I had wanted to work with “The Yellow Wallpaper” for, primarily, personal reasons. It was a piece I had worked with almost ten years ago when I was still attending high school. After having discussed it in class, with my teacher providing historical background on the author and her own reading of the piece, I was left confused about the piece as a whole. I was around fourteen and just beginning to understand how to analyze literature and what it meant to truly understand and find a deeper, often hidden, meaning within a text.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” can be a difficult text, one that, at times, I still struggle to find my own interpretation of because of the existence of dozens of threads that Charlotte Perkins Gilman (or Charlotte Perkins Stetson, her first married name) left within the work. Needless to say, a fourteen year old, who was just starting to understand that Romeo and Juliet was not just a romantic classic, was not the best individual to read this text. So, I want to do Gilman, and her work, justice. Give it the due diligence that a teenager would not be able to give.

To understand “The Yellow Wallpaper” better than I had in high school I will examine various parts of Gilman’s style and structure. My main focus with this in mind is to search for stylized passages that are atypical of the piece as a whole, passages that struck me as different and out of place in my initial reading of the text. Frequently, within these sections, what I would find allowed me to develop a deeper understanding. Whether it was of our narrator, or of an event taking place within the text.

There are two passages at the start of the piece that I wanted to look at. They were one of the first pieces that I had noticed were different. I couldn’t quite name why. Here they are within the context of the piece as a whole (the text in bold are the sections I will discuss):

“If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency – what is one to do?

My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing.

So I take phosphates or phosphites – whichever it is, and tonics and journeys, and air and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to ‘work’ until I am well again.

Personally, I disagree with their ideas.

Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.

But what is one to do?

I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal – having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.

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, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.”

The second passage (once again, bolded text is the section I will discuss):

“There was some legal trouble, I believe, something about the heirs and coheirs; anyhow, the place has been empty for years.

That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don’t care – there is something strange about the house – I can feel it.

I even said so to John one moonlight evening, but he said what I felt was a draught, and shut the window.

I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition.

But John says if I feel so, I shall neflect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself – before him, at least, and that makes me very tired.

I don’t like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings! But John would not hear of it.”

The reason I have provided context for these two passages is because of the atypical style of the bold text. Normally, the narrator speaks in a varying series of compound, complex, and compound complex sentences. Rarely does she ever have just a simple sentence (outside of the bolded text). Within the bolded text is when we start to see more simple sentences appear.

Personally, I disagree with their ideas.

But what is one to do?

I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes.

There is a reason for this. We start to see a variation within the narrator’s style because it is within these sections that we reach a more internal monologue. The narrator moves away from a descriptive style, telling us about her relationships, her illness, moving, the house, et cetera, and begins to tell us her opinions and feelings. There is an increase in ‘I’ statements which helps the reader see this transition.

Passage 1: Passage 2:

I take… I get…

I disagree… I am… I never…

I believe… I think…

The narrator is actively voicing her thoughts instead of leaving the reader to infer and interpret what her emotions are through word choice. However, as stated before, we see more simple sentences, and the narrator switching between heavier, more complex sentences and simple ones.

So I take phosphates or phosphites whichever it is,

and tonics and journeys,

and air and exercise,

and am absolutely forbidden to ‘work’

until I am well again.

Personally,

I believe that congenial work,

with excitement and change,

would do me good.

Personally,

I disagree with their ideas.

But what is one to do?

The sentence switches from complex, to simple, back to complex, and then simple again. The appearance of these simple sentences within the narrator’s internal monologue is important. The narrator is not allowed to do any work, or have any sort of extreme stimulus. She is only allowed little more than sitting and laying down. She mentions multiple times how she must even keep her writing a secret because she knows that her husband and family would not approve. When the narrator turns to this internal thinking, we see that rest reflected in the structure of the sentences. She struggles to hold complex thought. Simple sentences creep much more into the sentence structure than before. Even within the narrator’s own thoughts she is not allowed complexity, and must keep to an easy simplicity in order to get better. The structure of her sentences, the struggle to keep simple sentences, reflects the piece itself, where the narrator struggles to rest and expresses frequently how she would like some sort of work to do.

I get unreasonably angry

with John sometimes.

I’m sure [that]

I never used to be so sensitive.

I think [that]

it is due to this nervous condition.

The pattern is simple, complex, complex. What we can see here is the way these different sentence structures are working. The simple sentences in these passages are acting in a declarative manner. It is the assertion of the narrator’s emotions or thought:

I disagree with their ideas.

