Essay: The Yellow Wall Paper

The female protagonist’s illness of depression in The Yellow Wall Paper” represents her suffering from social reasons due to solidarity and restrictions leads her to insanity.

 

In the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, it is revealed that the female protagonist is dealing with some type of nervous depression. This may be caused by social reasons such being in solidarity as her husband is extremely controlling of her actions. Her husband, John controls almost everything in her life. He moved her to a country side for a couple of weeks so that she could free her mind and rest in order to get better, hired a housekeeper to care for the house and her child. However, he does not allow her to do anything like going outside for a walk and secludes her in her room where he urges her to sleep. This leads to the female slowly losing her sanity as she begins imagining horrendous things about the yellow wall paper, stating that she sees a trapped woman inside the wall paper. The more she sat in the room, the more her imagination began to run wild. These mental constraints are what drive her crazy. The creation of the woman in her mind leads to the protagonist to be determined to free the woman. For instance the texts states, “I am getting angry enough to do something desperate.To jump out of the window would be an admirable exercise.” This emphasizes the woman’s devotion to tear apart and free the woman behind the wall paper as she is willing to even sacrifice her own safety.

The female protagonist insists that John does not understand nor believe how much she is suffering. For instance in the text she states,“If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression.” This demonstrates how John brushes off her symptoms and only categorized her illness with only “temporary” and light depression. This causes the female character to feel that she is a burden to John and that he does not understand the extent of her depression, stating “John does not know how much I really suffer.” He even restricts her from writing in journal but she continues to do so as she states, “There comes john, and i must put this away,—he hates to have me write a word.”(85) Writing in this journal is what allows the woman to express her thoughts and feelings and even provides her with some “relief” and sense of freedom while in solitude. She is forced to hide her feelings and thoughts as her husband ignores his wife’s symptoms that her depression is worsening. John’s attempts to treat his wife with “rest cure” only leads to the breakdown of her sanity and the women that she once was.

John’s attempt to treat his wife by rest cure does not benefit her at all but leads to poor outcomes. For instance, the woman becomes obsessed with the yellow wall paper. She begins to see a trapped woman on the other side. The woman claims that “the front pattern does move… the woman behind shakes it….Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it over”.(90) This depicts the moment where the protagonist realizes and truly believes that there is a woman behind the yellow paper. This is the beginning of the individual’s insanity as she becomes obsessive over tearing down the wall paper. Eventually, John returns home and finds his wife chewing and ripping off the wall paper. He is astonished and faints because he cannot believe his eyes, his loving wife has completely lost her sanity. This illness has affected the protagonists relationship with her husband as she did not recognize him at all. For instance when John faints she questions, “Now why should that man have fainted”? (92)This demonstrates the protagonists official absence from reality as her illness has gotten so bad to the point she does not even recognize her own husband and refers to him as “that man”.

The significance of the woman in the wall is that she represents the protagonist as they are both secluded away from others. Like the woman in the wall , the protagonist is trapped and restricted from society as she is only left to roam around her room and no where else. For instance she states, “I don’t like to look out of the windows even—there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did”? This demonstrates the exact moment that the protagonist connects herself with the woman in the wall as she realizes that the women is a depiction of herself as they are both inactive with society and in solidarity. The woman also represents how women were depicted in society at that time. For instance, women did not have much independency as they were subordinate to their husbands who were the superior ones in the family. Like the woman in the wall, the protagonist was trapped and listened to the rules of her husband as he thought he knew what was best for her and kept her in solitude in order to to treat her. However, this was not the case as all the protagonist desired was social contact. For instance she states, “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus, but John says the worst thing I can do is think about my condition”. This statement portrays how the woman listened to the superior man as the woman asserts that all she wants is more society and outside stimulation, yet she follows John’s orders of staying inside and not being able to depict her feelings in her journal that usually helps her find solace. It also displays how because the female narrator had absolutely no say in her own life, she slowly withdraws from reality and creates her own fantasy.