"The Yellow Wallpaper"

       There’s so many themes in “The Yellow Wallpaper” that it’s hard to pick just one or two to write about. However, the theme of descent into a sort of madness/psychosis is a strong theme that really emerges as the story goes on. While we are aware that the narrator is suffering from mental illness in the beginning of the story, it becomes evident that her confinement and isolation slowly begin to contribute to her downward spiral, rather than her recovery.

       I feel that the character’s descent can partially be seen by the content and way in which her journals are written. While the narrator is suffering from depression in the beginning of the story, it seems that she is much more lucid, as she describes the home and the situation that she finds herself in. For her writing, and thoughts, seem to be rather rational, but slowly they begin to become much more frantic and delusional. Looking at the structure itself, towards the end of the story she writes in short, clipped sentences, switching between thoughts in the process.

      Her descent can be seen even in the way she looks at the wallpaper. The wallpaper goes from something that was simply “a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sun,” (Gilman, 487), to something that is a confusing pattern, with a woman trying to escape from it. While she did suffer from an illness, it is likely that her confinement and inability to do anything stimulating fueled this downward spiral. For the wallpaper slowly goes from something creepy, to something she cannot escape. The more the wallpaper envelops her, the stranger her behavior becomes, as she begins to gnaw on the bed, and see creeping women outside. The pinnacle point of her descent is when she states, “I’ve got out at last.” (Gilman, 497), as she convinces herself that she was the woman stuck within the paper.

       I think that the room is comparable to the narrator’s mind. The bars and gates that keep the room closed off from any activity, are a lot like how the character’s mind is kept from any sort intellectual stimulation or creativity. Both are basically closed off from the outside world. Furthermore the room is rather barren, save for a few belongings. So like the room, her mind is left with nothing but the remnants of her thoughts to consume her in her isolation. The longer it goes untouched the more distressed it begins to become. Given this, I think her descent was almost inevitable.

       I think in writing “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman shows how women, at the time, were looked at as being fragile, and how such treatment just left women consumed by their illness and thoughts. Gilman’s message was crucial at the time, as certainly treatments of such confinement and isolation had the potential of making things much worse for women who were already suffering. I think it also shows how women would go along with this treatment to appease their husbands, because while this treatment wasn’t ideal, it was better than having to be sent to a strict doctor for treatment.