Gender oppression and resistance in Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's masterpiece the Yellow Wallpaper is a semi-autobiographical work and it "... is based on Charlotte Perkins Gilman's own experiences with postpartum depression" (Lawall). The story, in terms of the way that it addresses the issue of gender roles, was radical and advanced for its time and the significance of the novella was not fully recognized when it was published in 1892. However, "Twentieth-century feminism rescued the novella from obscurity, and there have been a number of stage adaptations of it, dramatizing the complex struggle in one woman's mind." (Thompson)

In essence the work is essentiality a study of madness. The central theme that flows through this story is the development of a state of psychos and apparent insanity in the central character. However the full meaning of the novella lies in the reasons and the causes for this change and apparent deterioration in the character of the women as she develops towards a state of total psychosis. In a real sense this story is about individual growth and development that is denied and retarded due to certain social and psychological factors.

From a social and gender perspective there is little doubt that many commentators view the Yellow Wallpaper as an expression of gender oppression and the need for personal equality in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries. Mental illness is interpreted in this story as the result of oppression and the denial of individual expression. The illness and the slide into apparent madness that the central character undergoes in this story is seen from one theoretical perspective as a form of resistance to conventional gender roles and male oppression in a patriarchal environment. There are many commentators who consider the decline into insanity in the Yellow Wallpaper not as a story of failure and subjugation but rather as a tale that symbolizes resistance.

There have been, however, other voices who speak of illness not as the result of oppression but as the resistance to it....Paula Treichler argues that the heroine's madness at the end of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the beginning of a language of resistance. These analysts see illness not as a fulfillment of sexist stereotypes but as a way to resist them.

Herndl 6)

In other words the "illness" that the central character of the story experiences is seen not as a sign as a sickness or weakness in the conventional sense but rather as a sign of a natural resistance to social as well as psychological oppression. This point-of-view therefore turns the conventional understanding of mental illness around and sees the "madness "of the woman in the room with the yellow wallpaper as a the symptom of the struggle for psychological freedom and independence. From this perspective the true madness therefore lies in the outer word and social norms that repress and deny women their human freedom of expression and identity. This paper will therefore argue, through an analysis of the story, that the psychological and sociological dimensions are closely linked and in fact complement one another in a comprehensive understanding of the central themes of the Yellow Wallpaper.

2. Summary and overview

In this story we encounter and explore, via the narrator, the inner thoughts and feelings of the main character. She is a woman who is apparently ill and is suffering, seemingly, from a form of postpartum depression. In the story her husband rents a large rambling country house and is insistent that she do absolutely nothing but rest to restore her physical and mental health. She is also not allowed to see her children. The crux of the underlying thematic trend lies in the fact that the women's husband does not take her depression seriously; he is also obviously not interested in investigating the complex causes of her state of mind. It is this disinterestedness and failure to perceive the women as an independent human being which is the reality that is active beneath the mask of compassion that the husband presents; and that provides a central thematic impetus to the story. While he treats her in an ostensibly kind way, there is a great degree of condescension in his treatment of his wife. He tends to treat and see her more as a child than a mature adult.

Her situation is further exacerbated and worsened by the fact that her children are kept from, further denying her any sense of individuality and purpose. She has no means to develop or express her sense of personal identity and individuality - except for her writing and imagination. Finally, she has no access to any other means than her fantasies and the forms and arabesques of the wallpaper. A central facet that becomes more evident as the story develops is that we begin to realize that the true madness and horror is that the women has been denied any sense of self or any inner core of identity.

Within this virtual prison the woman begins to see images and animations in the wallpaper of the room where she resides. The wallpaper therefore becomes the central metaphor that dominates the psychological as well as the social themes of the story. The wallpaper is also a metaphor for her entrapment and psychological imprisonment. This is a device which is also related to the slow deterioration of her sanity.

The images in the wallpaper significantly become transformed into images of trapped women. This is turn becomes a metaphor for the larger implied themes of the story; such as the subjugation and entrapment of women in a male dominated world. The main character moves gradually into a state of psychosis. Psychosis is often defined as a break or a dislocation of the individual from conventional social and psychological reality. She is fact becomes one of the trapped and "creeping" woman in the yellow wallpaper. Finally the woman loses her sense of reality completely in a climax which suggests a horror story.

Herndl 129)

It is clear from the above that the process of dominance, and the subsequent decline of the woman's sense of self-confidence, is subtlety but strongly related to the male oriented social milieu and the prejudices and norms that society impresses on her.

Her husband plays a real and insistent part in enforcing these social norms and views at the expense of her own feelings and perceptions. "Throughout the story, her doctor-husband contradicts her representations of reality and imposes his representations on her. She tells him she feels something strange and ghostly in the house, and he says it is a draught and closes the window..."(Herndl 129). The husband continually erodes her sense of identity by denying the veracity of her views and opinions.

