July refers to Independence Day in the United States and symbolises freedom, she understands her freedom is lost. She is simply aware, but can not take any action. She wants to resist but she does not know how, other than to write her diary to tell her story. As the new-self Jane, the narrator is a feminist. As the opposite of Jane, she refuses to accept social inequality. Her gender beliefs that women should have the same right as man in autonomy and self- expression. That is why she hates Jane, because Jane, as a traditional woman, accepts the social inequality and just obeys her husband without any struggling to fight for her rights.
The Yellow Wallpaper represents the issues of domestic life of women, and the traditions which also influence each generation and are passed down through the culture. The text shows the need for women to have same rights as men. The narrator is the example of how a woman is destroyed by the patriarchal power of her husband.
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