Feminist Reading of: 'The Yellow Wallpaper'

The Yellow Wallpaper; a feminist triumph or a misogynist’s self-help manual?

Feminism is defined as: ‘the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.’ While misogynism is defined as ‘a dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.’ Gilman’s novella, written in 1892, I believe, is a feminist triumph because it gave one woman a voice in a world dominated and deafened by the cacophony of men. This voice is personified on ‘dead paper’ but as one critic notes, ‘writing is precisely the very possibility of change’.

Our homodiegetic narrator is rumoured to be named Jane, ‘got out at last… in spite of you and Jane’, while her husband’s name is John. The names Jane and John Doe, even as far back as Edward III’s reign in the 1300s, have been known as place holder names assigned when a person’s identity is anonymous; indeed, its usage is even mocked in the 1834 English song “John Doe and Richard Roe”. Gilman here could have potentially been showing that the characters themselves are personifying all men and women during the late 19th century. Typically, a 19th-century man was almost a natural misogynist, believing that they should have automatic autonomy over women. Therein came to exist, within women, an internal struggle to be the submissive housewife while endeavouring to eschew the boundaries set in place for them by the patriarchy, ‘when I say woman, I’m speaking of woman in her inevitable struggle against conventional man’. The novella is truly a feminist triumph because it shows Jane breaking free of these social conventions, portraying that women have the power to do, think and act for themselves; as Jane says, “I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” She breaks free of the restraints her husband has enforced upon her, "with the result that he becomes incapable while she roams free in a new liberated identity”.

The novella focuses on a woman driven to ‘madness’ due to being prescribed the ‘rest-cure’ for Post-Partum Depression; a treatment that originated with Dr Weir Mitchell, who personally prescribed this ‘cure’ to Gilman herself. She was in fact driven to near madness and later claimed to have written ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ to protest against this treatment of women like herself. Indeed, this is seen through the inclusion of him in the novella, ‘he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall’. Like-wise, for at least two thousand years of European history, until the late nineteenth century, hysteria referred to a medical condition thought to be particular to women, caused by disturbances of the uterus, such as when a new-born child emerges from the birth canal. With both hysteria and the rest cure being attributed to women alone, by men, the novella is a feminist triumph as it leads readers to wonder 'is the narrator simply insane or has she just stopped playing the role expected of her, that of a contented wife?' Presenting to women in the Victorian era that they are not mad, they are being restrained by the men of the world and wanting to break free isn't strange. We see this in Jane’s life, she tells us, “John is a physician” and “My brother is also a physician″. Both these men have “high standing” jobs and may tend to look down at her because of their high ranking position in society as ‘the male-dominated medical profession categorised as lunacy anything in women’s behaviour that did not conform to their rational norm’.

Other female characters within the novella, Jennie and Mary, both conform to the stereotype of the typical ‘angel in the house’. Coventry Patmore introduced this idea in his narrative poem and it has come to symbolise the Victorian feminine ideal. Jennie is “a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper” while Mary “is so good with the baby”; both fulfil the traditional female roles. Because 'Jane’ doesn’t fit in with these she is seen as insane, however, it is not insanity within Jane that Gilman is expressing, the insanity is the opinion of misogynistic men who do not believe women should be equal to men, or rebel against their way. It is a ludicrous concept because of how society was in the Victorian era. Jane thinks herself to be insane, but in fact, she is simply refusing to conform to society and has begun to think autonomously, “But I must say what I feel and think in some way it is such a relief!”. Her husband wants to rid her of this ‘condition’, by making her believe herself to be crazy, to the point where he makes her recede in the ‘nursery’ where 'the windows are barred’. One critic notes, “Madness is essentially cultural, a venting of all that is socially unacceptable. In other words, the diagnosis of madness was implemented to control and prevent women from subverting the bounds of expected femininity”. Gilman has succeeded in writing a feminist triumph by expressing forward-thinking that shows women’s capacity to have their own voice and escape their own imprisonment within themselves.

Furthermore, the narrator explains, 'the paper stained everything it touched’. If we take the paper to metaphorically represent the men of society, the metaphor fits nicely with the idea that these boundaries ‘stain[ed]’ women and ruin their potential. In late 19th century “most of the male characters…were denigrating, exploitative, and repressive”, “John tries to mould his wife according to a set of rigid principles that are designed to infantilise her. Like a child, she is confined to a nursery, which resembles a prison”. John refers to her as 'little girl’ and she explains in her writing "'It’s so hard to talk with John about my case’, she complains, and when she attempts it, she becomes inarticulate and cries like a child.” This is until Jane breaks free and the roles are thus reversed, '“It is no use, young man, you can’t open it”', thus infantilising him. A critic notes that 'Gillman leaves us with the picture of a couple in social collapse, unable or unwilling to play their parts as the stableman and wife any longer; it is a scene of domestic insanity.' In this sense, it truly is a feminist triumph because it shows that women are capable of escaping these bounds and the role of a female can be equal to that of a man’s. It becomes ironic that she ‘creep[s] over him’ at the end, whereas he was used to walking all over her.

In late 19th century literature, female stereotypes included, "the woman as an immoral and dangerous seductress, the woman as an eternally dissatisfied shrew, the woman as cute but essentially helpless, the woman as an unworldly, self-sacrificing angel, and so on." In regards to The Yellow Wallpaper, the main protagonist, Jane, could be deemed ‘cute but essentially helpless’, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage”, up until the climax, when she breaks free of this stereotypical portrayal of women, “And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back". In the novella, “Masculine logic is set against feminine intuition; male articulacy is contrasted with female silence; the husband’s liberty and action are thrown into sharp relief against the wife’s imprisonment and immobility”. As a whole, Gillman seemingly focuses on contrasting male and female roles and thus is a feminist triumph at the end when she reverses the roles because it demonstrates to other women that they are capable of having a voice, and they are capable of being heard; fighting for equality does not equal ‘insanity’. As one critic explains, “In the closing stages of the story she is in control, the verbs are active instead of passive, and relate to movement rather than lethargy- 'lift’, 'push’, 'peeled’, 'jump’, 'creep’ etc.” The language that Gilman uses here, portrays woman akin to men in strength, agility and sovereignty.

Through the entirety of the novella, we are unaware of the narrator's name and thus unaware of her identity. When we do learn her name she tries to eschew it and refers to herself in the third person, “got out at last… in spite of you and Jane”. Gilman could be doing this to further portray women as being treated as objects rather than human beings with personalities and opinions, and Jane herself still coming to grips with being her own person, observing herself as two separate people, the obedient wife of John and the real her.

In conclusion, and thankfully, the novella is a complete feminist triumph. Gilman allows a woman who is surrounded by ‘angels ’and misogynists and forced to endure a ‘regime of seclusion and idleness’, find her voice. ‘Jane’ breaks out and breaks free of her ‘atrocious’ reality so definitely and so completely that she won’t ever be put back’. The novella is a metaphor for female struggle and female identity. The Yellow Wallpaper is used as imagery for female entrapment within their confining relationships and themselves.