I enjoyed reading the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman's. In my English 113 class, I read this story and I had a hard time understanding it but after reading it for the second time I understand what it means a little better. This short story was written in 1892 in California and it had several different categories within it. The short story was considered at one point a gothic horror tale, a character study, and a socio-political allegory (Sparknotes). The person telling this story is a mentally disturbed young woman who is probably named Jane. This story is told in first-person narration, concentrating entirely on her own thoughts, feelings, and opinions (Sparknotes). Throughout this short story we learn and see that the story if categorized through the narrator’s shifting of consciousness. The narrator seems to go insane over the course of the story. Her view of reality is often completely at odds with all of the other characters in the story.
A symbol that I found in this story was the wallpaper. The narrator perceives that the wallpaper is a text, like a book, that she must decipher. She thinks that the wallpaper symbolizes something that affects her directly. Throughout the story the wallpaper is mentioned. At the beginning of the story it seemed simply nasty: it was ripped, soiled, and an “unclean yellow.” The wallpaper has an unrecognizable pattern that attracts the narrator as she attempts to figure out just how it is organized. She stares at the wallpaper for hours and then she finally sees a ghostly sub-pattern behind the main pattern which is only visible in a certain light (SparkNotes). The longer she looks at the sub-pattern, she begins to see a desperate woman who is constantly crawling and stooping, looking for an escape from behind the main pattern, which resembles the bars of a cage (SparkNotes). I believe that the wallpaper represents the structure of a family, medicine, and tradition in which the narrator finds herself trapped.
The author choosing to use first person was effective because it put the reader in the story actually seeing and feeling what the narrator saw and felt. Being able to read a story from the one who is suffering makes the story seem more real and have more meaning to it. By using the first person the author accomplishes the reader experiencing the same things that Jane was experiencing. We actually got to be put in her shoes and know exactly what she was thinking and seeing. By Jane telling the story we were able to know exactly how she felt about the situation that she was in. All the stuff was happening to her and we were able to see it all from her view makes it more personal. I believe that if the story was told in the third person then we would have never known what Jane was experiencing from her situation. If the husband were telling the story then we would have only seen what he was able to see. By Jane telling the story we knew her actions, emotions, and thoughts throughout the entire story. If it were in the third person who would not have known what Jane endured from how her husband was treating her. I believe that from Jane telling the story we really got to see and envision what she was going through and sympathize with her.
The narrator’s relationship with her husband was what to be expected during the time that this short story was written. Jane did not agree with what her husband was making her do but in the Victorian Age that was how the women of society were to be treated. She respected her husband although she really did not agree with the things that he was making her do. Women were not allowed to work but she thought that if she could work then that would help her with her mental state. There is one statement in this story that stood out to me and it was:
John is a physician, and -- perhaps (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do? 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? My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing. So I take phosphates or phospites -- whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to "work" until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good (Gilman).
From this statement I feel that she does not agree with her husband but she does not let him know that because she is to support and obey her husband. Jane is not allowed to do much of anything but rest continuously and she disagrees with that completely. She does things behind everyone’s back and hides it if they come in so they will not know that she is writing. The author seems to suggest that women in this time period must submit themselves to their husbands and have no place in society. Jane has done what her husband and physicians say because who is she to disagree with them. In the Victorian age women had no rights at all.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Yellow Wallpaper.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2006. Web. 4 Feb. 2011.
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