Postpartum depression pestilences many adult females after childbearing. This type of depression was non ever recognizes as a existent job. In the eerie narrative, “ The Yellow Wallpaper, ” Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses complex symbolism to portray the deteriorating mentality and neuroticism of adult females in the throws of postpartum depression. The reader gets the feeling that the adult female in the narrative has this type of depression because the narrative references that she has antecedently had a babe and the baby makes her so nervous that she has to be separated from it. Symbols used throughout the narrative include things like bars on the Windowss, the usage of the colour yellow, the horrid design of the wallpaper itself, the quieting visible radiation from the Moon, and the odor of the paper. The apogee of these symbols shows the adult female ‘s way from minor postpartum depression to finish insanity. Entrapment can be physical or created by an active imaginativeness. During the clip period that “ The Yellow Wallpaper ” is set, the late 1800 ‘s ( Gillman 686 ) , adult females were oppressed by work forces and society. Melvin Gray in “ Neurosis ” states that the crude adult male was confounded by forces he could neither understand nor command ( Gray 3 ) , which in other words, actions that a adult male shows are spur of the minute and what he may experience is best even if it hurts the other individual. Gillman shows this in “ The Yellow Wallpaper ” when her hubby thinks that she is better off upstairs entirely. Womans in the 1800 ‘s were seen as the weaker sex, subjected to their hubbies bid and authorization. Postpartum depression was non seen as a serious unwellness. In the room, that the adult female was topographic points by her hubby, the Windowss were barred. This symbolizes that “ Victorian ” age subjugation. The bars on the Windowss merely allows the adult female to stare on outside society perchance conceive ofing what life could be like without being trapped like a bird or a condemnable in a cell. The adult female in “ The Yellow Wallpaper non merely suffered from postnatal depression but besides psychogenetic or reactive depression which is for people who “ responded to external state of affairss with depressive symptoms and improves as the state of affairs improved ” ( Gray 179 ) , which is shown at the terminal of the narrative when her hubby falls to the land and she walks over him as if he was non at that place. Gilman ‘s usage of bars on the Windowss adds to the adult female ‘s neuroticism and assist lead to her concluding insanity. The bars, nevertheless, are non the lone symbol that represents the adult female ‘s captivity.
A wallpapers design plays a cardinal function in the consequence is has on a individuals ‘ mind. The adult female in “ The Yellow Wallpaper ” is greatly affected by the awful, joging design. Gilman besides wrote a narrative called “ Herland ” which connects to “ The Yellow Wallpaper ” in such a manner that I feel the two narratives should be subsequences of one another. “ On the place: a adult male does non hold to remain in it all twenty-four hours long in order to love it ; why should a adult female? As for adult females, the hapless, dragging, deadweightsaˆ¦ . You had manufacturedaˆ¦ ” “ They must be turned into world-building people by being freed from their demeaning domestic place. Motherhood is venerated in your universe, as it is in Herland ” ( “ Herland ” , Gilman XVII ) . She remarks that the wallpaper has “ a recurrent topographic point where the form lolls like a broken cervix and two bulblike eyes gazing at you upside down ” ( Gilman 689 ) . This quotation mark is pretty upseting in a sense that the Satan is perchance taking over the adult female ‘s logical manner of looking at things. The narrative continues to depict the wallpaper as faded with great lacerate spots everyplace she looks. The wallpaper seems to typify the adult female ‘s helter-skelter mental province. In “ The Diaries of Charlotte Perkins Gilman ” it is evident that her life has non been one of the easiest and that she has ever been slightly down due to ever being so isolated. She writes in her journal on Christmas dark in 1880 that “ she had a peculiarly difficult clip covering with the vacation disappointment, which seemed to magnify her sense of isolation ” . Gilman ‘s self-pity is now evident. ( Knight 27 ) This narrative is a book of a certain clip in Gilman ‘s life that she felt entirely even when she was non. The wallpaper besides symbolizes a type of mental screen, with the design of the paper being the screen to conceal behind or get away from. In the narrative, the adult female visualizes other adult females trapped behind the rambling, twirling, webs of the wallpaper, peering out at her, playing with her head, possibly pressing her to fall in them. Like the locked off adult female, these adult females in the wallpaper possible represent adult female ‘s battle to get away the subjugation of a male dominated society. The changeless captivity and exposure to the wallpaper eventually causes the adult female to hold a complete mental dislocation. Gilman had felt throughout her life that she was supposed to neglect, no affair how fantastic her state of affairs may hold been. In 1182, she fell in love with a adult male named Walter but “ Charlotte clearly felt that she had failed by hesitating in her resoluteness to lend meaningfully to the “ Worlds work ” as she had vowed to make ” ( Kinight149 ) . As the dark comes in “ The Yellow Wallpaper, ” the adult female feels a sense of composure and repose through out her organic structure.
