Analyzing “The Yellow Wallpaper”: Feminism and Confinement
Analyzing “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is not simply about American women; it delves into the experience of a white American Protestant woman who questions patriarchy. The protagonist, an artist, is a woman frustrated in her creativity, imprisoned in a room, and forced to focus on the only space left for her to express that creativity: the wallpaper.
Individuals who are restricted in their freedom to create often channel their artistic impulses elsewhere. The protagonist transforms the wallpaper into her book, where she writes her own text. The wallpaper becomes a projection of the narrator’s problems.
When first published, it was considered just another gothic tale. However, feminist writers and critics re-read it, interpreting it as a struggle that explains women’s challenges at the end of the century. It addresses medicine, doctors, and, most importantly, the way women are prescribed by medical science as healthy or unhealthy, sane or mad. The story describes and catalogs the female body, a domain where only men could acquire scientific knowledge.
Criticism of Scientific Treatment
The story critiques scientific treatment because the female body exists as described by a male text. The protagonist questions the objectiveness of that scientific discourse, highlighting how much of what we assume to be objective (true) has been constructed by a patriarchal understanding of the world. The concept of hysteria in the text is a way to separate the woman, to isolate her, and to cover up her problems. She cannot fit into the cult of true womanhood, leading to a nervous breakdown, frustrated creativity, and reduction to insanity by the male text.
In the preface, Gilman suggests she suffered from the disease she describes, though this is likely a manipulation of the reader. The story is structured in blocks, highlighting the clash between heart vs. mind. The conflict between John’s and her own perspectives leads to isolation and insanity. Just because she is biologically a woman does not mean she behaves as one. Jennie, her husband’s sister, agrees with her brother, representing opposite attitudes. In the text, four characters are present, with three opposing the protagonist, a dynamic also seen in Trifles. John, a physician, is excluded from emotions (rational mind).
Writing as Escape
Writing for women is the only possibility to BE, especially in the Protestant world, serving as an escape. It is the only possibility of growing and escaping from reality. The phrase ‘He is very careful and loving…’ presents a contradiction. She is torn between her emotions, real feelings, and the way society tells her to think about her husband and marriage. Under reality, under the pattern of the paper, she can discover herself.
The Silent Woman
The quiet woman is the model to follow, a woman who keeps her thoughts to herself. Women are voiceless. Women writers can describe the process of social oppression and create images of liberation using silence. Women must use literary strategies to work within that voiceless framework. In feminist criticism and writing, silence becomes very important. The epitome of silent women: the Virgin Mary. The protagonist becomes one with the paper, enclosing herself in complete isolation when she locks the door.