On "the yellow wallpaper"

On “the Yellow Wallpaper”

“The yellow wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is always regarded as an important American Feminist literature, illustrating women’s situation in the 19th century. The story adopts a first-person narrating style, in the form of journal entries written by a woman suffering from mental disease. The writing of the narrator, as a record, shows the process of her descent into insanity.

As far as I am concerned, the most conspicuous feature of this story is the massive use of symbolism. For example, the woman is confined in the nursery, which implies, for one thing, the prevail perception of domestic sphere, and for another, women are treated in an infantile style by their husbands. Take another example, the nailed-down bed also indicates the profoundly-rooted notion of men-dominant society or technically speaking, patriarchy. Besides, in the imagination of the narrator, there is a woman confined in the wallpaper; the wallpaper here is seen as the cage and prison of the woman, moreover indicates that women are restrained in the domestic sphere and stripped off their freedom.

Apart from that, the characters also have their representative meanings. The narrator, a housewife with enthusiasm of writing, is oppressed and forced to stop her creating work, and finally lose all sanity. From the experience of this character, we can see the position and situation of a woman in 19th century. Jack, the husband, a very practical physician, displays the nineteenth-century attitude that women were to behave demurely and remain within the domestic sphere, aspiring only to be competent mothers and charming wives. Jennie, the narrator's sister-in-law, helps to take care of the narrator and, more importantly, the narrator's newborn baby. She is described as "a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper." She represents the nineteenth-century view of the role of women as housekeepers and child bearers.

To sum up, I personally believe that, with all the symbols used, Gilman tries appeal to the public the unfair situation of women and call for the equal rights for females. The conventional nineteenth-century marriage, with its rigid distinction between the “domestic” functions of the female and the “active” work of the male, ensured that women remained in an inferior position. The story reveals that this gender division had the effect of keeping women in a childish state of ignorance and preventing their full development.