“ By moonlight- The Moon radiances in all dark when there is a moon- I would n’t cognize it was the same paper ” ( Gilman 693 ) . Her hubby John, did non desire her authorship, so at dark when she knew he was asleep, she would remain up all dark and compose her bosom out. “ I do n’t kip much at dark, for it is so interesting to watch developments ; but I sleep a good trade during the daylight ” ( Gilman 694 ) . The adult female was making what John, her hubby, wanted her to make, merely during the twenty-four hours, because at dark she felt free plenty to be able to show her true feelings through her authorship. The Moon visible radiation does a unusual thing to the wallpaper at dark as it is turned into bars and a adult female standing behind it is clearly seen. “ I did n’t recognize for a long clip what the thing was that showed behind, that subdued sub-pattern, but now I am rather certain it is a adult female ” ( Gilman 693 ) . The head sees what it wants to see, but the bosom sees what is existent. The adult female in “ The Yellow Wallpaper ” is seeing herself in the paper behind the bars, because it is she that is experiencing entirely and unwanted. The adult female in the paper seems to acquire out during the twenty-four hours and at dark she was ever at that place once more. “ The swoon figure behind seamed to agitate the form, merely as if she wanted to acquire out ” ( Gilman 692 ) . Again, this symbolizes the adult female ‘s “ privation ” to be freed from her hubby ‘s authorization. There was besides something else about the wallpaper that bothered the adult female, the odor.
Since the house is so old and was one time used for a mental establishment, the furniture was bolted to the floor and it smelled a peculiar odor. “ It creeps all over the house, ” “ I find it vibrating in the dining room, lurking in the parlour, concealing in the hall, lying in delay for me on the steps ” ( Gilman 694 ) . It seems as if the olfactory property is following her because of her depression province. No affair if the Windowss remain unfastened through out the twenty-four hours, the olfactory property is still lingering about, waiting to assail. The adult female used to be disturbed by the awful odor but now has gotten used to it. “ The lone thing I can believe of that it is like is the colour of the paper! A xanthous odor ” ( Gilman 694 ) . Since the odor of the house was “ Yellow ” this symbolizes perchance decay of the human head in Gilman ‘s circumstance. Her head was sick and her ideas were upseting during the twenty-four hours, but at dark, besides the shadows on the wall, she was in the right province of head.
In Ben Caruso ‘s literary analysis of “ The Yellow Wallpaper ” he states that Gilman was an “ fervent women’s rightist ” who spent much of her clip disputing Dr. Weir Mitchell ‘s beliefs. With “ The Yellow Wallpaper ” being based on Gilman ‘s personal experience with postpartum depression, the analogues between her experiences and those of the narrative are noticeable, as are deduction of late nineteenth-century patriarchal and medical attitudes toward adult females, during this clip ( Caruso 1 ) . Mitchell was a retentive male-chauvinist, and was against adult female vote, and strongly against them acquiring any instruction that could foster their callings.
The narrative of “ The Yellow Wallpaper ” is an interesting yet sad narrative of a immature adult female fighting with mental unwellness, merely as Gilman has done through out her life. By John minimizing her by naming her “ small miss ” ( Gilman 692 ) , he is merely adding to the weigh she is already experiencing from holding postpartum. The many symbols used through out the narrative adjutant in the overall apprehension of the character, her subjugation, struggles with postpartum depression, and why she eventually went wholly insane, Any adult female who has experienced the injury of childbearing and postpartum depression could easy associate to this narrative. Woman like Gilman herself who had problem with mothering ( though she loved her kid ) , could populate comfy in a topographic point that was merely “ Herland ” ( Gilman XIV ) , merely to raise the kid she gave birth to. Possibly if her hubby had placed her in more cheerful milieus, encouraged her to take attention of her kid ( non hold let his sister do it ) , and given her freedom to be portion of a normal society, she may hold snapped out of her depression.
