The Consequences of Ignoring Your Yellow Wallpaper

In her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells a compelling story about a woman with an unidentified nervous disorder whose husband rents out a summerhouse for them to stay in so that she may relax and improve her condition. Throughout this 3-month stay, the woman slips into a progressively worse state of mind, and her condition quickly deteriorates – seemingly a partial result of sensory issues with a particularly unpleasant wallpaper that eventually drives her into madness. Gilman’s intent behind the story was to highlight the lack of knowledge about mental illness as well as the treatment of women in the nineteenth century. Through the use of strong diction and the narrator’s inner thoughts, Gilman creates a powerful representation of the Major Depressive Disorder with mood-incongruent psychotic features, which lead to unusual and eventually extreme thoughts and actions from the protagonist.

Throughout the short story, Gilman paints the main character as misunderstood through the use of internal dialogue. From the very beginning, the narrator states “he does not believe I am sick!” (Gilman 647), and later tells the reader that her husband doesn’t know how much she suffers – he feels at peace knowing that she has no reason to suffer (Gilman 649). She also strongly disapproves of the method being used in order to “cure” her of her nervous disorder, such as being “absolutely forbidden to ‘work’” (Gilman 648). Because her husband considers any sort of mental or physical exertion “work,” he prohibits her from writing also, which results in the narrator having to resort to lies and secrecy. “There comes John,” she says, “and I must put this away, – he hates to have me write a word” (Gilman 649), as well as “There comes John’s sister… I must not let her find me writing” (Gilman 650). This secretive behavior persists throughout the story, and grows to be more extreme as it progresses, until eventually everyone’s constant denial of her condition leads the protagonist to stop speaking of anything that bothers her at all – like the wallpaper or the fact that she doesn’t sleep in order to watch it “move.” In this manner, the protagonist’s environment – namely the people surrounding her – actively worsen her condition and lead her mental illness symptoms to becoming more extreme. 

Additionally, both the narrator’s mental state and environmental factors lead to her distrust of the people surrounding her. This symptom is mild at first – she mentions having a feeling that they are acting in an odd way: “The fact is I am getting a little afraid of John. He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jennie has an inexplicable look” (Gilman 653). However, as her mental state worsens, these bouts of distrust become far more delusional.  At this point in the story, the main character is no longer bothered by the wallpaper – she is rather completely obsessed with it. She is so bewitched that she mentions not sleeping much at night to "watch developments," as though the walls are a living and breathing  thing that changes and must be scrutinized and patrolled as a result. This obsessive behavior marks a very sharp mental decline toward the end of the story, which is accompanied by similar levels of delusions regarding her relationships. Initially, she treats her writing as a way to be able to express herself, which she declares when she says "I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is a dead paper and a great relief to my mind" (Gilman 647). However, when she later grows distrustful of the people around her, she also grows distrustful even of her own writing: "I have found out another funny thing, but I shan't tell it this time! It does not do to trust people too much" (Gilman 655), implying that she no longer has confidence to reveal information to her previous source of relief. Furthermore, the protagonist's skepticism about those around her is exemplified the best when she says that her husband "pretended to be very loving and kind,” and calls Jennie “the sly thing!” (Gilman 655). Throughout the story, the reader comes to know that although the narrator's family have no idea how to deal with her illness, they still love her and are acting in a way that they truly believe is best for her; even the narrator acknowledges this when she says "Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick" (Gilman 651). Therefore, her opinions and thoughts about them at the beginning of the story are very sharply contrasted with these new ideas about their deceit. Overall, it is evident that throughout the story, the narrator turns from feeling simply misunderstood to feeling as though those who are close to her and are attempting to care for her are actually against her, and actively are working against her best interests.

Finally, a large impact of the protagonist’s mental state on her actions can be seen in the form of hallucinations, which lead her to having irrational thoughts and extreme actions. These symptoms emerge towards the end of the story, when her mental condition is truly as bad as it can possibly become. Firstly, she becomes truly convinced that “The front pattern does move – and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!” (Gilman 654). Aside from hallucinating a woman behind the pattern in the wallpaper, the narrator also begins to hallucinate a smell that is tied to the wallpaper: “A yellow smell” (Gilman 654). At this point in the story, she is so carried away with the wallpaper that she says “I thought seriously of burning the house – to reach the smell” (Gilman 654), and “I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise” (Gilman 655-656). If these thoughts aren’t extreme enough, her actions certainly make up for it: the protagonist spends the whole night before their final day at the house ripping off the yellow wallpaper. Convinced that she is like one of the women that she has been hallucinating stuck behind that wallpaper, she does this to free them and free herself from the prison bars-like pattern, saying to her husband “I’ve got out at last… in spite of you and Jane” (Gilman 656). Completely engulfed by her delusional thoughts, the story ends when the narrator says in a confused manner, “Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!” (Gilman 656). The short story culminates in the protagonist embracing her hallucinated, delusional role as one of the women trapped by the wallpaper, who must creep around and attempt to break out of the yellow-wallpapered room.