Jared Skelton
Dr. Heneghan
English 1102 – 8 a.m.
8 March 2006
One Woman’s Independence
In perhaps the most mind-blowing psychoactive story on the stages of insanity development, Charlotte Gilman depicts a woman eerily fighting for her freedom from her oppressive husband. Suppression, the total domination of an individual’s actions and living conditions by another, can be masked as concern. As the partial antagonist of the story, John’s role as “loving” husband and physician forces the narrator to accept her place in the upstairs room with the atrocious yellow wallpaper. Suppression, depression, and regression are the primary reasons the narrator loses her sanity and all of these prove the singular impact of her husband John. “The Yellow Wallpaper” pricks our collective conscience that assumes that all marital relationships are loving partnerships and forces us to delve into the unsavory realities of domination and suppression by one partner over the other. With further examination of these three notions, we begin to see the complexity of the narrator’s shift from dependent wife to rebelling force.
The first act of suppression that appears in the story is built around the thought that men should take special care of their wives. John takes this notion and pushes it to the extreme by treating his wife as if she were a child. There are several examples of how John coddles his wife and they can be broken up into three main categories: the state of the room, John’s dialogue towards his wife, and the narrator’s view of her husband.
The ambience of the room itself plays a significant part in the narrator’s mental collapse. John suggested the “big, airy room” upstairs because it would be a sufficient place for his wife to rest. The room was once a nursery and therefore had the necessary precautions of a room full of children. With bars on the windows and bedposts nailed to the ground, the narrator must have felt as if she were reliving her days as a child. She particularly noticed the stripped off paint and paper on the walls. It was hideous in her eyes and she became rather upset to have to live in such a vile room. Her agitation towards the room slowly builds inside her. The shift in the balance of power starts during these moments where she recognizes that she has no voice in her own matters of life.
John’s discussions with his wife are sparse, but when he does speak, his words are either starched with a belittling tone or sympathetic as if she were his child. At the very beginning of the narrator’s first writings, she points out that he “scoffs openly” and “laughs at me” as if to say she is just a silly little child. In fact, he calls her a “blessed little goose.” The narrator takes these comments as a loving remark but it is when he dismisses her suggestions as unimportant and trivial that she begins to question his decisions. Signs percolate throughout the story suggesting an upheaval of power. Examples of the narrator’s displeasure include “I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes” and “John does not know how much I really suffer.” Her true suffering seemingly goes unnoticed which makes life extremely difficult.
Although John treats his wife as a child, her initial responses are passive and submissive. She will do whatever he says because John is always right and she cares for him. At first, she willingly accepts whatever her husband prescribes for her. Her compliance is exemplified by her statement “So I take phosphates or phosphites--whichever it is…” A few conclusions can be made from this utterance. Foremost, the woman is confused about which medication she is taking, but she accepts it unquestioning as if she were a child innocently doing what she is told. Another fascinating point is that she undoubtedly took phosphates which in this time frame were regularly given to adolescents. Several instances throughout the story the narrator must hurry to put away her writings for fear she will be caught. This is similar to a child who knows he or she is doing wrong and must hide the fact from their parents for fear of retribution. It also proves that the narrator is rebelling through her writing and her thoughts.
John’s profession acts as a suppressing force in her life merely because he is a physician. Physicians hold a respectable position in society that may assume to be above reproach. One is supposed to be able to completely trust a physician but the narrator has her doubts from the beginning: “John is a physician, and perhaps…perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.” Unfortunately, she has no say in the matter because she is married to a man who never stops believing his way is the correct way. It seems odd though that he does not notice that her condition is far worse than once prescribed. John constantly downplays her illness yet is very strict in his treatment. The husband’s prescribed “treatment” ultimately leads to the narrator’s depression and regression.
By taking complete control over the narrator’s decisions concerning her living arrangements, social encounters, and medical treatment, John is also inadvertently controlling her mind as well. John’s oppressiveness leads to almost no mental stimulation which forces the narrator to dwell on her problem. In fact, the only two objects that the narrator focuses on are the wallpaper and her writing. The wallpaper stirs her mind and begins her insanity, but it is not until she ponders about the events of the day and writes them on paper that she truly becomes insane. In her journal, she expresses her obsession with the wallpaper and her concern with John. As the weeks go by, her writing style changes from a smooth, delicate style to a tense and agitated conglomeration of words. It seems she strays from topic to topic more frequently and she writes with harshness to her sentences as if everyone and every object is against her. More importantly, the narrator’s writing of the woman in the wall symbolizes her suppressed position. Perhaps the only way women can accomplish their goal of liberty is by exerting their own minds and refusing to be submissive. While dwelling on her problem, the narrator becomes increasingly depressed. Her lugubriosity is accentuated by her comment “I confess it always makes me feel bad” to be left alone.
Lastly, the most important part of the narrator’s suppression could be based on the fact that John truly does not listen to her all the time. She wants to discuss her opinions but when the rare times John is attentive, she fails miserably to get her message across: “I did not make a good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished.” She says this after having an opportunity to voice her feelings during a “reasonable talk” with John. However, in the last scene the narrator finally has enough confidence to convey her sense of imprisonment to John. "I've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!" Left completely stunned, John faints and gives way to the narrator’s independence.
John learns a valuable lesson at the end of the story. It is important that people have control over their own lives and make their own decisions. Even though John was only trying to help, his assumptions of the narrator’s sickness is what lost him control of his wife. Unfortunately, it took a hair-raising experience to recognize the fault of his own actions.