Famously, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” illustrates the madness that a young woman spirals into while being trapped within her home. The text acts as a sort of diary for the unnamed narrator, in which her gradual lack of sanity is made more and more evident. The narrator, by prescription of her physician husband, is confined to the “rest cure,” an old pseudo-scientific cure for women suffering from hysteria. She is locked away in the nursery of an old mansion, restricted from engaging in any sort of physical or mental strain, and during the course of this treatment, she loses her mind. She sees visions within the hideous yellow wallpaper of the nursery, visions that drive her to insanity. Many have tried to discern the meaning behind the text and the wallpaper itself, and this paper will delve into the overall message that Gilman pursued and how she did so. Through “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman criticizes the cult of domesticity by presenting it in a Gothic narrative, one that involves a woman’s loss of sanity due to the extreme gender roles of her society. By first looking at Gilman’s own life, we can then see how she connected the ideas of a patriarchal society with that of a Gothic setting. Furthermore, we will examine how the wallpaper is used to convey both of these concepts as one singular entity, and how it forms the overall Gothic narrative centered on the imprisonment of women.
Many elements of Gilman’s life are reflected in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” She suffered post-partem depression after the birth of her child, much like the narrator of the story. She also suffered in her relationship with her husband Walter Stetson, who “envisioned ‘domesticating’ his wife, rendering her humble, selfless, and dependent” (Shurbutt paragraph 2). Presumably, much of Gilman’s depression came from conforming to the domestic life that was expected and demanded of her. In an attempt to cure herself, Gilman went to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, who diagnosed her with “female hysteria” (paragraph 2) told her to “live as domestic a life as possible…and never touch a pen, brush or pencil for as long as you live” (qtd. in paragraph 3). As a result of following this prescription, Gilman “came perilously near to losing [her] mind” (qtd. in paragraph 3). Clearly, much of Gilman’s inspiration for her short story came from her own life, and perhaps the most important connection is the desire to write in both the author and the character. Gilman herself continued to write and chose to frame “The Yellow Wallpaper” as another woman’s diary, a direct act of defiance against the prescription of the doctor. In his reading of the story, Greg Johnson asserts that Gilman’s choice to have the narrator also be a writer was not for the sake of creating an autobiography, but to show how writing is a necessity for women, and that the narrator is “attempting to save herself through writing” (523). Indeed, Gilman sees writing as a sort of savior, but from what? Considering the world of both Gilman and the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” it’s clear that writing and other acts of defiance are the key to defeating the societal prison of the culture of domesticity.
Before going further, the cult of domesticity must be defined and explained. Jennifer Thigpen defines it as “a redefined set of gender roles that effectively and ideologically associated men with the public domain and women with the realm of the home,” and it emerged in America and Britain around 1820 (paragraph 1). “The Yellow Wallpaper” was published in 1892, during the height of the cult of domesticity in America, and it clearly reflects the elements of the cult itself. The cult was most prominent in Americans middle-class families, which the narrator and her husband John were likely a part of considering his profession as a physician. John himself represents the expectation of men in this set of gender roles, being logical and “practical in the extreme” (Gilman 647). He seems to be a combination of both Gilman’s husband and her doctor, resulting in the ultimate symbol of patriarchal power. He has absolute control over his wife, who states how he “hardly lets [her] stir without special direction” (648). However, in this very same sentence, the narrator prefaces this by stating that he is “very careful and loving,” implying that she sees his dominance as a sign of love (648). This complacence with and normalization of male dominance was prevalent in the cult of domesticity; Jennifer Thigpen refers to Alexis de Tocqueville seeing the role of women being a “lofty position inhabited by American women who appeared…to happily inhabit the domestic relm” (Thigpen paragraph 4). Thigpen also cites the notion that many of these women were “emboldened rather than hindered by their moral responsibilities,” and thus led to many of the female-led reforms of the industrial era (paragraph 6). While there surely were some women of this time who felt this pride or power within the domestic sphere, Gilman clearly did not; although Gilman seems to be illustrating her narrator as one of these women who appears to accept this system, ultimately it is evident that she as an author is critical of the cult of domesticity and illustrates it as an incredible oppressive power over women.
Gilman’s view of the cult of domesticity is clear in her choice to make “The Yellow Wallpaper” a gothic story. Gothic literature is known for having either supernatural or generally horrifying elements, and usually a feeling of claustrophobia. The latter of these is especially prevalent in Gilman’s work, which centers on the isolation of a woman within a singular, oppressive room. This isolation leads to her descent into madness, another common archetype in gothic literature. An interesting point made in “Gothic Fiction,” an entry in The Oxford Companion to English Literature, is that a common theme in gothic literature is “stranglehold of the past upon the present, or the encroachment of the ‘dark’ ages of oppression upon the ‘enlightened’ modern era” (paragraph 1). This can be applied to “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a sign of patriarchal society being outdated, and that modern life should include more freedom in the lives of women. Another interesting point in the Oxford companion is the notion that in certain contexts, gothic can mean “‘medieval,’ and by implication barbaric” (paragraph 3). Gilman, by making a gothic story centering on the cult of domesticity, is implying that such a patriarchal society is “barbaric,” and that this society is not only outdated but is also a source of terror for women. In fact, this idea is actually a common theme in Gothic literature written by women.