I get unreasonably angry…

But what is one to do?

The simple sentences are where we get the clearest idea of our narrator’s emotions or thoughts on what is happening with her. The complex sentences are generally where we see the narrator become more reflective. The content of the sentences become self-focused.

I believe that congenial work…

I’m sure

I never used to be so sensitive.

I think it is due to this nervous condition.

There is also the use of prepositions within sentences that I want to look at, and how the placement of them changes the narrators tone. The sentences are as follows:

So I take phosphates or phosphites

whichever it is

and tonics

and journeys,

and air

and exercise,

and am absolutely forbidden to ‘work’

until I am well again.

Personally, I believe that congenial work,

with excitement and change,

would do me good.

Here the narrator juxtaposes her treatments with what she believes is best for herself. And The first sentence, “So I take…” is a list. It continues by merely naming all the medication and treatments she has been prescribed with a prepositional phrase “until I am well again” right at the end of it. In contrast the sentence beginning with “Personally, I believe…” is not a list. It is the assertion of a belief, and, in the very middle of it is a description, “with excitement and change”. The placement of the preposition within the first sentence does not really add to the sentence, outside of providing information. It doesn’t add feeling or tone, but is merely the statement of a fact. She can’t work until she’s well. Within the second sentence, the preposition adds to the word work. It describes it, adding onto it, and gives the reader a very clear idea of what the narrator wants. Work that is exciting and changes.

Once again, the structure of the piece reflects the content. The first sentence is more paratactic, as shown by the asyndetic quality of it. All the treatment and medicine are of equal value, and as such the sentence does not engage the reader. We are not told to care about one thing more than the other, and thus the list washes over us. While there is some subordination (“whichever it is” and “until I am well again”) it surrounds the list, only appearing at the beginning and the end of the sentence, and thus emphasizes it. The second sentence is more hypotactic, there are portions of the sentence that are clearly given more value than others. The prepositional phrase within the sentence is ‘lower’ than the rest of the sentence because it serves another portion of it. As stated earlier, it emphasizes the word work.

Another portion of “The Yellow Wallpaper” to look at is the connection between the woman in the wallpaper and our narrator. At the end of the story, our narrator believes herself to have become the woman she saw behind the paper, locking herself in her room to creep about as she pleases. What I was interested in finding for this piece were places where we begin to see the transition from narrator to wall-woman. Once again, I found an atypical section of the piece that is as follows:

I see her in that long shaded lane, creeping up and down. I see her in those dark grape arbors, creeping all around the garden.

I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines.

I don’t blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight!

I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. I can’t do it at night, for I know john would suspect something at once.

What is clear from first glance about this passage is the heavy use of anaphora. The use of “I see” serves to tell the reader that what is happening, what our narrator is observing, is right now. It is all at once. The narrator is seeing this creeping woman in the lane, the garden, the road. There is no subordination. There is no first, then, last. No sense of ranking for these sentences, and no order in which they happen. This idea that it is happening all at once is later confirmed when the narrator shares how she tries to look out all of her windows at once by spinning quickly, except that despite how fast she spins the woman is always in the window she is looking out of. The use of creeping, first to describe the woman’s actions and then when the narrator discusses her own actions, ties the two characters together. This is one of the most obvious places for our narrator’s transition. Never before has she talked about creeping, and now she is doing it- just like the woman outside.

I see her

[in that long shaded lane,]

creeping

[up and down.]

I see her

[in those dark grape arbors,]

creeping

[all around the garden.]

I see her

[on that long road under the trees]

creeping

[along]

And [when a carriage comes]

she hides

[under the blackberry vines]

It must be very humiliating

|to be caught| creeping

[by daylight!]

I lock the door

when I creep

[By daylight]

Multiple sentences within the above passage are structured as follows: Independent clause (I see her, I lock the door), [prepositional phrase], verbal phrase (generally contains the repetition of creep) [prepositional phrase]. Most sentences that are structured this way are discussing the woman creeping; however, there are a couple sentence following a similar structure to this when the narrator is no longer speaking of the woman, but beginning to speak about herself. The order is different (Independent clause, verbal phrase, prepositional phrase), but all three parts are still within the sentence. Like the word creep, this sentence structure ties the two characters together, showing a deeper transition within our narrator. Not only is she writing about the woman in the wallpaper with a specific sentence structure, but she is writing about her ideas and herself in a similar structure. The woman in the wallpaper is already affecting the narrator internally. It is a structural foreshadow that sticks with the narrator for only a few sentences before she returns to her original writing style.