The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Gilman was born in the 1860’s which was a time when women still did not hold many rights or rank in society. In the 1880’s, she began writing poems of her opinions on women’s suffrage, she even took up the defense for prostitutes. She soon became well known for her writings that spoke out against the way the world views women. One of her most infamous works is a piece titled The Yellow Wallpaper. The story is about a nameless narrator, and her husband names John, whom is also her physician. They move into this mansion, which she describes to be haunted, and states, “that there is something queer about it”. John disregards these comments from his wife, because he has diagnosed her with a condition. Towards the progression of the story, she states that she is sick; however her husband does not tend to believe her. The constant reference to her sickness throughout the story provides a reasonable explanation for the events that are soon to occur. One day she enters a bedroom and described the room of having bars on the windows, but what bothers her most is this yellow wallpaper, that holds a formless pattern, which she finds revolting. This is the beginning to her insanity. Her husband tried to keep her mind at peace by removing her journals, so she does not have much to think about, but she soon begins to hold a journal in secret, where she begins to record her thought on the wallpaper. It isn’t much later that the form of a woman begins to take shape in the wallpaper. The narrator then begins to see the woman roaming around the house. Finally she concludes that she is the roaming woman, and has a mental breakdown. Her own mind led her to her own insanity.

In order to strike an emotion with her audience, Gilman relied on various literary devices, and appealed to the audience’s ethos, and pathos mean of thinking. Irony was a literary device that was commonly used throughout the piece. From the beginning, it was inevitable to know that the author would driver herself to her insanity. However if she had it would most likely be assumed that she would kill herself, not her husband. It does not blatantly state that her husband passed, however it does state, “But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every night!” The man that was controlled her is now the man that she roams over. Metaphorically the wallpaper could have been her husband. The wallpaper held and bound the woman, to the point where she needed to do anything to escape. When she was finally “freed” from the wall, meaning when she began to roam about the house, this was the symbolism for women in that time period. When a person roams, it means that they are wandering aimlessly. One reason a person would wander aimlessly, is if they had no purpose to walk with a sense of pride, and stature. Have you ever seen a president roam? As the woman roamed around the house this is how the narrator felt internally. In her eyes her husband was this man that condemned her and only told her what to do. In the closing statements, she continues to roam over him, for she does not know another way of life.

In this piece the author greatly appealed to the audience’s emotions. When someone is going insane, it is similar to a conflict within you. These conflicts occur internally, and usually begin to take a toll on your emotions. This is how the feeling of anxiety, and nervousness began to arouse in the narrator. Gilman portrayed the narrator to be a vulnerable woman with wants of one day becoming the equal of a man. In this portrayal, her audience she is sending this message to, are the women who feel that they must roam daily, because they feel inferior to a man, or because they are under a man and condemned to a life of inferiority. In addition, Gilman made this a strong piece by her strong use of imagery. The story was told in a way that you could attain a mental picture, and relate that to the inner feelings of the narrator. Gilman could spend a page alone describing something as minute as a wall with wallpaper, while most people could just simply state, “it’s a wall with paper, and it’s ugly.” I truly admire how an author can create something so elaborate with their words. Gilman’s style of writing is very romantic. Romantic writing is a very descriptive way of writing something that does not have a significant meaning or role. This is a talent that Gilman will remain infamous for producing.