Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow
Wallpaper” describes one woman’s experiences with depression, and her descent
into a nervous breakdown. It seems
to me that what the narrator is suffering from could be postpartum depression,
as she only mentions her baby twice and not until the middle of the story. I
believe she may have been depressed before her baby, as well. Her baby reminds the
narrator that he/she will be brought up among the same beliefs and notions
surrounding feminine propriety, which only serves to enhance her anxieties. The
fact that her husband is so oppressive and confines her to her home and later,
a room that she so desperately hates, communicates an all too familiar notion
that a woman’s place is in the home. This stifling sense of domesticity
associated with females could be what first sparked her noticing the wallpaper,
and also what ultimately drove her to her breaking point. I believe the
wallpaper, besides its vile appearance, also reinforces the narrator’s
perception that she is trapped by a domestic destiny. The wallpaper just makes
these walls, or barriers, that much more noticeable. In her attempts to free
the woman, or herself, from this domestic prison, she reverts back to a
child-like state, creeping around on the floor. This connects back to her
feelings towards her baby. Without the trappings of this domesticity, she
becomes helpless like her baby. Though she so desperately desires to be rid of
it, without the oppressive “protection”, she is lost.
I think the wallpaper is significant in so many ways; it seems to almost destroy the narrator while at the same time liberating her. This, of course, is conflicting as the "new woman" is crazed in the sense that she feels she is capable of anything (it is especially strange because she rips off the wallpaper while metaphorically freeing herself).
ReplyDeleteThis conflict is also pervasive in The Awakening; Mr. Pontellier sees Edna's awakening as a sickness instead of a personal/sexual liberation.
In both of these stories, the New Woman seems most threatening because she abandons maternal duties and reverts to self-motivation. The concept that a woman could think for herself began to decay traditional notions of femininity.