Patriarchal Elements in the Yellow Wallpaper

Patriarchal Elements in “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story that delves deeply into the psyche of a woman suffering from what we have come to know as post-partum depression. This story is very closely based on Charlotte Gilman’s own life, and she is able to infuse realism into the story in a way that draws the reader into the mind, experience, and emotions of the narrator . The protagonist in this story is never named. Her husband’s name is John. The fact that he is named and she is not is one the first indicators of the patriarchal theme of this story. Karen Ford’s examination of Paula Triechler’s essay on “The Yellow Wallpaper” focuses on the fact that “the narrator dwells in the middle of Patriarchy”. Her newborn baby is a boy, she is surrounded by her husband, her brother, and women who are “cardboard figures cut out by the patriarchy”. Mary, who is apparently the nanny, is only recognized for the traditionally feminine role of being good at taking care of the baby; and Jennie, John’s sister, strives for no more than to be a perfect housekeeper (309). The obvious superiority that John exercises over his wife in ordering her care disregards her feelings totally. When she tried to talk to him about her feelings, he treated her like a little child, trying to distract her by saying things like, “let us go downstairs. There are such pretty rooms down there.” He also calls her a pet name, “blessed little goose” and hugs her, as if to blow off her concerns (3). The only thing that she really wants to do is write, which he will not allow her to do. She has to write in secret. He also wants her to nap after every meal and rather than argue with him that she is not sleepy, she pretends to Davenport 2 sleep. He is never mean or cruel in the story, but because of the way she seems to fear him, it could be that he has been possibly abusive at times. Or perhaps it is just the way society was at the time. Women were taught to be submissive to their husbands and other men in society such as doctors. It just so happens that her husband is both. She got a double-whammy, poor thing. His prescription for her is to not let her do anything she enjoys but rather to take her out into the country away from her new baby, away from her friends, to an old, worn-down house, where she will spend most of her time trying to sleep in a room with yellow wallpaper that has a design on it that plays with her mind and drives her crazy. Conrad Shumaker tells us that at first this story was not published because it was “too terribly good to be printed”, meaning that it was too deep, making the reader question men’s and women’s roles in society (388). The story did not start to gain recognition until fifty years after its writing, perhaps because by then feminism was on the rise. After being out of print since 1892, a new publishing company, The Feminist Press, finally reprinted “The Yellow Wallpaper” (Lanser, 415). Gilman was way before her time in trying to publish a story that would provoke a rethinking of the old-fashioned traditional roles of men and women. The fact that it was so very much her own experience that she was willing to expose reveals so much about her boldness and bravery as a person. This woman who is stifled by the very treatment that is supposed to bring her to good health, parallels Gilman’s experience so closely, except that we know that Charlotte Gilman found happiness in a second marriage, where she was not condescended to by her husband. That being said, we also know that she eventually took her own life, which raises many questions into how happy the second marriage was. It could be that her mental health was not stable and she found it impossible to ever overcome what she had been through with her post-partum depression, perhaps feeling a guilt that in the end Davenport 3 she could deal with no longer. Susan Lanser points out that even though the word “de-construction” was not being used at the time “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written, this “lost” work presented a very obvious provocation to modern day readers to deconstruct “male patterns of thought and social practice” (417) . This is surely the reason it was not widely accepted and published at its writing. The male dominated publishing business and social norms of the time, prohibited its release because of the threat that men felt by its indications of women’s suppression by men. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is very rich in symbolism that contributes to the patriarchal theme. The fact that the narrator is nameless indicates that she has no individuality, and likewise, the names of her husband and sister-in-law, John and Mary, are very generic so as to just present them as representatives of husbands and in-laws in general (Ford, 309). The yellow wallpaper, itself, obviously holds the most symbolism. The narrator sees in it “a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design” (5). After days and days of reluctantly studying the wallpaper (what else did she have to do?) she deciphered this figure to be a woman that she had to set free from the senseless and chaotic pattern of the wallpaper. Obviously, this symbolizes her struggle to set herself free from all the senseless constraints that her husband has put on her. It turns out that those constraints have caused the most harm. The things he tried to keep her from, especially writing, are the things that would have helped her. At one point she seems to be improving, eating better and being “more quiet than (she) was” (8). But in actuality she was not improving. The wallpaper that had become her obsession, had also become her comfort, and in the end made her more psychologically disturbed than before her husband had inacted of all his prescriptions. Works Cited

Shumaker , Conrad. "Too Terribly Good to Be Printed": Charlotte Gilman 's "The Yellow
Wallpaper."[->0] American Literature [->1].Vol. 57, No. 4 (Dec., 1985), pp. 588-599. Published by: Duke University Press. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2926354
Ford, Karen. "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Women 's Discourse. Tulsa Studies in Women 's Literature , Vol. 4, No. 2 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 309-31. Published by: University of Tulsa[->2].
Article Stable URL: http://proxy.athens.edu:2063/stable/463709
Lanser, Susan S. Feminist Criticism, "The Yellow Wallpaper," and the Politics of Color in America. Feminist Studies , Vol. 15, No. 3, Feminist Reinterpretations/Reinterpretations of Feminism (Autumn, 1989), pp. 415-441.Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc.[->3].
Article Stable URL: http://proxy.athens.edu:2063/stable/3177938

[->0] - http://proxy.athens.edu:2063/stable/2926354
[->1] - http://proxy.athens.edu:2063/action/showPublication?journalCode=amerlite
[->2] - http://proxy.athens.edu:2063/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=tulsa
[->3] - http://proxy.athens.edu:2063/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=femstudies

Cited: Literature , Vol. 4, No. 2 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 309-31. Published by: University of Tulsa[->2]. America. Feminist Studies , Vol. 15, No. 3, Feminist Reinterpretations/Reinterpretations of Feminism (Autumn, 1989), pp