In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” the word “laugh” appears at various times throughout to chronicle the unnamed narrator’s journey from conformity of marriage to recognizing – and rejecting – the patterns of marriage, and also the departure from sanity to insanity. At the beginning of the story, when the narrator is arguably sane – albeit “nervous” – she observes that her husband John “laughs at [her]” (Gilman 202). At this point, she thinks nothing of his mocking, even admitting that “one expects that in marriage” (Gilman 202). She says “one” and not “I” to imply that marriage has such patterns for all people (incidentally, Gilman often uses the word “pattern” in the story as well). Therefore, as the narrator is comfortable
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The narrator, having obsessed over the yellow wallpaper’s patterns day and night for weeks, is determined to rip off the paper and free the woman whom she imagines is stuck behind it. The narrator exclaims that “when the sun came and that awful pattern began to laugh at me, I declared I would finish it to-day” (Gilman 212). It is important to note that she uses the same language to describe the anthropomorphic behavior of the wallpaper’s patterns as she does her husband: to “laugh at”. To “laugh at” someone means to mock or ridicule them, and the phrase is used for both John and the wallpaper. Therefore, we see the narrator comparing the behavior of the wallpaper with the behavior of her husband: both mock and ridicule her. This reveals that it is specifically the pattern that the narrator is comparing to the behavior of her husband. However, instead of brushing off such mockery as what “one expects” (Gilman, 202), this time the narrator takes a stand and determines to get rid of the “awful patterns” that bind the woman in the wallpaper, as well as that bind the narrator herself to marriage, patterns that include a mocking husband who “laughs at” her. This comparison of John to the wallpaper demonstrates the primary theme of “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, namely, the narrator’s departure from sanity and conformity to an
The narrator, having obsessed over the yellow wallpaper’s patterns day and night for weeks, is determined to rip off the paper and free the woman whom she imagines is stuck behind it. The narrator exclaims that “when the sun came and that awful pattern began to laugh at me, I declared I would finish it to-day” (Gilman 212). It is important to note that she uses the same language to describe the anthropomorphic behavior of the wallpaper’s patterns as she does her husband: to “laugh at”. To “laugh at” someone means to mock or ridicule them, and the phrase is used for both John and the wallpaper. Therefore, we see the narrator comparing the behavior of the wallpaper with the behavior of her husband: both mock and ridicule her. This reveals that it is specifically the pattern that the narrator is comparing to the behavior of her husband. However, instead of brushing off such mockery as what “one expects” (Gilman, 202), this time the narrator takes a stand and determines to get rid of the “awful patterns” that bind the woman in the wallpaper, as well as that bind the narrator herself to marriage, patterns that include a mocking husband who “laughs at” her. This comparison of John to the wallpaper demonstrates the primary theme of “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, namely, the narrator’s departure from sanity and conformity to an