Jane in the Wallpaper
Jane in the Wallpaper
In reading Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” I found the perspective of the woman’s mind-set towards the wallpaper to be out of the ordinary. At first the room and wallpaper were viewed to be “repellent, almost revolting” by the woman but later she grows “fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper”(Gilman 222). The woman goes back and forth from hating the paper to then becoming intrigued with it when she sees another woman within it. Her relationship with the wallpaper itself during the story grows, as does a bond between her and the woman inside the wallpaper. The article, “The Writing’s on the Wall: Symbolic Orders in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ ”, written by Barbara A. Suess, details the matter of the relationship between the wallpaper and the woman even more. Suess argues that “The Yellow Wallpaper” is about a mental breakdown of Jane, whose ever-expanding relationship with the wallpaper is her attempt to represent herself. Suess contends that the woman is in fact Jane all along and is present both in the wallpaper and in the room the wallpaper contains. Suess believes Jane to be psychotic and through Lacanian’s Psychosis and examples in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” she is able to support her theory. Like Suess, I believe the woman in the story had a mental disorder and becomes the woman she grew fond of in the wallpaper. When analyzing Suess’s article I found that I agreed with several of her points. To better understand Suess’s argument, one must first have an understanding of law/order and imagination or Lacanian Psychosis, known as Symbolic Order and Imaginary Order because Suess uses it as evidence in her article. Symbolic Order is “the social world of linguistic communication, intersubjective relations, knowledge of ideological conventions, and the acceptance of law.” Once you recognize and accept the “laws and restrictions that control both your desire and rules of communication,”
In reading Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” I found the perspective of the woman’s mind-set towards the wallpaper to be out of the ordinary. At first the room and wallpaper were viewed to be “repellent, almost revolting” by the woman but later she grows “fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper”(Gilman 222). The woman goes back and forth from hating the paper to then becoming intrigued with it when she sees another woman within it. Her relationship with the wallpaper itself during the story grows, as does a bond between her and the woman inside the wallpaper. The article, “The Writing’s on the Wall: Symbolic Orders in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ ”, written by Barbara A. Suess, details the matter of the relationship between the wallpaper and the woman even more. Suess argues that “The Yellow Wallpaper” is about a mental breakdown of Jane, whose ever-expanding relationship with the wallpaper is her attempt to represent herself. Suess contends that the woman is in fact Jane all along and is present both in the wallpaper and in the room the wallpaper contains. Suess believes Jane to be psychotic and through Lacanian’s Psychosis and examples in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” she is able to support her theory. Like Suess, I believe the woman in the story had a mental disorder and becomes the woman she grew fond of in the wallpaper. When analyzing Suess’s article I found that I agreed with several of her points. To better understand Suess’s argument, one must first have an understanding of law/order and imagination or Lacanian Psychosis, known as Symbolic Order and Imaginary Order because Suess uses it as evidence in her article. Symbolic Order is “the social world of linguistic communication, intersubjective relations, knowledge of ideological conventions, and the acceptance of law.” Once you recognize and accept the “laws and restrictions that control both your desire and rules of communication,”
Bibliography: Web. 21 Sept. 2009. .