The Yellow Wallpaper Literary Analysis

Everyone’s a little bit crazy in this world--the problems arise when some of us are crazier than others, and aren’t taken seriously. This is one of the key issues in Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”--a classic short story that has stood the test of time. Personally, I believe that a classic is a story that is still being read to this date and readers are able to relate to it, due to the issues it reflects and the rich style of language and writing. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is clearly a classic text because of the way that Gilman illustrates the treatment of depression in a patriarchal society through descriptive first person narration, allowing many readers--past, present, and future--to personally identify with her character.

One of
the basic characteristics of a classic novel is the fact that the text should be relatable to readers of nearly any decade. “The Yellow Wallpaper” achieves this by appealing to today’s readers through the use of first person narration, which allows the reader to get an insight into the narrator’s mind. For example, the narrator says, “I wish I could get well faster. But I must not think about that” (Gilman, 8). In this quotation we get a glance at the narrator’s desire for recovery, but due to her husband’s influence and her psychiatrist’s treatment of rest, she immediately switches her train of thought. This quote also helps readers identify themselves with the narrator, particularly people dealing with depression or other mental illness. The narrator conveys the stigma of mental illness quite well, since to this date, it is often popularly believed that the individual person is responsible for his/her condition.

According to John Mullet in his book How Novels Work , many first person narrators can be seen as “unreliable” since their way of viewing a certain situation is heavily influenced by their understanding of the world (43).
In “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman creates a setting where I personally can interpret John as a typical villain, restraining his wife from all her creative work, which could help in her recovery. In this story, the first person narration encourages the reader to fully trust the narrator’s point of view. This comes in handy as the plot becomes more complicated, especially when she begins to drown in her depression and lose her grasp over reality. In one moment, the narrator cries, “The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper (9)!” Here, from my point of view, the yellow wallpaper begins to consume the narrator and she begins to develop an unhealthy obsession with it. As the story progresses, every action of the narrator is related to the yellow wallpaper--this should make the reader question if there could be omissions in the narrator’s version of events. This again can be relatable to the readers, since it is quite easy for us to become obsessed with something, even though it is something we extremely despise like the
narrator.

Finally, according to Rula Quawas’ article “Descent and Return in the Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman portrayed how women’s mental illnesses have been deemed insignificant in society (41). The narrator communicates this feeling from the very beginning of the story. She says that both her husband and her brother, physicians of “high standing” agree that the only thing that is wrong with her is a “temporary nervous depression--a slight hysterical tendency (Gilman 4).” Here, the narrator is being told that she’s okay and that it’s just a state of her mind, something that she can easily ignore, thus making her problems seem small and making her feel inferior. This is something that we can still see in the world today. Mental illness is rarely considered important and now this has become a global issue, since people from various age groups are being affected.

In conclusion, Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper” gives modern readers a picture of depression and mental illness through the narrator’s experiences. In my opinion, “The Yellow Wallpaper” portrays how a woman is able to get out of a toxic environment and find the courage to escape her prison. It leads me to think how many people in the world are truly able to get out of this “wallpaper” and live a better life and how much society influences our life. The narrator, although a bit insane, gives me the hope that in the future, should I find myself in an environment that is causing me to slowly rot to death, I would be able to find my way back sooner rather than later.

Works Cited:

1. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. New York: The Feminist Press, 1973. Print.
2. Mullan, John. How Novels Work. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print.
3. Rula Quawas “A New Woman’s Journey Into Insanity:Descent and Return of The Yellow Wallpaper” Journal of the Australasian Universities Modern Language Association. 2006. Print.