The Yellow Wallpaper Reflection

Part I. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a chilling psychological tale written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Through a feminist lens, Gilman uses this story to emphasize both the position of married women during the nineteenth century as well as the medicinal practices of the time. Like the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman too suffered from a form of depression. Following her diagnosis, she was prescribed the Rest Cure that eventually drove her to her own mental destruction. Jane, the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” has just moved into a secluded estate along with her husband John, her child, and her sister-in-law. The reader soon discovers that John’s superiority over Jane has allowed him to limit and restrict her daily activities by confining her to a bedroom that greatly contributes to her …show more content…
It is my view that they each contribute to Jane’s resulting madness. However, need I even say that her room placement acts as the final nail in her coffin? I believe that the yellow wallpaper in the narrator’s room is a direct reflection of her circumstance in two perspectives. In one, the woman [of the wallpaper] is trapped behind bars “taking hold” and “shaking them hard”, but just like Jane, she is stuck because “nobody could crawl through the pattern”. In the other view, the wallpaper woman is “creeping about…all over the house”. This perspective portrays Jane’s own desired freedom. As “The Yellow Wallpaper” comes to an end and Jane merges with the wallpaper woman, it may be accurate to say that she has gained her freedom, however I would not consider it a victory like fellow critics Korb, Gilbert, and Dunbar. Jane’s journey into descent is especially tragic because it is a result of the ridiculous gender division of the nineteenth-century. Ultimately, my view aligns with critics who “read the narrator’s defeat” as she retreats into her final state of