In the story ‘the Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte, the narrator is a lady who is married to a physician and confined in a room covered with yellow wallpaper. Throughout the entire story, the narrator is emotionally disturbed and is filled with bad feelings such as dislike, loneliness, obsession, nostalgia, anger, sadness, and helplessness.
The narrator suffers from a mental condition and is angered by the fact that her husband who is a physician does not believe that she is sick ‘You see he does not believe I am sick!’ (Gilman 1). Contrary to what is expected of physicians, her husband who is a physician dismisses the seriousness of her condition and goes on assuring relatives and friends that she only suffers from ‘a slight hysterical tendency’ (Gilman 2). This makes her feel so helpless ‘And what can one do?’ (Gilman 2). The narrator also has a dislike towards her husband’s actions. He gives her drugs and forbids her from performing any congenial work ‘Personally, I disagree with their ideas’ (Gilman 2). She is also filled with sadness because of a lack of support from her husband and society in coping with her condition.
“-but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad” (Gilman 5).
From the way she describes and interacts with the room, one can notice that she has a dislike and immense hatred towards the room she is confined in. She believes that hatred radiates from the room. “It is stripped off–the paper–in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and is a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life” (Gilman, 9). She hates the yellow color and describes it as unclean. She also supposes that the room was a nursery school and the children studying in it must have hated the wallpaper just like her. This clearly shows that she hates the room because it confines her from the outside world and she is, therefore, unable to interact with other people (Gilman 7-19).
The narrator becomes obsessed with the mental picture of the woman. She thinks about her all the time and tries picturing her. She pictures her climbing through the paper wall and creeping during the daylight. She also pictures her getting out during the daytime, walking along the road under trees, and hiding under blackberry vines. ‘I see her on that long rod under the trees creeping along, and when a carriage comes, she hides under the blackberry vines (Gilman 23).
She is also nostalgic towards her husband’s sister. She is happy that she does her job well as a housekeeper but angry that she thinks that writing is the cause of her sickness. ‘She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick!’ (Gilman 36). Her sadness sometimes results from her loneliness. ‘So I walk a little in the garden or down that lovely lane, sit on the porch under the roses, and lie down up here a good deal’ (Gilman 45). The narrator says that she spends most of her time crying when no one is present but once her husband comes in, she stops ‘I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time’ (Gilman 55).
The dislike, loneliness, obsession, nostalgia, anger, sadness, and helplessness she feels makes her feel suicidal. She gets a rope and tries finding something that she can stand on. ‘But I forgot I could not reach far without anything to stand on!’ (Gilman, 58). When she is unable to hang herself, she contemplates jumping out of the window ‘To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try (Gilman 59).
Work Cited
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The yellow wall-paper. New York: Forgotten Books, 1973.