The short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was first published in 1892 in the New England magazine. Gilman was an essayist, novelist, sociologist, and feminist. The short story is semi-autobiographical, following an unnamed woman in the 19th century suffering from a mental illness shortly after giving birth. Gilman herself went through the same diagnosis and was given the same prescription as the woman in her story: a “rest cure” which restricts the sufferer from activities, socialisation, work, or creative expression and confines her to the four walls of her room. The only thing left was to sit and stare at the yellow wallpaper.
The short story is an account from the woman’s perspective as she follows the prescription given to her by her husband. In the beginning parts of the story, she says this of her husband: “John laughs at me of course, but one expects that in marriage,” (Gilman, 1892). This quote concerns her description of the house she is in, a colonial mansion that she fancies is haunted. This expectation, so plainly stated, shows how women were taught to view the union of marriage. Further, the statement is satirical. It is possible that Gilman intended to begin to break to the audience the ridiculousness of the notion behind this expectation in marriage. Gilman suffered from the same fate in her first marriage but managed to cultivate equality in her second one.
The prescription
The protagonist does not seem fully convinced of the prescription she receives but follows it anyway. This is a testament to how John, as her husband and physician, has complete control of the protagonist and her body. Through the first-person account we see her feeling stifled as though all her natural will was seen as an extension of hysteria that needed to be squeezed out; John attempts to do so by disarming her of agency. It is a small rebellion for the narrator to sneak away to write in a secret diary whenever she is left alone in the room. Otherwise, John towers over her with power, money, and the authority of superior knowledge.
The concept of the illness itself is curious: in today’s world, the protagonist’s condition would be diagnosed as postpartum psychosis (which, including symptoms of depression, also takes into account hallucination and paranoia). This condition can be caused by the drop in progesterone and estrogen in the body right after labour. The most common physical reactions from caring for a newborn are sleep deprivation and anxiety, contributing to mental stress. However, women’s mental health (or anyone’s mental health) in that era was purely written off as hysteria or madness. Further, even a slightly deeper understanding of the female body after delivery could enlighten physicians like John about the hormonal imbalances that cause postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis in the first place.
A psychological perspective
A string of “mad women” can be traced in Victorian and 19th-century novels: Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, and more. Gilman plays with this trope to craft a character that realistically conveys the cause of her mental state without having to say it explicitly.
Though in the 21st century, doctors are more likely to treat the issue with proper medication and exercise, Gilman’s character could not see this fate, unfortunately. She states, “John is a physician; perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.” The quote gives the argument of the entire story a thesis and makes it clear that a physician’s perspective on mental illness may not be the most reliable.
The narrator’s apparent mental instability makes her an unreliable narrator. She has bars over her windows and hardly ever meets anyone except her husband could indicate that she is admitted to an asylum rather than being moved to a countryside mansion. The haphazard and seemingly meaningless lines in the wallpaper may be reflective of her mental state.
However, the character’s physical location is more indicative of her mental state. The narrator may project her mental disintegrations onto the patterns on the wall. The woman she sees in the wallpaper may be a version of herself that she once enjoyed being, trapped behind the irregular lines of the wallpaper that signify the house and, by extension, the feeling of being trapped by her husband’s prescriptions.
Giving in to the madness
The story ends with our protagonist unable to fight the urge to seek out Jane from behind the wallpaper as she begins to tear it down. This action may be a way of exercising the lack of agency for the protagonist to write or be out of doors as she wishes. Having such a representation gives a clear link to how madness manifests with a lack of power. With the journey we have followed in this short story, the final action can be fully understood and even empathized with, as the psyche of hysteria has been clearly explored.
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