1 Marissa Kleckner Dr. Pennington Engl 305 - A Literary Theory & Writing Original Feminist Essay 10/24/14 Portrayal of Women in “The Yellow Wallpaper”
There are many misinterpretations and myths about what feminists believe
and what the word feminism actually means. According to feminist Bell Hooks,
“Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.”
The short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Gilman, is a
feminist text written in protest to the treatment of women by a patriarchal society.
In the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the patriarchy of society is partly to
blame for the narrator’s (who is left unnamed throughout the story) mental illness
and decline into insanity. In this short story, the gender roles of women in the late
19th century are prevalent when Gilman portrays women, especially married
women, being viewed as children, prisoners, and as domestic slaves through
how John views and treats his wife. Hudock agrees as states that, “Gilman
makes John the window through which readers can view the negative images of
women in her society” (Hudock, 1). These societal gender roles trap the women
of the time in confinement of these roles, imprisoning them, and may lead women
down the path of insanity, such as what happened to the narrator in this story.
Gilman wrote this short story to expose these negative portrayals of women, to
2 get people’s views and perceptions of women to change, and lastly to prevent
any women from going through what the narrator and what Gilman herself went
through in attempt to escape the grip and effects of patriarchy. Hudock seems to
agree when she says, “Gilman’s main purpose in writing The Yellow Wallpaper is
to condemn not only a specific medical treatment, but also the misogynistic
principles and resulting sexual politics that make such a treatment possible”
(Hudock, 1). After Gilman’s short story first go published, it wasn’t popular among
the people of the time and for approximately 50 years, many people didn’t read it.
Years after people started to read it more as a feminism text. According to
Shawn St. Jean, “Among the literary works recovered a generation ago, in the
widespread cultural feminist movement that fostered the reemergence of
women’s voices in society, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’ is
undoubtedly prominent” (Jean, 1). Butterworth adds “Feminist critics view the
story as a rare piece of literature by a nineteenth century woman who directly
confronts the sexual politics of the male-female, husband-wife relationship”
(Butterworth, 1). The “Yellow Wallpaper” is now mainly seen as a feminist critique
and analysis of the role of women in the 19th century.
Women in the late 19th century were often viewed and treated as children,
or at least inferior to men. There are many comparisons between the narrator
and a child within “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Women were often passive and
obedient to the men in their lives, almost like a child obeying a parent. After
seeing and analyzing the trapped women within the yellow wallpaper, the
narrator realizes that the men in her life, particularly her husband, are not only
3 controlling her, but are also holding her back from what she really wants to do in
life. Her husband and brother are holding her back from her imagination, writing,
and all she really wants to do with her life. This portrayal of a woman character
exposes stereotypical sexist views and exposes the male hierarchy. In the short
story, women are portrayed as children or someone who needs to be taken care
of. There is also a notion in the text that women are inferior to men and men are
the better and more intelligent of the two genders. Not only is this a sexist
perspective on women, but it also exposes the patriarchal hierarchy of society in
general, but of the family. One example of this is when the husband insists that
the narrator must occupy the nursery upstairs, against the wife’s objections.
Here, the emphasis is on the word nursery, which is ironically a room in the
house for the care of young children. Her attempts to relocate to a different room
are denied with her husband’s insistent refusal to let her. After this argument that
the married couple has, it is clear that the husband wins the argument, due to his
superior status in the family. This is evident when the narrator says, “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
– a slight hysterical tendency- what is one to do?” (Gilman, 76). In this quote by
the narrator, John’s status as both a doctor and husband are of higher class and
status and due to this the narrator figures her husband might be right or at least
feels she must accept what he says at true. Another example of the narrator
being viewed as a child is when her husband refuses to give her permission to
visit her stimulating relatives, and when he doesn’t agree she breaks down and
4 starts to cry. John, who does not fully understand the reason behind his wife’s
tears, gathers her in his arms, carries her upstairs, puts her in bed, and reads to
her until she is relaxed and falls asleep. This is a familiar image between a
parent tucking a child in and putting them to bed and reading a story to them.
Each of John’s actions seems to reflect that he is treating his wife like a child or a
baby. First, he carries her in his arms emphasizing his physical strength and
power over her. Then, he puts her to bed and tucks her in, which emphasizes his
belief that she just needs rest to recover from her nervous depression and
tucking her in again resembles the image of a parent tucking in a child. Lastly, he
even reads to his wife, just like a parent would read to a young child, one who is
incapable of reading themself. Both of these instances also emphasize the
narrator’s seemingly childlike helplessness and powerlessness over something
as simple as her choice of where she wants to spend her whole summer or if she
wants to go visit someone, which really should be her own choices to begin with.
