"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
So, I figured since I basically loved this story and had points left I wanted to say at the end of class today, that I would post here. I'm also going to summarize general points made by myself and the rest of the class for studying purposes for our...inevitable test.
Symbols of women's oppression by man:
The sunlight came to represent men and how they quell women's liberation. I thought that the choice of sunlight to represent men is reflective of Gilman's choice to have the wallpaper be yellow. The woman in the wallpaper disappeared in the day (paralleling how female rebellion is quieted when there are males present since they are doing tihs all secretly). This secrecy is emphasized by the choice of the women in the wallpaper to appear by moonlight, at night - the night obviously representing stealthiness - the stealthiness which is also represented by Gilman's choice of the world "creeping" rather than a verb like "breaking" (free).
Choice of yellow:
As I said above, it parallels the color of sunlight. However, sunlight is usually a positive color but the wallpaper was described as being sickly. This fits the narrator's sickness. Any other thoughts on the choice of yellow?
Structure:
Structure of story: As the narrator descends more and more into insanity, the structure of the story and sentences becomes choppier. If you notice, by the last section of the story, she is no longer forming paragraphs but rather excited, short exclamations and sentences.
Structure of house: The house is described as being isolated, divided, and sectioned off - especially the narrator's room. This emphasizes her loneliness and struggle.
Structure of room: Like that of a mental asylum (bolted bed, barred windows)
Things I wanted to say in class:
Someone brought up the point that they felt John loved his wife because of her ROLE as a wife. However, I feel that her wifely duties were stripped of her (Mary takes care of her baby, JEnnie takes care of the house) so all that was really left was a kind of...useless (to John) of a woman. She merely acted as his pet, someone he could care for and have subserviant to him.
On that same note of whether John cared for her or not or just wanted to feel powerful, I feel it is hard to determine just from his prescribed remedy for her illness. There was no way for him to measure something so abstract as her symptoms - she suffered from depression and fatigue. There is no thermometer to measure those things, so he merely had to go by her descriptions and emotional state. He probably stereotyped her ailments as feminine ones - those of supposed emotional frailty.
Anyway...creepy story. I liked it.
Feel free to disagree, agree, et cetera. :)
- Sadizzle Padderizzle
Symbols of women's oppression by man:
The sunlight came to represent men and how they quell women's liberation. I thought that the choice of sunlight to represent men is reflective of Gilman's choice to have the wallpaper be yellow. The woman in the wallpaper disappeared in the day (paralleling how female rebellion is quieted when there are males present since they are doing tihs all secretly). This secrecy is emphasized by the choice of the women in the wallpaper to appear by moonlight, at night - the night obviously representing stealthiness - the stealthiness which is also represented by Gilman's choice of the world "creeping" rather than a verb like "breaking" (free).
Choice of yellow:
As I said above, it parallels the color of sunlight. However, sunlight is usually a positive color but the wallpaper was described as being sickly. This fits the narrator's sickness. Any other thoughts on the choice of yellow?
Structure:
Structure of story: As the narrator descends more and more into insanity, the structure of the story and sentences becomes choppier. If you notice, by the last section of the story, she is no longer forming paragraphs but rather excited, short exclamations and sentences.
Structure of house: The house is described as being isolated, divided, and sectioned off - especially the narrator's room. This emphasizes her loneliness and struggle.
Structure of room: Like that of a mental asylum (bolted bed, barred windows)
Things I wanted to say in class:
Someone brought up the point that they felt John loved his wife because of her ROLE as a wife. However, I feel that her wifely duties were stripped of her (Mary takes care of her baby, JEnnie takes care of the house) so all that was really left was a kind of...useless (to John) of a woman. She merely acted as his pet, someone he could care for and have subserviant to him.
On that same note of whether John cared for her or not or just wanted to feel powerful, I feel it is hard to determine just from his prescribed remedy for her illness. There was no way for him to measure something so abstract as her symptoms - she suffered from depression and fatigue. There is no thermometer to measure those things, so he merely had to go by her descriptions and emotional state. He probably stereotyped her ailments as feminine ones - those of supposed emotional frailty.
Anyway...creepy story. I liked it.
Feel free to disagree, agree, et cetera. :)
- Sadizzle Padderizzle
Labels: gilman, short story, yellow wallpaper
posted by L Lazarow | 6:32 PM
12 Comments:
Something i noticed about the story was that in the beginning, the narrator thinks that there is something wrong with her, and is upset by the fact that John, her husband, keeps telling her that there is nothing wrong with her. She even says that "maybe it's the reason why she doesn't get better faster." This reminded me of the Hawthorne short story The Birthmark we read last year, where the woman's husband convinced her that her birthmark was hideous and it had to be removed. Later in the Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator states that she is glad "her case is not serious." Her husband has convinced her that there is nothing really wrong with her, and that she is not capable of judging her own feelings. This relates to the feminism blah thats in the short story, and its another example of John having the upper hand over the narrator, so much so that he can change her thinking.
