The Importance of Being…You

Imagine a world where one is constantly being pulled down and restricted like an anchor, unable to free oneself as a result of being incapable of expressing thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator is constantly manipulated by the 19^th century’s acceptable male controlling society.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Gilman reveals that in this anti feminist society, the men were the active, powerful, dominant and always in the “right” characters. On the other hand, women were merely expected to fulfill their submissive and domestic roles as second class citizens. As a result of this gap in gender division and inequality, the women or narrator are being kept into a childish state of mind and ignorance where they are unable to develop and do to their full capacity. The narrator has no voice in anything in this world because of her fear of being judged or causing destruction in her marriage. She is unable to express herself and do what she genuinely loves, writing. Ultimately, in this self constructed male dominant world, the men and society drive the powerless narrator into her own state of insanity, the only place where she can preserve some sense of control and unravel the power of her mind.

This narrator is oppressed by her husband and the roles that a woman must fulfill. The narrator knows that she is not mentally stable, but yet she is being constantly forced by her husband to believe that her condition it is not serious. John the controlling husband of the narrator misjudges the condition in which his wife is in because of his lack of understanding and acceptance of his wife’s word. He refuses to listen to her beliefs simply because she is a woman and thus interprets her condition as something passive and under control. This is because she is merely overlooked because of her gender. As a result, the narrator didn’t have an option to make decisions based on her own thoughts and morals because she was never given the opportunity to follow her own mind. However, the narrator secretly thought, “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus---but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition…” (Gilman, 956). As you can see the narrator clearly realized what she believed would cure her. Who else knows one better than oneself?  However, even though she knew that being around people, going back to her daily routines, writing, and having less conflicts would ultimately heal her; she stopped herself to think otherwise because her husband would want it that way. She stopped halfway during her thinking process because she knew that her husband’s way is at the end the acceptable one. He forbids her to think about her condition because he believes that there is nothing to think about. He has already made the statement of what is wrong with her so for him there is not any need to clash his statement. He is the male in the relationship, where there is no word as precise and powerful as his. As a result, she blames herself for being “unreasonably angry” at her husband’s demanding behavior. The narrator hides her own emotions and feelings just to maintain her husband content. She drives herself insane by convincing herself to believe in something she doesn’t think is correct. Because, this is a way in which her husband and society had forced her to think. 

 

          John kept the narrator in check with everything that she had to say, believe, and do. John would not allow the narrator to express her creativity or have a say in anything in their marriage. The narrator says, “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction” (Gilman, 957). John forbade her to be the women that she wanted to be because to him her way of thinking was irrelevant and incorrect. This caused the narrator to constantly wear a mask in order to hide who she was. This caused mental confusion in the character based on who she should be and who she wants to be. John is the one to blame on why the narrator doesn’t get any better. He doesn’t allow himself to listen to his wife and help her because of his manly ego. The narrator says, “John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.” John lives in a world where whatever he says, is the way it is. He is the male in this anti feminist society so the need to listen to a woman is clearly a taboo. As a result, the narrator feels forced and manipulated to hide her emotions and thoughts inside her head. Because the narrator is unable to express her thoughts openly she desperately seeks to find something that could make her feel alive, free, and reasonable.

 The narrator’s mental hold backs or restrictions thus, are what finally drive her insane. The narrator loved to write as a form of being inventive, showing expressions and analyzing her thoughts and ideas. She says, “I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me” (Gilman,958). As you can see, this was the only place where she was able encompass control and say what she sought to say without being judged or supervised.  So, when John forbade her to write the narrator had nothing to cope with; because the world that she could create through her writing was restricted from her by John. The narrator used her writing to feel free and be the person that she truly was. She had complete control of her mind and emotions through her writing. However, because John took her writing away from her, she was left with nothing but her own trapped thoughts caging to escape.

The narrator wasn’t supposed to write because this was a form of taboo back in the 19^th century. Women were only expected to fulfill their roles as motherly and domestic wives. Yet, the narrator wanted to keep writing as a way to relieve her depression. She said, “I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good” (Gilman, 957). She believed in the importance of self expression. She believed that by being able to discover herself without being held back would eventually lead to her recovery. However, this was exactly the opposite of what she was forced to do. John under no circumstances allowed her to think. In fact he wanted her to keep a stable mind without analyzing and thought. This is what he named as the “resting cure” treatment. This drove the narrator insane because she couldn’t find an escape from her own thoughts. She had no way to cope and to express herself. So her own mind and insanity took over where she found meaning and excitement by hallucinating things that were not there. She was able to create a story in her mind, giving her a sense of freedom and belief. She said, “I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have!” (Gilman, 959).