In spite of the assault on her sense of her own identity, she attempts to maintain a sense of self by writing in her journal. This is a last resort and an effort to maintain some sense of personal freedom and equilibrium. "Her writing of the journal we read is one indication of this attempt to continue representing, even though it is the very work she has been told not to do. She is, at least initially, trying to somehow maintain her subjectivity despite male interdiction." (Herndl 130)

Writing in her journal therefore becomes her way of rebelling; of asserting herself against a world that refuses to listen to her innermost feelings and perceptions. However as a result of the continued onslaught against her sense of identity she begins to deny her own sense of self and in fact questions her own subjectivity. This can be seen in remarks such as the following.

A did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal -- having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition. I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus -- but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad

The Yellow Wallpaper)

Her sense of her own worth and value begins to fade. She states that;" I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind." (the Yellow Wallpaper) the fact that she now refers to her writing as "dead paper" is an indication that at deep level she is letting go of the fight for her social and personal subjective reality. She has in a sense consciously accepted the social view of herself that is projected through her husband as being essentially "useless." At a deeper level her consciousness and sense of reality begins to break down. "In writing only for "dead paper" -- writing only to death -- her language use becomes less governed by existence in the world outside her. She ceases to function as a "speaking-subject" in the world" (Herndl 130)

3.1. The wallpaper

As has already been noted, the wallpaper acts as a metaphor for the psychotic decline in the women. There are a number of studies which focus in the various aspects of this metaphor, such as the significance of design and color in terms of the story as a whole. One of the central aspects of the wallpaper is the intense dislike that the woman has for its color and design. She finds them "revolting" and; by daylight, there is a lack of sequence, a defiance of law, that is a constant irritant to a normal mind. [...] the color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing. You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream

The Yellow Wallpaper)

One view is that the woman's disgust and revulsion at the arabesques and "eastern" designs on the wallpaper is that it presents a sense of disorder and lack of centre or control that mirrors her own feelings and experience. As Roth (2001) states it.".. resonated with a faint sense of that disturbance so prevalent in Gilman's tale because arabesque is an uncentred and indeterminate style of decoration. "(Roth) in other words the wallpaper becomes a physical expression of her own dislocation of self and loss of identity.

In essence the metaphor of the yellow wallpaper projects a feeling of entrapment and isolation of the creative and artistic impulses in the individual. An important aspect to consider in terms of the theme of social and psychological oppression is the following. In the Yellow Wallpaper, the focus is on the female character,"... trapped in an ugly and uncomfortable world that does not allow...viable alternatives to the traditional world of wifehood and motherhood." (Herndl 129) Furthermore these artistic and creative urges within the women are repressed so that they become self - destructive instead of liberating.

4. Theoretical perspectives

The Yellow Wallpaper has been interpreted and analyzed from many points-of-view but mainly from a more feminist perspective. Literary criticism in this regard has been essentially focused in the way that women are treated in a modern patriarchal society. In order to fully understand and appreciate the novella in its correct context we should also consider it in terms of the gender divide in the time period in which it was written. As one study states,

Gilman lived in a time when women were routinely oppressed by society and she represented this in her story, both literally in the husband's treatment of the narrator, and figuratively, in the pattern in the wallpaper being a prison for the woman (or women) behind it. The story, at least on some level, was meant to be a warning to society that this type of treatment could only lead to disastrous results. Gilman illustrates this through the narrator's descent into madness.

Metaphor in "The Yellow Wallpaper")

The story as social critique is fairly obvious from the above discussion. This leads to the psychological view and the exploration of the women's decline as a result of the denial of the validity of her one subjective world. In a broader context this implies that women are treated as inferior in society and that this has psychological and negative consequences for society in general. This can be seen in the fact that the woman in the wallpaper is described in a demeaning way as "creeping about" in the daylight.

Another perspective that has been a focus of psychological interpretations is the apparent the lack of awareness that the woman in the narrative has of her real predicament. "The woman who speaks to us only obscurely recognizes that conforming to the stereotype of ideal womanhood of the time is the very cause of her "nervous depression." She is faced with the terrible dilemma of being good and mad, or bad and sane." (Thomson)

This adds to the significance of the story as it relates to the fact that women are often largely unaware of the manipulative societal forces that influence them. This is also therefore a story that not only critiques societal norms and values but is also intended to make women more aware of the nature of the forces that create their suffering and loss of individuality on a personal level.

