Escape into Insanity: “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Essay Example

Introduction

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, something very near to an Edgar Allan Poe transformation of character takes place.   A sheltered woman, recovering from a nervous illness, becomes fixated on the paper in the room she occupies, and this gradually becomes her nightmare and her refuge.  While the other characters and the setting of the story point to a rigidly supportive and comfortable environment, they only emphasize the madness overtaking the protagonist, even as they assist her more forcefully to it.   Through its central characterization, setting, and the conflict between the protagonist and the wallpaper itself,  Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” reveals how a mind can create a means of escape into a completely different reality.

Literary Themes

Characterization is critical in virtually all narrative fiction, and in “The Yellow Wallpaper” it takes on an especially important role.  Essentially, only the female protagonist is a dimensional character.  Her husband, John,  is an archetypal, controlling man:  “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction” (Gilman  3). Cousins are referred to as being very kind, as is Mary, the woman tending to the new baby.  Only the woman in bed, suffering a nervous condition, is real because she tells her own story.   This characterization is strong, however, not because of her narration, but because of her ignorance; she is, step by step, recounting her road to insanity with no sense of being mad.  “Critics point to the infantile regression…as evidence that she has lost her mind” ( Gilman, St. John  74).  Yet she asserts, close to the culmination, “I am feeling ever so much better!” (Gilman  13), unaware of her own descent into psychosis.  This greatly defines her character, if in a tragic manner.

The theme of setting in the story may be said to rely on the wallpaper itself.  Once the parameters of the woman’s comfortable life in country seclusion are established, they are only a bland backdrop to the intensity of her room.  It is also likely no accident that yellow is the color used to draw the woman in, as the shade had powerful associations in the late 19^th century, when Gilman was writing.  It was the color of decadence and danger, as exemplified in the adoption of it by the radical Oscar Wilde in all his dress, and in the  racial fears of a “yellow invasion” (Golden  115).  The narrator obsesses over this color in her room: “The color is repellant, almost revolting” (Gilman  3).  This sinister wallpaper, as setting, becomes something of a character, or at least an active presence.

The element of the wallpaper as a vital force is what establishes the true conflict.  Gilman’s story is frequently pointed to as an early feminist work: “’The Yellow Wallpaper’ showed the maddening effect of male oppression on women”  (Serafin, Bendixen  224).  While this is certainly valid, the conflict between the woman and the wallpaper is far more essential to the action, simply because male oppression does not usually lead to insanity.  Initial dislike of the paper becomes, in the woman’s mind, a fanatical revulsion: “This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!” (Gilman  5).   As the story progresses, the disgust turns to attraction and, most importantly, the wallpaper provides a means of escape.

Conclusion

There are feminist elements in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, but these cannot completely justify the substance of the story, even if they do facilitate the protagonist’s losing her mind.  It may be that she willingly gives into the insanity prompted by the oppression of the times: “Her only way to keep her self-respect was the total insanity” (Kahle  15).  However, it appears that other circumstances might easily have led her to the same fate.   The way she perceives the wallpaper indicates a woman inevitably subject to madness, no matter her circumstances, because the wallpaper is given a degree of power and dimension far beyond that of her husband or her living conditions.  This is a person of a very unstable mind, yet with a mind nonetheless equipped to save itself in the only way it can, which means a rejecting of the real world.   Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” reveals, through setting, character, and conflict, how the mind can actually create a way of escaping into a completely different reality.

Works Cited

Gilman, C. P.  The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings.  New York, NY: Random House, 1989. Print.

Gilman, C. P., & St. John, S.  The Yellow Wall-Paper: A Dual Text Critical Edition.  Athens: Ohio University Press, 2006.  Print.

Golden, C.  Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”: A Sourcebook and Critical Edition.  New York, NY: Psychology Press, 2004.  Print.

Kahle, A.  “First Wave of Feminism in Politics and Literature.”  Norderstedt, Germany: Grin Verlag, 2005.  Print.

Serafin, S. R., & Bendixen, A.   The Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature.  New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003.  Print.