THE YELLOW WALLPAPER - A research paper examining the legacy of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Early Feminism vs. 19th Century Medical Patriarchy: 

A Closer look at “The Yellow Wallpaper” and the Legacy of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

When looking to gain perspective about the proto-feminism that existed in 19th century literature, such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, it is important to evaluate the patriarchal systems that existed in Gilman’s time, the medical attitudes toward women which influenced her work and even examining Gilman’s own life that shaped the legacy she would leave as a benchmark for advancing the women’s rights movement.

Patriarchal themes resonate throughout Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The first example of the patriarchal system that is evident is the narrator’s acquiescence to her husband and brother’s medical diagnosis and recommended cure treatment, even though she does not agree with it. She states her opinion of what would be best for her recovery by beginning with the word “Personally” but is even more so repetitive with the question “what is one to do?” (310). She repeats this latter phrase three times on the first page but the assertive term “personally” twice, which shows that her deference to the patriarchal order outweighs her own ideas of how her health care should be handled. Prior to the 20th century, men assigned and defined women’s roles and expected submission on the part of women to imply “vulnerability and dependence on the patriarchal head”, which would apply also to accepting a prescribed cure from an authoritative medical figure (Thomas). The concept of diagnosis is a verbal formula representing a constellation of physical symptoms and observable behaviors. It is a powerful and public male voice that privileges the rational, the practical, and the observable. It is the voice of male logic and male judgment which dismisses superstition and refuses to see the house as haunted or the narrator’s condition as serious (Treichler). The typical neurasthenic patient’s symptoms might include fever, exhaustion, nervousness and pallor, and these were therefore assembled to produce a “diagnosis.” In contrast to her husband’s rigidly mannered and socially accepted behavior, the narrator’s energetic imagination is a “sprawling flamboyant pattern” (311). Rather than validating his wife (patient’s) voice on how serious her condition is, she is silenced, which sheds light on how women’s voices were censored regarding mental health issues during this cultural time (Green).

The narrator at first attempts an “artificial feminine self” (Treichler) by speaking in quiet reserved tones and refraining from crying around her husband. She keeps her language structure in a very feminine context by deferring to her husband and brother’s medical judgment, even though she disagrees: “So I take phosphates or phosphites...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?” (310)

The fact that she makes a casual referral to the ugliness of the wallpaper - being observant of the room decor - seems an inherent and acceptable feminine thing to do. Ripping the wallpaper from the wall is a metaphor for the narrator to escape from the patriarchy, which embodies the patterns that the patriarchal order ignores, suppresses, fears as grotesque or fails to perceive at all (Treichler). The color “yellow” seems to represent a variety of denigrating context for Gilman’s cultural time: it not only applies to ethnic groups such as Chinese and light-skinned African-Americans and connotes ideas of “inferiority, strangeness, cowardice, ugliness, and backwardness”, but also alludes to the color of disease and even the British-American fear of aliens (Lanser). Women in early feminist literature are portrayed as having secondary roles in their patriarchal and social systems, as seen in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, in which the main female character is denied “a voice, an identity, and even physical freedom” (Alfadel). The minor female characters, such as Jennie and Mary, have their accepted roles in the patriarchal system: Jennie, the house servant and the narrator’s attendant (her name possibly being a euphemism for a “Jenny-mule”, a beast of burden) and Mary (which rhymes with “marry” and whose character seems befitting of a proper would-be wife in that time period of society) who “is so good with the baby” (312).

It seems reasonable to believe that Gilman based “The Yellow Wallpaper” on her own experience with depression and the subsequent rest cure treatment by Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, a prominent neurological physician of her time. She “became a commentator on the evolving social order” and was an early voice in the advancement of the women’s movement before the ideology of feminism was even an accepted or recognized concept (Beekman). Her father’s departure from the family in 1859, with limited contact and support, as well as her mother’s decision to withhold affection in order to harden her up, likely left a lasting emotional impression on Gilman and her approach to marriage and child-rearing. She inherited a strong sense of feminine pride in asserting her own viewpoint and maintaining independence from both parental sides, albeit with a softer more feminine heritage from her mother’s side. Following the birth of her child, she fell into a deep depression due to motherhood consuming her time and restricting her writing aspirations. Not long after, she realized that for her the traditional domestic role was at least in part the cause of her distress. She left her husband and took her baby to California to fulfill her aspirations of being a writer. She eventually surrendered the care of her daughter back to her husband and his new wife, who was also Gilman’s best friend. It was in this subsequent period that she became a socialist, activist and humanitarian, and wrote several published pieces of writing, including her most well-known story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Further evidence of her abdication of her socially accepted female role is her failed marriage and intimate relationships with females, notably Mary A. Luther and Adeline Knapp, known as “Dora” (Hill). This brings reference to her repeated use of the word “queer” throughout the story (310 and 317), which is synonymous with “strange” and “peculiar” and is even suggestive of homosexuality (Crewe).

Her decision to tear herself from the role of wife and mother is reflected at the end of “The Yellow Wallpaper” when she frees the woman (her alter-ego) who is hidden within the wallpaper, representing her liberation from the entrapment of patriarchal society. She remains tethered, however, by her “well-hidden rope”, which for her primary narrative character means that she still is to be dependent on her husband who has merely “fainted” and will undoubtedly be strongly responsive to his wife’s more extreme condition after he regains consciousness (320). Likewise, despite her defiance and freedom from the rest cure treatment and dependence on men, Gilman, herself, remains tethered and dependent on Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, by her desire to have his acknowledgment and response to the story he most influenced. Ultimately, she is also bound to her troubled emotions when she succumbs to suicide due to diagnosis of cancer.

“The Yellow Wallpaper”, as an ecriture feminine work, is full with examples of patriarchy, both within the medical profession and the marital structure, and as an early benchmark of feminine voice in literature, whether used in a journal or with the use of an alternate ego, as exemplified in this story. It also serves as a “symbol of the paternalistic nature of 19th-century medicine and the suppression of female creativity” (Martin).

Works Cited

Alfadel, Maria R. “Women’s Image in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ and Fadia Faqir’s ‘Pillars of Salt’: A Feminist Approach”. Middle East University for Graduate Studies. 2010. Web.

Beekman, Mary. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935): Her life and work as a social scientist and feminist." Women’s Intellectual Contributions to the Study of Mind and Society. Web.

Crew, Jonathan. “Queering The Yellow Wallpaper? Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Politics of Form.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature. 1995. Print.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Literature: Reading to Write. Ed. Elizabeth Howells. New York: Pearson, 2010. 310-320.

Green, Shelley. “Women’s Encounters with the Mental Health Establishment: Escaping the Yellow Wallpaper.” Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. 2003. www.highbeam.com

Hill, Mary H. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Making of a Radical Feminist.” The Journal of American History. December 1980.

Lanser, Susan. “Feminist Criticism, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, and the Politics of Color in America. Feminist Studies. Vol. 15, No. 3. Feminist Reinterpretations/Reinterpretations of Feminism. 1989. Published: Feminist Studies, Inc.

Martin, Diana. “The Rest Cure Revisited.” The American Journal of Psychiatry. Vol. 164, Issue 5, pp. 737-738. Published by: American Psychiatric Association, May 2007.

Treichler, Paula A. “Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in ‘The YellowWallpaper’.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature. Vol. 4, No. 2. 1985.