The Yellow Wallpaper Literary Analysis

Yellow Wallpaper Literary Analysis In order to maintain control over women, men in society attempted to prevent women from expressing themselves and reaching their intellectual potential. Treating women as children, men had complete authority over them. John, the narrator’s husband in the Yellow Wallpaper, patronizes and rules over his wife in the same way that many husbands did during this time period. He sends her to isolation, cutting off all outside contact and discourages individualism, which worsens her mental conditions. In the Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator’s descent into insanity is due to the subordination of women in society and occurs in isolation where the importance of self-expression is discovered.
The narrator is driven to madness due to her isolation from society. After spending long periods of time in the room, she develops increasing signs of insanity and eventually sees women in the wallpaper. “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?”(Gilman). At this point in the story, the
narrator identifies herself as being part of the wallpaper as well. This identifies that her mental state is diminishing and she can no longer convey the difference between reality and her imagination. She sees herself in the wallpaper along with other women because of how society views women. The narrator knows that there are many women trapped within their homes, so many that she is afraid to look at them. She is driven towards insanity because she is put in isolation in order to cure her mental state. Her dominant husband forced her into isolation which only makes her cases worsen.
In the nineteenth century, men were seen as superior to women who were expected to fulfill their duties as wives and mothers and nothing more. The narrator in the Yellow Wallpaper feels trapped under these society norms. “At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern, I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be” (Gilman). Here, the light is a symbol of a typical woman. Furthermore, the bars represent their confinement of being socially and economically dependent on men. Her husband, John, treats her as though she is an incompetent child, the narrator states, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage” (Gilman). With no intellectual or social stimulus, she escapes to her own imagination and finally loses touch with reality.
As the narrator spends more time in isolation, the importance of self-expression becomes more evident.
Due to the resting cure, she is forced to become completely passive and is forbidden to exercising her mind in any way” (Gilman). He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making, my nervous weakness is will lead to all manners of exited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense” John warns her multiple times that she must use her self-control to rein in her imagination. Of course, the narrator’s eventual insanity results from the suppression of her imagination. Also, she has a relentless desire for an emotional and intellectual outlet, even keeping a secret journal, which is a relief to her mind. Self-expression is an important outlet in life and is a necessity in order to avoid self-destruction and
insanity.
In the Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator’s insanity is due to the degradation of women in society and occurs in the isolation of her room where the significance of self-expression is recognized. Because her husband forces her into isolation, her status declines until she is mentally insane. During this time in isolation, she is disdained from her husband of exercising her mind or expressing herself. This only leads to an increase in her insanity. Men maintained control over women by inhibiting women from expressing themselves and treating them as lower individuals.