Butterworth seems to agree with the inferiority of women by men and says, “the
narrator, according to the traditional view of wife as dependent child, believes
that her husband-doctor knows best and sinks into horrifying insanity”
(Butterworth, 1). Hudock seems to agree and adds, “He (John) speaks of her as
he would a child, calling her his “little girl” and saying of her, ‘Bless her little heart.
John’s solicitous ‘care’ shows that he believes the prevailing scientific theories
which claim that women’s innate inferiority leaves them, childlike, in a state of
infantile dependence” (Hudock, 1). So Butterworth and Hudock too notices that
the narrator’s husband views and treats his wife like a child. Not only were
5 women in the 19th century sometimes viewed as children, but sometimes women
were also viewed as prisoners.
Women in the late 19th century were often viewed and treated as prisoners
of the home. After seeing the women in the yellow wallpaper trapped behind the
prison bar pattern, the narrator begins to make this connection between her
relationship with her husband and the rest of society. This epiphany causes her
to want to break free from her husband’s imprisonment of her. John’s
imprisonment of her is apparent when he will not allow her to leave the house,
much less her room. Toward the end of the story he confines her not only to the
nursery room, but also to her bed, which, just happens to be nailed to the floor.
This view of women as being prisoner to the home exposes stereotypical sexist
views & exposes the male hierarchy. In this prison analogy, John, her husband
would be portrayed as the prison guard who keeps a close eye on and guards his
wife, the prisoner, to make sure she obeys him and his orders. At one level, the
narrator is imprisoned inside the house, which is a key component of the “rest
cure” treatment. The narrator is not allowed by her physician husband to leave
the house. While John comes and goes as he pleases, his wife is not given the
same freedom and is forced by her husband to remain in the room surrounded
with the ugly yellow wallpaper. On another level, the narrator is imprisoned within
the upstairs nursery. Despite the narrator’s repeated desperate requests to
switch to a different room downstairs, her husband tells her that she must stay in
the nursery, which is almost described as a mixture of a prison, dungeon, or an
insane asylum. None of which sound very appealing, comfortable, or a place
6 where one would want to spend their whole summer. The nursery is described as
having prison qualities such as barred windows and dungeon qualities such as
rings upon the walls. But as the story advances, the narrator begins to enjoy her
confinement to the nursery and even locks herself in it to prevent Jennie or her
husband from interrupting her from tearing down the wallpaper and rescuing the
women trapped behind it. She explains her logic behind her irrational plan when
writing in her journal, “But I must get to work. I have locked the door and thrown
the key down into the front path. I don’t want to go out, and I don’t want to have
anybody come in, til John comes. I want to astonish him” (Gilman, 88). This is
one quote where it is evident that the narrator is not completely sane and is
declining into insanity. Not only were 19th century women sometimes viewed as
prisoners, but also were sometimes viewed as slaves of the home.
Women in the late 19 century were often viewed and treated as domestic
th
slaves. Women were expected to take care of the children and husband. The
mother of the house was in charge of making sure that everyone was happy and
everything ran smoothly. Married women were expected to play the role of wife
and mother and were expected to feel fulfilled with their stay-at-home-mom job
without getting paid. They were not expected and even discouraged from working
outside of the house and from earning their own income. This in fact, was the job
of the husband. This exposes stereotypical sexist views and exposes the male
hierarchy. While the woman/wife figure is seen as the domestic slave of the
house, the man/husband figure is seen as the slave owner and does not spend
most of his time within the house, but spends most of his time either working,
7 outside, or whatever he desires. Though this analogy isn’t as strong and
apparent between the married couple, Gilman hints at the fact that Jennie, the
narrator’s sister-in-law, has seemed to take on this role for her. Jennie seems to
take her job as mother away from her by being the nanny and the housekeeper,
while the narrator is restricted to her bed and not given or allowed to do any
jobs/duties whatsoever while she is mentally ill. The more her husband distances
her from domestic duties, the closer the narrator comes to realizing her escape
through insanity. The narrator is forced to give up the traditional role of mother to
Jennie, the nanny housekeeper, and she becomes jealous of how naturally
Jennie seems to fit the mother/wife role. Jennie seems to embody the ideal
woman of the age, while the narrator herself does not seem to encompass these
natural womanly maternal instincts. By not working and playing the role of the
domestic slave or the perfect wife/mother figure, causes the narrator to feel bad
and guilty about herself. The narrator’s desperate search for mental freedom
sharply contrasts with that of Jennie, who she describes as a “perfect and
enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession” (Gilman, 80).