 Here, the narrator was able to see her writing and her own creative world through inanimate objects because through them she had the power to invent any meaning that she wanted for them. Because she was restricted from her writing, the only place where she could preserve control, the narrator mentally seeks elsewhere to release her thoughts. She was able to release her emotions, thoughts and stories through objects. She was able to give such objects a reason or a story for existence. This caused her to go further and even believe her own imaginative story which made it for her even more exciting.

            The narrator because of all these factors drives herself into her final state of madness. She becomes obsessed with yellow wallpaper in her room in which she claims there is a women hiding behind its patterns. The narrator is able to entertain herself and find a meaning to this pattern. She says, “Life is very much more exciting now that it used to be. You see I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch…” All the narrator yearns for is the yellow wallpaper.

She thinks about it every day and is desperate to discover its mysteries. She says on how the woman only creeps at night and during daylight she is quiet and still. She also figures out that the woman is trapped inside of the wallpaper and needs to get out. The narrator creates her own life story through the yellow wallpaper. The narrator at the end is able to relate herself to the woman in the yellow wallpaper. So, she rips the wallpaper off in hopes that it would free the woman from the pattern. She says, “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!” (Gilman, 967). The narrator was boxed in by society’s and John’s rules and expectations. Therefore, she wanted to escape just like the woman did. John led her to seek attention and meaning through objects because he forbade her to write. He guided her trough her insanity by trapping her into her own lunacy.

            In Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” a true story, Gilman was able to relate herself to the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Gilman like the narrator had also gone through some type of depression and nervous breakdown. Like John, her doctor had also put her through the “rest treatment.”  Her doctor said to “never to touch a pen, brush or pencil again as long as I lived.” This caused Gilman to worsen and go through mental breakdown even further. During this time men were also the superior idols and knowledgeable ones. So, whatever was said by them was meant to followed and respected. So, because he was a male doctor in 1887, as a woman she had to believe his advice. However as a result, she felt that she had no more sense of thought and intelligence. However, later on because of her friend who advised her to “work, the normal life of every human being…” she was able to recuperate. The importance is that one knows oneself more than anyone and so allowing men or another human being to restrict one from one’s emotions is unhealthy. Gilman was able to acknowledge this and be the free woman that she wanted to be, by not being pulled down by this male dominant society. http://csivc.csi.cuny.edu/history/files/lavender/whyyw.html

            Writing is the cleansing, release and soothing of one’s soul. Writing allows one to express any time of locked up emotions, thought and secretes that one may have locked up. Writing allows one to have control in what they say and think, by being able to write about anything that they chose and thus ultimately discover who one is. This is why the narrator loved and yearned writing so much. Only through her writing she was able to expand her emotions and believes that were controlled from her, her whole life. Furthermore, Amber Lea Starfire, a writer of the article “Why Write Catharsis” believes that writing is a form of expression and relief. Starfire says, “Writing your feelings allows you to air them and so, rather than pushing these feelings down inside yourself, clogging your emotional being with pent up frustrations, fears, and doubts, you acknowledge them. And in so doing, you honor yourself.” Starfire believes that writing allows one to face their obstacles and ultimately discover who they really are by creating a voice. If the narrator had been allowed to write, she would have discovered who she was and defended herself. She would have had the power to stand up to John and overcome her fear of destroying her marriage. Her writing would have allowed her to express who she really was. http://www.writingthroughlife.com/why-write

            The narrator like Gilman was influenced by men to hide their emotions, talents and thoughts. This feminist society forbade these women to act and think with their full capacity. The rest treatment is an evil thing that made woman second class citizens. It turned woman into objects or children without having ones thoughts and emotions. Writing for the narrator was a form of escape from such a strict society. Writing is meant to be used as a form of release and freedom. However, because she was forbidden by her husband John she was forced to keep her thoughts in her head leading to her insanity.

Works Cited
1. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Making Literature Matter. An Anthology for Reader. 5th ed. Ed. John Schlib and John Clifford. New York, Bedford St. Martins, 2012. 955-968. Print.
2. Starfire, Amber L. "Why Write? Catharsis." Writing Through Life RSS. Amber Lea Starfire, 25 May 2010. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.
3. Lavender, Catherine. "Gilman, Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper." Gilman, Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper. The College of Staten Island of The City University of New York, 8 June 1999. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
4. Megan, WorstRoadtripEver. The Yellow Wallpaper. Digital Image.  Deviontart. 2007.Web Access. April 15, 2014.  
5. Louiseh7762. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "Turned." Digital Image. Louiseh7762's Blog. Blog at Wordpress.com. September 13, 2010. Web. April 15, 2014.
6. WithinAReverie88. The Yellow Wallpaper. Digital Image.  Deviontart. 2011.Web Access. April 15, 2014.  
7. Eric Ablett, Dominick Bellizzi , James Byers, Sarah Cove, Max Dobrusin, Adam Frey, and Jeff Hanke.Wikispaces. Digital Image. Realism-The Yellow Wallpaper. 2014.April 4, 2014.