Charlotte Perkins, “The Yellow Wallpaper” depicts oppressive gender roles, mental health issues and inward vs outward appearance through the journaling of the narrator. The story chronicles the downward spiral of the narrators mental health due to the environment she is in. The story is set in what the narrator describes as “A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house.”. The description of the house foreshadows the nature of the story; some would say almost paranormal.
The story was written in 1899, a time period where woman were looked down upon, only being seen as homemakers and caretakers not decision makers. This can be seen in the way the protagonists husband, John, speaks to her; John refers to the narrator as “blessed little goose” and ‘little girl”. From the beginning the reader can see the oppressive nature of their relationship. The narrator believes she is sick and John, who is a Physician, believes she is not. John believes the narrator is suffering from a temporary nervous depression and prescribes “the rest cure”. This kind of treatment leaves the narrator confined to a house, mainly in a bedroom she cannot stand and prevents her from doing any type of “work” such as writing which she must do in secret. John believes any type of intellectual work will tire the narrator even more. The way the narrator describes the way John talks to her leads one to believe he constantly treats her like a child by referring to the narrator as his “little girl” and tells her to have proper self control.
The room in which the narrator is confined to is described as a room for children. The room was once a nursery then turned into a playroom. The narrator describes the room “for the windows are barred for little children”. The narrator tried to convince her husband that she wanted the room downstairs, but in his controlling nature John comes up with an excuse as to why they must stay upstairs “He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another.”. The nursery is covered in what the narrator describes as “almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow.”. The narrator becomes obsessed with the putrid wallpaper. She studies it determined to make some sense of it. She talks about staring at the pattern for hours following it to no end. No matter how much she studies the wall paper it never makes sense to her. Similarly, the harder she tries to recover from her nervous condition the more sick she becomes, which she cannot understand either.
While studying the wall paper, the narrator begins to the pattern of the wallpaper to resemble a creeping woman. The creeping woman seems to be trapped behind the pattern of the wallpaper except for when no one is around. This can be compared to how the narrator feels about herself. When her husband or caretakers are around, the narrator must be careful with what she does or says. The introduction of the creeping woman could be seen as the narrators reflection of herself as she slips deeper into her madness. At one point in the story the narrator observes the creeping women from her window and asks, “I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did?”. By now the narrator is beginning to compare herself to the creeping women. Her comparison to the creeping women can be seen as a yearning for freedom. Just like the narrator must creep around to write or do anything outside of what her husband wants, the creeping women are not meant to be out of the wall paper so they m use creep.
The narrator finally comes out of the wall paper or gains her freedom when she locks herself in the room descending deeper into madness while ripping down the wallpaper. John discovers what is going on a faints. The narrator finally begins to realize John only “pretended to be loving and kind.” She continues to creep over John she realizes he was treating her as a child he was able to easily control. Now that she has her freedom, she addresses him as “young man”. Ironically the same wallpaper John refused to take down as to not give in to the narrator’s fancies is the same wallpaper that gave the narrator her freedom.
Melissa's Literary Analysis 