Jennie seems satisfied with her job as housekeeper and nanny and would feel
fulfilled with this job for the rest of her life. While, the narrator on the other hand is
not satisfied with her life. Therefore the narrator surrenders what little power and
control male patriarchy has given her in favor of the freedom to let her
imagination run wild and eventually to insanity.
Societal gender roles trap the women of the time in confinement of these
roles, imprisoning them, and may lead women down the path of insanity, such as
8 what happened to the narrator in this story. At her worst part of her insanity she
locks herself in the nursery and throws away the key. The narrator finishes
tearing off enough of the wallpaper so that the woman she saw inside is now
free. She realizes that this woman that she just freed was herself. This last scene
is when she identifies with the woman she has freed. The narrator finally makes
the connection to the woman in the wall that she had been trying to avoid this
whole time. The woman behind the pattern was herself. She had been the one
who was “stooping and creeping” (Gilman, 82). Right after she finished pulling off
all the wallpaper, her husband John arrives at the door and tries to open it. Once
he gets the key and unlocks the door,
“He (John) stopped short by the door. What is the matter?” he cried. “For
God’s sake, what are you doing!” I (the Narrator) kept creeping just the
same, but I looked at him over my shoulder. “I’ve gotten out at last,” said I,
“in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the papers, so you
can’t put me back!” Now why should that man have fainted? But he did
and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every
time! (Gilman, 89)
In this passage, the narrator identifies herself with the trapped women in the
wallpaper. The narrator believes she has freed herself not only from the power
and control of her husband on her, but also the restraints of gender roles and
from the male patriarchy. Though she feels she is liberated from these men that
have been holding her back, at the same times she has also lost her insanity.
This insanity is the only way that the narrator could find to liberate her feelings of
9 confinement and imprisonment by her husband. Through her insanity, she is able
to free herself from the control and oppression of her husband John.
According to Hudock, “In her horrifying depiction of a housewife gone
mad, Gilman attempts to warn her readership that denying women full humanity
is dangerous to women, family, and society as a whole” (Hudock, 1). And I
completely agree with Hudock, but I also think that Gilman is trying to send the
message that insanity is the potential danger of control and oppression of women
by men. Through “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman emphasizes that the control
over women that most men used during the time period, caused an unhealthy
relationship and possible insanity of the women in their life. This story is also a
warning to society in general, but men especially, that not all women will continue
to play by the patriarchal rules that men created. Empowered women will
eventually realize that this patriarchal rule over them is absurd and will stand up
to the men in their life that are sexist or believe in gender roles, similar to how the
narrator stood up to her husband at the end of the story, hopefully minus the
insanity part. These empowered women will most likely shock the men who
expect women to continue to live within a patriarchal world by not allowing men
to control and oppress them.
In the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the patriarchy of society is
partly to blame for the narrator’s mental illness and decline into insanity. In this
short story, the gender roles of women in the late 19th century are prevalent when
Gilman portrays women, especially married women, being viewed as children,
prisoners, and as domestic slaves. These societal gender roles trap the women
10 of the time in confinement of these roles, imprisoning them, and may lead women
down the path of insanity, such as what happened to the narrator in this story.
Gilman wrote this short story to expose these negative portrayals of women, to
get people’s views and perceptions of women to change, and lastly to prevent
any women from going through what the narrator and what Gilman herself went
through in attempt to escape the grip and effects of patriarchy.
Web Sited
Butterworth, Susan. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” Critical Survey Of Short Fiction,
Second Revised Edition (2001): 1-3. Literary Reference Center. Web. 22
Oct. 2014.
Gilman, Charlotte. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Literature A Portable Anthology. 3rd ed.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. 76-89. Print.
Hudock, Amy E. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Masterplots 11: Women’s Literature
Series (1995): 1-3. Literary Reference Center. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
St. Jean, Shawn. “Hanging ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’: Feminism And Textual
Studies.” Feminist Studies 28.2 (2002): 397. Literary Reference Center.
Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
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