Descent into Madness

Firsthand Madness
Although some say that Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s choice for narrator’s tone and view point in the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” only gives readers an askew view of what occurs in the story, it reality it is the perfect perspective to view the main characters downward spiral into insanity.
The author allows the reader to glimpse the narrator’s madness as it first begins to grow through subtle shifts in tone. Near the beginning of the story, the author uses slight changes in the narrator’s way of thinking to show the signs of a madness that is just beginning. The first begins to think eccentrically when she says “I had no intention of telling him it was because of the wall-paper--he would make fun of me. He might even want to take me away.” (Gilman 7). In Treichler’s criticism, it talks about how the shift in language is “Masquarading as a symptom of ‘madness,’ language animates what had been merely an irritating and distinct pattern” (Treichler 72). The narrator takes on a progressively more obsessive tone when discussing the wallpaper. At first she mentions simply how she does not like it, but soon she mentions it in nearly each sentence. Treichler calls this constant reference to the wallpaper an “irritating and distinct pattern”, but where it leads is anything but. As the story progresses, the narrator begins to develop paranoia, further symptoms of her insanity that is evident in her tone. The paranoia becomes evident when her view of her loving husband shifts to something like this, “He asked me all sorts of questions, too, and pretended to be very loving and kind. As if I couldn't see through him!” (Gilman 11). John’s actions are discussed in Shumaker’s criticism and how they affect the narrator “By trying to ignore and repress her imagination, in short, John eventually brings about the very circumstance he wants to prevent” (Shumaker 590). At first, the narrator praises her husband constantly, placing him on a pedestal where he can do no wrong (even if this entire story is an example of what he did wrong). But gradually the narrator becomes distrustful and paranoid over her husband’s actions and that is reflected greatly in her writing. In Shumaker’s writing he brings up the fact that John’s actions are ultimately responsible for his wife’s insanity, which is evident throughout the story. Gilman’s use of tone is used to show the main character slowly losing her grasp on reality.
Using the narrator’s point of view allows for the author to properly contrast the narrator’s previously sane personality with her now disturbed one. The narrator’s view allows the reader to see just how dangerous her madness has become when her paranoia takes a turn for the worse. The main character shows that she has become dangerous when she says “But I am here, and no person touches this paper but me,--not alive!” (Gilman 12). In this criticism, the topic of discussion is the narrators mental collapse, “We can see just how Gilman develops the narrator’s mental collapse… in which the narrator once again discusses the ‘sub-pattern,’ which by now has become a woman who manages to escape in the daytime” (Shumaker 597). If this story had been seen through the viewpoint of another character, the story would have missed out on the psyche of the narrator as she dives deeper into her delusions. At this point she even (in her head) threatens to kill anyone who would touch the yellow wallpaper. Shumaker talks about the main characters “sub-pattern” of believing she is someone else, which has begun to be established by this point in the story as she falls into her delusions. Finally the narrator fully embraces her delusions, and begins to act like she was the woman behind the wallpaper, a transformation that is the most dramatic from her view point. The narrator acts as though this is the way she has always been, “I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder ‘I've got out at last,’ said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!” (Gilman 12). The madness revealed, Treichler says, “Because the narrator’s final proclamation is both triumphant and horrifying, madness in the story is both positive and negative” (Treichler 67). Through any other viewpoint, the change would have seemed horrifying, while Gilman’s way of writing from the 1st person viewpoint depicts true madness. It’s as if it was obvious the whole time that she was, and that she had no doubts, even thought days before she had been completely different. Treichler talks about how evident the madness is, in the main characters “triumphant and horrifying” final words, born from her newly created persona. The author’s use of the 1st person point of view is key to give a realistic depiction of the onset of madness in the narrator.
Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s use of tone and point of view to show the narrator’s fall from reality is idea for depicting mental illness realistically as well as dramatically, creating an exceptional story.