There have also been theoretical views that have compared the central themes of the Yellow Wallpaper to well-known literary works with similar thematic trajectories. For example, a study by Delashmit and Long (1991) suggests that there are marked similarities between the Yellow Wallpaper and Bront's treatment of the same elements in Jane Eyre. Similar to John, the husband in Gilmore story, John Reed in Jane Eyre is, just as arbitrarily and authoritatively orders Jane Eyre, his ward, to be imprisoned in a red room against her will. Each John acts as an authoritative father figure to the narrator. The fear that both narrators feel actually disguises anger emanating from an incomplete realization that domineering males are warring against their very beings, their unique selves

Delashmit, and Long 32)

In conclusions these pattern in literature of male dominance and female subjugation have been noted by modern feminist literary critics - and this has especially been the case with regard to the Yellow Wallpaper. This novella has to a certain degree become one of canonical weeks of feminist literature and is a prime example of the use of art in the fight against sexual and societal oppression. It is also suggestive that it is through writing and literary activity that the main character in the Yellow Wallpaper attempts to remedy her situation. This implies that it is through literature and art that the biases and prejudices that create suffering can also be remedied and rectified. "Reading or writing her self upon the wallpaper allows the narrator,... To "escape" her husband's "sentence" and to achieve the limited freedom of madness...' (Hesse-Biber, Gilmartin, and Lydenberg 197) in making the negative power of male dominance "visible" this short work by Gilmore serves as an expression of the desire for freedom from oppression that is still relevant today.

Works Cited www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=96539444

Delashmit, Margaret, and Charles Long. "Gilman's the Yellow Wallpaper." Explicator 50.1 (1991): 32-33. Questia. 30 Apr. 2007 http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=96539444.

A www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=43074282

Herndl, Diane Price. Invalid Women: Figuring Feminine Illness in American Fiction and Culture, 1840-1940. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Questia. 30 Apr. 2007 http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=43074283.

A www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=94721939

Hesse-Biber, Sharlene, Christina Gilmartin, and Robin Lydenberg, eds. Feminist Approaches to Theory and Methodology: An Interdisciplinary Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Questia. 30 Apr. 2007 http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=94721939.

Lawall J. The Yellow Wallpaper: The Rest Cure as a Catalyst to Insanity. 30 Apr. 2007. http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~clit121/YelWall1/index.html

Metaphor in "The Yellow Wallpaper." 30 Apr. 2007. http://quinnell.us/literature/reviews/yellowmetaphor.html www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000934580

Roth, Marty. "Gilman's Arabesque Wallpaper." Mosaic (Winnipeg) 34.4 (2001): 145+. Questia. 30 Apr. 2007 http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000934580.

The Yellow Wallpaper. 30 Apr. 2007. http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Charlotte_Perkins_Gilman/The_Yellow_Wallpaper/index.html

Thomson H. (2005) the Yellow Wallpaper. 30 Apr. 2007. http://www.theage.com.au/news/Reviews/the-Yellow-Wallpaper/2005/03/20/1111253880413.html

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The husband treats the wife in a way that breaks down her sense of self and she even feels that she is not allowed to express her views in writing without his consent.

However, it should also be noted that the story also makes it clear that the husband is also, to a certain extent, a prisoner of the social norms and gender prejudices of his time and that his actions are largely typical of the social milieu and an unthinking and unreflective dominant way of thinking.

The narrator is virtually trapped in the room with the yellow wallpaper. As her life and consciousness becomes more restricted in the confinement of the room, so the wallpaper becomes an animated world to her. It is obvious that the writer is subtly suggesting that there is a conflict between the rational and logical world, determined and controlled by male consciousness, and the more imaginative female consciousness and sensibility.

The story has therefore been interpreted in many studies from the point-of-view of the way that the women are treated in modern patriarchal society. In order to fully understand the depth and meaning of the story we must see it as an expression of the conflict between gender roles and the divide between the individual and the larger society. As one study states,

Gilman lived in a time when women were routinely oppressed by society and she represented this in her story, both literally in the husband's treatment of the narrator, and figuratively, in the pattern in the wallpaper being a prison for the woman (or women) behind it. The story, at least on some level, was meant to be a warning to society that this type of treatment could only lead to disastrous results. Gilman illustrates this through the narrator's descent into madness.

Metaphor in "The Yellow Wallpaper")

The above quotation serves to point out some of the cardinal elements of the story as social commentary. The narrator's progression towards madness is a result of the denial of her individuality by her husband. In a broader context, this means that women are treated as inferior in society and that this has psychological and negative consequences for society in general. This can be seen in the fact that the woman in the wallpaper is described in a demeaning way as "creeping about" in the daylight.

Another aspect that is important in the story is the lack of awareness that the woman in the narrative has of her real predicament. "The woman who speaks to us only obscurely recognizes that conforming to the stereotype of ideal womanhood of the time is the very cause of her "nervous depression." She is faced with the terrible dilemma of being good and mad, or bad and sane." (Thomson H. 2005)

This adds depth to the "horror" of the story as the narrator is largely unaware of the forces that have driven her into this state of madness. This is also therefore a story that not only critiques societal norms and values but is also intended to make women more aware of the nature of the forces that create their suffering and loss of individuality on a personal level.