Nick Lerew 14 September 2009 English 1120 A Essay Wallpaper In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator goes through a profound metamorphosis from depressed to completely mad and obsessed. The narrator’s perception of the yellow wallpaper molds and changes throughout the story as her mind slowly begins to lose grasp on reality. A prisoner in her own house, I cannot help but wonder, how does the narrator’s actual living conditions in the house parallel the current state of her mind? Also, in what ways does the room with the yellow wallpaper serve as an metaphor for the narrator’s sanity? When the story begins, the reader is introduced to a nameless narrator who just moved into a large mansion with her husband. The reader soon discovers the narrator is sick and has “a schedule prescription for each hour in the day.” The narrator regards the mansion as a, “colonial mansion,” a “haunted house” which demonstrates to the reader how superstitious she is and gives the reader a archetypical image of an haunted house from a scary movie or horror film. Once the reader begins to view this mansion as a haunted house the mood of the story changes entirely. It is very ironic that the narrator follows this statement by also calling the house, “the height of romantic felicity.” When I read this contradiction I began to wonder in what state the narrators mind was in. It is as though when she enters her new home, she is accepting of the situation and complacent with living in a new home. She is also very complacent with her depression at this point and wishes to be better but does not know how to help herself. She describes the mansion as “the most beautiful place” and “quite alone standing well back from the road.” The distance between the mansion and the town is not unlike the ever growing distance between the narrator and her husband John. The town also holds much in common with John since he is frequently leaving to tend to patients in town. The mansion also has a beautiful garden with luscious greenhouses. The garden represents the ideal emotional state that the narrator longs for. With all its beautiful flowers, the garden is the art of nature and the narrator longs to be able to appreciate the beauty of the world again. However, she can only look out the window and see the garden while trapped in her house. The mansion is a caricature of the way the narrator feels toward the world and how she resides within her own depression. Although, once she finds her obsession, the narrator’s world becomes much more focused and her opinions even more limited. When the narrator first enters the room she describes it as, “a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore.” When she sees the yellow wallpaper for the first time, the narrator attacks the lack of art and composition in the wallpaper claiming that it commits “every artistic sin.” She despises the color saying it is “repellent” and “almost revolting.” Once again this description holds many contradictions. The once beautiful room with “sunshine galore” has been tarnished by the presence of the “smoldering unclean yellow” wallpaper. At this time she hates the wallpaper just as she detests her mental issues, with all their imperfections and apparently God given ugly attributes. As the story progresses, the narrator continues to stay in the room more often and she lends a startling description of the floor foundation of the room. “The floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed which is all we found in the room, looks as if it had been through the wars.” The narrators mind is beginning to crack from the floor up just as the description above. Her mind is also much like the bed in that it has gone through many a battle with the world and society. Perhaps the bed was ripped and torn by children and her mind has been altered by the views of others around her. Such a constant pity and sorrow from her peers has taken a toll on her. In the conclusion of the story the narrator has peeled off all the wallpaper in the room just as she has stripped her sanity to its rawest state. She has no more inhibitions, no more cares, but only her obsession with the room and the destruction of it. As she rips the room, she rips her mind, one piece of wallpaper at a time. This comparison of the narrators mind and the house/room has allowed me to see the precision Gilman took when crafting this story. The rich imagery takes the reader from their couch or bed (wherever they are reading this) and transports them into the psyche of this very sick woman. Such effective writing gives the reader the idea that Gilman wrote this story for a reason. The reason being to show the world what it is like on the inside of the trapped mind looking out. “The Yellow Wallpaper” will continue to startle, shock, and mesmerize as long as it is being read and I appreciate the work that went into this finely crafted piece of art.
