“Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892. The story is about a woman with postnatal depression who moves to a “colonial mansion” with her husband, John, for the summer (Gilman 87). The main themes of the story are female repression, male domination, confinement, and intolerance of immigrants. However, one more important subject is the main character’s madness. These themes are revealed through numerous literary devices, but symbols are the most important elements since they constitute the biggest part of the narration. Through the symbol of the yellow wallpaper and its pattern, Gilman exposes the themes of the repressive patriarchal society, creativity, confinement, madness, and xenophobia.
The main symbol of the story is the yellow wallpaper and its pattern. The protagonist is forced to live in a room decorated with yellow wallpaper. This yellow wallpaper, along with its pattern, symbolizes the repression of women in the patriarchal world of those times. After several weeks of living in the room with the yellow wallpaper, the narrator starts to notice a woman trapped behind bars behind the pattern. The woman tries to find the way out, “creeping about behind that pattern” (Gilman 94). This image can be associated with a trapped woman inside the main character begging for help but who is confined in this house by her husband, John and other male doctors. When the narrator peels off all the wallpaper at the end of the story, she frees herself from the constraints of patriarchal society and her husband’s repression. One can see that the yellow wallpaper’s pattern embodies the narrator’s restriction and subjugation.
Moreover, it is a symbol of the woman’s confinement and the narrator’s desire for freedom. When she first enters the bedroom, she is infuriated about the wallpaper’s color and pattern: “The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulfur tint in others” (Gilman 89). She feels that she would hate it if she had to live there for a long time. However, her husband does not perceive the woman seriously and does not allow her to choose another room. In addition, the fact that the woman is not permitted to change these wallpapers symbolizes the lack of freedom and constant repression of her wishes. Nevertheless, the woman’s attitude toward the wallpaper changes during the story. One can feel the narrator’s aversion to this wallpaper at the beginning and her fascination with its pattern in the middle of the story. In such a way, she is afraid of her confinement at first, but she finds her freedom in the end.
At the same time, the wallpaper’s pattern can be associated with the protagonist’s creativity. John forbids her to write in her journal and perform any other creative job: “He hates to have me write a word” (Gilman 89). Therefore, the woman finds another way of expressing her creativity. She becomes obsessed with the wallpaper’s pattern, tracing it for hours and discovering hidden expressions there. Gilman writes, “I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have!” (91). While restrained from writing her journal and reading books, the woman turns her imagination to the surrounding environment. The pattern becomes an intellectual challenge to her, and she relieves her creativity by staring at it and searching for new traces and images. The narrator tries to come to some conclusion, and find a solution to her problems, and she finally finds it through the pattern.
Moreover, while looking at the pattern, the protagonist becomes mad. She is fascinated by the paths she sees on the wallpaper, and her eyes are constantly following its lines and curves while she is busy with some other things. She notices that the moonlight changes the pattern on the wallpaper and the trapped woman’s behavior. Thus, one symbol affects the other one since the moon is also associated with madness. In the daylight, the narrator is constantly observed by her husband, and she cannot reveal her inner nature and do what she really wants to do. The same is with her trapped woman behind the pattern. Gilman writes, “By daylight, she is subdued, quiet” (96). However, by moonlight, the woman begins to creep, thus becoming active. The narrator is enthusiastic at night, too, as she observes the movements of that trapped woman on the wallpaper. The activities begin when the moon shines bright, and when it moves, the narrator sees that the woman trapped behind bars is trying to escape. The narrator says it is “tiresome and perplexing” in the daytime” because she cannot express her feelings and emotions (Gilman 97). The night is the only time she can fully penetrate the wallpaper pattern, examining the activities of the moonlight and the trapped woman, thus slowly going crazy.
Moreover, the yellow wallpaper can be considered a symbol of xenophobia. The narrator and her husband moved to this house from the town. It means that they are strangers here, and people may perceive them differently. The wallpaper may symbolize the fears of immigrants who are forced to move to other countries to look for better conditions. The protagonist of the story feels nervous and depressed when she looks at the wallpaper, but she is forced to adjust to it. Her husband John says that “[she] was letting it get better of [her], and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies” (Gilman 90). In this sentence, one can see that some people believe that immigrants invent their fears and worries when nothing bad happens. However, if a person is placed in a strange environment and is not allowed to leave something familiar there, they will soon become nervous and sick.
Having analyzed the short story “Yellow Wallpaper,” one can conclude that Gilman uses the symbol of the yellow wallpaper and its pattern to reveal the themes of the restrictive society, madness, confinement, creativity, and xenophobia. The analyzed sign strongly contributes to the revelation of the subjects mentioned above. The whole story is a cry from the heart of a woman suffering from postnatal depression. The narration reveals a woman’s place in the patriarchal society of that time, demonstrating that women were usually repressed and restricted in their actions. Moreover, the attitude of society toward immigrants can also be seen through this symbol. However, the story ends ironically, making the readers reconsider the role of a man in a patriarchal society and the power of a woman who is supposed to be mad.
Work Cited
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “Yellow Wallpaper.” American Gothic Tales, edited by Joyce Carol Oates, Penguin Books, 1996, pp. 87-102.