The Yellow Wallpaper :: essays research papers

Charlotte Perkins Gilmans "The Yellow Wallpaper" is an observation on the anthropoid oppression of women in a patriarchal society. The story itself presents an interesting port at one womans struggle to deal with both mental and somatogenic confinement. Through Gilmans writing the reader becomes aware of the mental and tangible confinement, which the teller endures, and the overall effect and reaction to this confinement.The story begins with the narrators exposition of the physically close-fitting elements surrounding her. The setting is cast in an disjointed colonial mansion, set back from the road and three miles from the village (674). The airscrew contains hedges that surround the tend, walls that surround the mansion, and locked gates that guarantee seclusion. Even the connected garden represents confinement, with box-bordered paths and grape covered arbors. This image of isolation continues in the mansion. Although she prefers the downstairs means with rose s all over the windows that opened on the piazza the narrator finds herself consigned to an verboten of the way dungeon-like nursery on the second floor. "The windows in the nursery leave behind views of the garden, arbors, bushes, and trees(674). These views reinforce isolationism since, the beauty can be seen from the room but non touched or experienced. T here is a gate at the motion of the stairs, presumably to keep children contained in their play area of the upstairs with the nursery. Additionally, the slam is immoveable " I lie here on this great unconquerable bed- it is nailed down, I believe-and follow that pattern about by the hour" (678). It is here in this position of physical confinement that the narrator secretly describes her billet into madness.Although the physical confinement drains the narrators strength and will, the mental and emotional confinement symbolized in the story play an important role in her ultimate fall out into dementia. By being forced to be her own company she is captive within her mind. Likewise part of the narrators mental confinement stems from her recognition of her physical confinement. The depression the narrator has experienced associated with child bearing is mentally confining as well. "It is fortunate Mary is good with the baby. Such a sound Baby And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous"(675). Specifically, she cannot maneuver her emotion or manage her guilt over her inability to vexation for her child. These structures of confinement contribute to the rapid degeneration of her state of mind.