About the yellow...
The room was a nursery, so a bright color would be appropriate. But when yellow fades in sunlight, it turns "sickly," possibly representing the narrator's quick transition from the prime of her life to her final state of illness.
Question:
Is there a reason she states that the final night at the house is just the right amount of time? ("This is the last day, but it is enough.")
Maybe since she has successfully torn down the wallpaper/torn down her oppression (even though she...goes insane)?
- Sadaf
Could you say that CPG is suspicous of science? Because she is writing in the romantic period and her doctor-husband is portrayed negatively, can there be a connection made?
-Ellie
yellow=jaundice
A medical condition that causes the skin to take on a yellowish hue. Yellow is often a color of sickness and the resulting weakness/frailty (is that a word?) so as the wallpaper color it would be a logical choice--the woman's mental sickness and subservient position.
I would disagree that the sun and the yellow represent men. The woman only writes (rebelling) during the daylight, as the woman in the wallpaper only escapes in the daylight. It is night tat represents man, because that's when John is actually home, and that i when you can see the bars in the wallpaper.
A few times she illustrates the wallpaper as having new fungus shoots. Fungus is an organism that holds many symbiotic relationships, meaning that it relies on other organisms to live (and vice versa). As the woman’s mental illness grows, so does the fungus.
?:The woman describes the wallpaper with suicidal terms "the pattern lolls like a broken neck" & “strangled heads” and i was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this...
To elaborate on the light/dark
John is usually home during the night (except for the times when he has to work overnight) and goes to work during the day. It is during the day when the narrator is able to write and think more freely... when her husband is absent. It is during the night when she feels as though she is trapped (like the "women in the wall") by her husband's presence.
Lisa -- this also reminded me of The Birthmark (the woman also died once the birthmark was removed)
Sadaf -- I think there is really no way of telling whether or not John loved her, cared for her, had any feelings for her, etc. (On the quiz i said that his perspective was the thing that was missing) On that note, I think that without his motives clearly shown, we cannot determine if/how he loved her.
Another note about the diagnosis of the woman that has been mentioned a few times...
I think it is important that Gilman has only the woman's husband and brother diagnose her. Many times close family members are unable to admitt flaws in those they love, and have the tendency to underdiagnose them, or diagnose them incorrectly. Perhaps she is trying to hint on this. She also shows how the woman trusts the male figures around her even though she, herself, thinks otherwise.
Evan- I'm not quite in agreement that this story is trying to encourage economic independence of women. I think that it is more focused on women's freedom as a whole. Money is hardly mentioned in the story, which makes it hard to see that connection. I do, however, agree that the story is condeming the idea of women's subserviance and their need to be able to decide what to do with their time rather than others.
side question: In this time period, were women still considered frailer, and much less hearty than men?
Evan - sorry about that. I just misunderstood you I guess.
I looked up postpartum depression on the internet. In May 1987 a 12 year study elucidated the relationship between childbearing and psychiatric disorders in women. In June of 1987 postnatal depression was first detected. Based on this, it can be concluded that if Gilman's character was supposed to be portraying postpartum depression, it was during a time far before the condition had been defined.
The Yellow Wallpaper was first published in 1899. Only four years previously, Gilman had bore her first child, and then immediatly had began to suffer from feelings of "nervous exhaustion." Because doctors of the time were not versed about the female hormonal system all nervous disorders were associated with "hysteria" a reference used for women with emotional problems. This perhaps is enough evidence that Gilman herself suffered from postpartum depression and that her character suffers from the same thing.
Just another thought. Was Gilman trying to make a dig at doctors by making John a doctor, yet the suppressive character in the story?
Charlotte,
I think that she might have been implying that doctors often mis-diagnose patients, and that they do not advocate an appropriate way to treat depression. However, I don't think that she was really digging deep at them, and it was just more of a jab at this particular scenario.
In response to Ellie, I did some extra reading on Gilman's own experiences with depression and the medical treatment she recieved. She too, like the woman in the story, was told to rest and only have 2 hours of "intellectual" time a day. She was also forbidden to write, draw, etc at any point. She followed this for two months and it only made her worse.
Her experience was one of the reasons she wrote TYW and apparently after reading TYW, her doctor changed his treatment plans for further patients with signs of depression. I believe she is suspicious as well as rebellious against the "modern" treatment of her day.
Also in class we discussed the type of love John has for his wife. I don't see him portrayed negatively in the story but as more uneducated and oblivious. I believe his love must have started out as a man & wife relationship and then as the woman delved deeper into depression his love changed towards more of a pity/doctor-patient kind of love. Anyone else have opinions on this?
-Patrick
I think it was definitely a dig at that current treatment for neurosthenia being given at the time, so in link to that - a dig at the doctors prescribing it. She obviously disagreed wholeheartedly with their treatment because she only felt she made progress with her health when she was "exerting her creative side."
Post a Comment
<< Home