The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story that was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and was first published in 1892. It is seen as a landmark piece in early feminist literature in the United States, describing attitudes towards women’s mental health in the late 19th century. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses strong imagery to convey feelings of repression and other feminist ideals that many women of her time may have felt then.
In this story, Gilman is a master at the use of strong imagery to describe the feelings of repression that many women of her character were feeling then. “The color is repellant, almost revolting ; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sun light.It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others (Gilman, 649). The words “unclean”, “repellant, almost revolting”, “lurid”, “sickly” all provide the reader with an idea of things to come. The use of these adjectives makes the reader immediately think and feel that the room is not going to help the woman at all; she is supposed to “get well” and recuperate from her malady while she and her family are staying at this summer home. Another set of lines conveys more repression: “But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so - I can see a
strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design” (Gilman, 650). There is a hint of the young woman’s descent into madness – she is beginning to see a dark figure lurking in the wallpaper within its prints and design. The figure is “provoking”, yet it is “formless” and “seems to skulk”. One gets the idea that this is the narrator herself, who is so frustrated with the fact that she sees to have been imprisoned in this room. Thus the use of imagery through the vivid descriptions of the walls of the room where she is confined reveals the frustration and the repressed feelings of the author/narrator.
Women were not allowed to pursue their passions and make careers out of them during this time. “So I take phosphates or phosphites and whatever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again. The narrator is thought of having a mental disorder, and aside from the drugs that are administered to her, the best cure is thought to be to let her do absolutely nothing. Not allowing her to work is actually making her more sick, than making her feel better. “Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good”. The narrator herself at the beginning of the story actually believes that being preoccupied with work would do her a lot of good and will help her recover from her malady. She definitely thinks the opposite of what her husband thinks – that her writing will help her focus on her own healing, and that her spirit will be whole again as well. Women during this time were certainly relegated to being homemakers, and for them to engage in activities other than those related to being a wife and a mother was certainly frowned upon.
In the end, Gilman may have been relaying her own personal experience and thoughts through this story. It is said that she was once diagnosed as having depression, and was advised to take the “rest cure”, which prevented her from writing, which was what she loved to do and that which was her passion in life (Dock, 1998, 23-24). This story, while being short, through its imagery, was able to convey the feelings of repression of the author and her frustrations at the way women were viewed and treated at the time.
Works Cited
Dock, Julia Bates. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper and the History of its Publication and Reception. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Gilman, Charlotte. n.d. The Yellow Wallpaper. Web.
