Gothic Allegory: Rage And Redemption In The Yellow Wallpaper

In the literary article Gilman’s gothic allegory: Rage and redemption in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Greg Johnson identifies the work of “The Yellow Wallpaper” that was written by feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman as having the style of a gothic literature theme. To emphasize, the writings integrate a classic American gothic style with an overall feel of darkness that is plagued by “macabre” nightmares such as, “confinement and rebellion” of the “distraught heroine” living in a “forbidding mansion” with the ‘irrational fear’” (522). It is also consistent with the feeling of being trapped much like a mouse by the “powerfully repressive male antagonist” (522). Not to mention, the literature symbolizes how this writing from a woman of the nineteenth …show more content…
Johnson speaks on details of how the narrator in the story remains compliant in her “madness over repression, but has a chemical imbalance of “rage” that succumbs her resulting in eventually having an emotional “breakdown” (522-523). This was the results of the “masculine order and domestic routine” that exists within a society that is controlled by males (522). Notable, this process in addition to her writing that she manages to conceal, due to them being forbidden by her husband John but it is the only means of survival to her progression of making her way towards her self-discovery. Johnson emphasis on how a “strange provoking, formless figure” begins to emerge from within the wallpaper is perceived as the narrator seeing a mere image of herself trapped within the wallpaper (524). Considering her fears, chaos and unforeseeable destiny that exists within the wallpaper is much like the beast that is existent deep inside of them. Uniquely, this contributes to the constraints placed on her rights and the suppression of her