When defining gothic fiction, Anne Mellor divides it into two categories: male and female Gothic. Being from the point of view of women, female Gothic describes “patriarchal heterosexuality [as] no different no different from incest,” with older, wiser men being father figures to their younger, submissive wives, who acted like daughters (Mellor paragraph 4). This is very similar to John’s treatment of the narrator, who again, “hardly lets [the narrator] stir without special direction,” much like a father being a guiding, overpowering figure to a child. The narrator is even referred to as “little girl” by her husband and is kept in the nursery away from society, where he reads her to sleep like a toddler (648, 652). Gilman too portrays marriages within the cult of domesticity to be pseudo-incestuous due to the power imbalance between husband and wife. The narrator is not unlike a little girl being punished by being sent to her room, being completely submissive but still loving and respectful towards her father-figure husband. Conversely, male Gothic focuses on a similar idea of power imbalance from the point of view of a man. A young man, usually a son, has conflict with an older, more powerful man, often his father, over “control over women, wealth, and social status,” and usually ends with the young man tragically failing (Mellor paragraph 1). A man’s greatest fear, according to Mellor’s definition of male Gothic, is losing the power they are entitled to and being emasculated. This definition in itself shows the imbalance of power between men and women, with men losing their control over powerless women. Gilman is indeed conveying the female Gothic theme of imbalanced, unethical relationships within patriarchal society, and almost the entirety of this theme is encompassed in the most prominent figure of the story: the wallpaper itself.
In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the main source of the gothic tone is the old mansion the couple is residing in, and more specifically the wallpaper of the nursery. The wallpaper inspires a disgust in the narrator, who the color “repellent, revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow,” and says the patterns of it “[commit] every artistic sin” (648). From the very beginning, the narrator despises the wallpaper, and over time she becomes almost obsessed with the paper, likely a result of being trapped with it for days and days. She studies the pattern thoroughly and starts to believe it moves and undulates; eventually she is convinced that there is “a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern,” and seems to “shake the pattern, as if she wanted to get out” (652). The narrator slowly sees more and more visions of women creeping and crawling about the estate, eventually falling into complete madness and even becoming suicidal (655-656). While the wallpaper is indeed acting as a Gothic element, its prominence suggests a more important part in the theming of the story. The symbolism of the wallpaper has long been debated, and many have concluded that it represents women’s literature or the patriarchal view of it. Shurbutt claims that “[t]he odd and unusual design of the paper is an emblem for women's art, specifically women's text, characterized by the patriarchy as atypical and substandard” (paragraph 10). To Shurbutt, the disgusting pattern and color reflect how men view women’s art as being nonsensical, and the woman behind the pattern is trapped because of the dominating aesthetic opinion of the patriarchy. This claim is apt, but can be greatly expanded. Why would Gilman choose to use wallpaper as a symbol if she were only talking about women’s literature? If the wallpaper is in fact symbolic of patriarchal constraint, it would more so connect to the concept of domesticity within gender roles, or how the patriarchal society viewed women as belonging solely to the home.
The narrator sees the wallpaper as a sort of hideous cage imprisoning the woman within, which is very similar to the situation she herself is in. The narrator feels connected to the woman in this way, and as the story continues the distinction between the two blurs. When she begins tearing the wallpaper down, the narrator describes how “[the narrator] pulled and [the woman in the wall] shook, [the narrator] shook and [the woman behind the wall] pulled, and before morning [they] had peeled off yards of that paper” (655). The two act together or even share actions, as if they were the same person; both are seeking the same liberation. At the end of the story, after the wallpaper is torn away, the narrator even exclaims, “And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” (656). The narrator seems to perceive the woman behind the pattern as herself, or perhaps a facet of herself, which would explain her obsessive need to tear down the paper and free the woman behind it. Gilman illustrates a woman quite literally bound to the home, the epitome of the ideals of the cult of domesticity. The narrator tears down the wallpaper as a way to free the trapped woman, i.e. herself, from her home, the domestic sphere she is confined to by her society. The idea of being trapped within the domestic sphere is illustrated as a horrifying vision of madness, a prime example of Gothic—particularly female Gothic—elements.
"Gothic Literature." The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 7th edition. (2009). Accessed November 29, 2017.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The New England Magazine, vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 647-657. January 1892. Print.
Johnson, Greg. "Gilman's Gothic Allegory: Rage and Redemption in "The Yellow Wallpaper." Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 521-530. Accessed November 29, 2017.
Mellor, Anne. “Gothic novel.” An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age. (2009). Accessed November 29, 2017.
Shurbutt, Sylvia Bailey. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. (2004). Accessed November 29, 2017.
Thigpen, Jennifer. "The Cult of Domesticity in the United States and Britain." World History Encyclopedia, 1st edition. (2011). Accessed November 29, 2017.