The Yellow Wallpaper

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Charlotte Gilman was a feminist writer and social activist. Growing up, her father abandoned her, so she was raised by her mother who forbade her to read fiction. But after she moved in with her aunts, who were writers and feminists, Charlotte was guided to become an independent and literate young woman. 

In 1892, Gilman published her most popular work, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a short story about a woman's descent into madness, encapsulating the Victorian woman’s struggle for self-realization and empowerment. The unnamed narrator of the story is diagnosed with postpartum depression, prescribed what was known as “rest therapy” by her physician husband, and confined to a room with a repetitive and “revolting” wallpaper pattern. 

The wallpaper is representative of the ultimate wallflower—the woman who is forced to observe and forced to keep her creative juices to herself when not producing babies. The narrator, here, is not the only woman losing her mind during the Victorian age; she introduces the idea that there are many beside her (“It is always the same shape, only very numerous”). The woman in that wallpaper cannot act because she is consumed by the daily, mundane expectations of the wall. The wallpaper is therefore symbolic of the home that each Victorian woman is expected to make—the prison of domesticity for those women whom it did not suit. Neither the wallpaper nor the woman may escape her respective environment until the layers of restraint is peeled away (or ripped off the walls). “Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach… All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes… just shriek with derision” (p. 655)

It is an odd commentary that the woman, just by existing in Victorian times, had no power, but her madness or depression brought her power because they reveal societal faults regarding the treatment of women. The narrator has done nothing to grant herself this disruptive power, but the fact that she exists outside Victorian expectations of womanhood is what creates ripples in society: “When I get really well, John says we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit; but he says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let me have those stimulating people about now.” A female character who acts in the world in a way unbecoming a Victorian woman is anathema to society, once revealed.

The narrator’s pre-existing depression or breakdown is intensified by isolation and anger at being locked up as an inconvenience—she becomes numb—not able to express herself anymore unless she spirals into madness which would give her an excuse for any kind of expression she might crave. Because the narrator is imprisoned (ironically, for her own good), she becomes a thing, rather than a person. She loses her speech and her personality (“am absolutely forbidden to "work" until I am well again… I did write for a while in spite of them… 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.” Instead, John isolates her and the narrator describes the isolation ironically when describing that the rest of the therapy will take place in “The most beautiful place! It is quite alone…”

On the last day of their time in the summer house, the narrator arranges to be alone in the room overnight to begin her attempt to free the women from the wallpaper and commences peeling off the paper around the room. The madder the narrator gets, the more clearly she sees that there are more of her—in the wallpaper, in the garden, in the world. “I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!"

I wholeheartedly believe that if Victorian literature were studied as a required course during the early high school years, girls would find more facile coping mechanisms for some of the tensions and inequalities they face today. Perhaps more importantly, high school girls would see themselves not as islands in the 21st century, facing problems on their own that are unique to them, but as part of a long chain of sisterhood that has opened doors to allow more equality and success in our talents and intellects demand.