Professor Joan Samuelson
February 11, 2004
In the Victorian era, Charlotte Perkins Gilman in �The Yellow Wallpaper� paints a picture of the speaker as a woman yearning for release. This woman is bound by her role in society, her husband, and a lack of outside acknowledgement of her ever-increasing mental illness. Gilman develops this theme of yearning for release throughout the story. She is opening the mind, not only of the speaker to the reader, but also the reader to Gilman�s own hidden thoughts and apparent agenda.
When there is a lack of acknowledgement, there is usually a false feeling that the problem does not exist. The narrator writes, �You see, he does not believe that I am sick�and am absolutely forbidden to work until I am well again,� the speaker writes in her secret diary (674). Gilman is focusing on the relationship between a husband and his wife to reflect on the lack of understanding between the sexes. The speaker knows something is wrong; her husband wishes to deny there are any problems. He is a physician, so he must be correct. She is taking everything he says at face value without question. The husband has such control over the speaker that he is clearly making her condition worse by not �allowing� her to engage in outside activities. Gilman uses the role of this woman to reveal how women as a whole need to stand up for themselves. The speaker knows what would make her better; she just does not fight for �congenial work, with excitement and change� (674). If she had made a stand, there is the possibility that she would at least have the opportunity to get better.
Borland 2
Without an effective physical release, the speaker learns that she can follow the pattern of the wallpaper with her eyes: �It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you� (678). If she is not allowed to do as she pleases, then she will do whatever it takes to get the mental stimulation she so greatly desires. Gilman describes in great
detail the speaker's growing projection of herself into the wallpaper. As her own reality becomes more shaded, the speaker is growing into an extension of the wallpaper. Gilman uses the projection to define which prison the speaker is in. Now that she has transferred herself into the wallpaper, she has, in effect, been released from the room she is in. Although there has been a release, there has been no complete release, for the speaker is now a prisoner of the wall, trapped within the paper.
Gilman uses the speaker�s determination as her means of escape. As a final release, the speaker tears down the paper and says, �I�ve got out at last� in spite of you and Jane. And I�ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can�t put me back!� (685). She is finally free! Or is she? The prison she faced in the beginning of the story has only changed appearances. In the status she was to fill as a physician�s wife, she had to conform to society�s way of life and thinking. She was a prisoner of her wealth. As she progresses to projecting herself as an extension of the paper, she becomes entrapped once again, only now it is behind the �bars� of the paper (680).
Gilman expresses the fight for sanity many women face. As women become mothers and wives, then begin to work outside the home in addition to taking care of the family, it is amazing that there aren�t more women in the same condition as the speaker in �The Yellow Wallpaper.� Gilman focuses on the strength that all women possess. As we face battles and circumstances, we will overcome, even if it means going a little crazy in the process.