The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman | Summary & Analysis — Transcript

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1. 0:10In the introduction of the short story
2. 0:12The Yellow Wallpaper, it's the late
3. 0:131800s and readers meet an unnamed
4. 0:16narrator through her journal.
5. 0:18She has recently given birth and doctors
6. 0:20have diagnosed her with a nervous
7. 0:22condition and prescribed a rest cure.
8. 0:25So, she's isolated on a country estate
9. 0:28where she and her physician husband John
10. 0:30are living for the summer. This rest
11. 0:32doesn't simply mean taking it easy, but
12. 0:34involves the near total elimination of
13. 0:36all stimuli, including interacting with
14. 0:38people, reading, writing, and even
15. 0:41seeing her baby.
16. 0:42Two other women have come to help with
17. 0:44child care and domestic tasks. Writing
18. 0:46in secret, the narrator tells the story
19. 0:49of her confinement in an upper room of
20. 0:51the house, a former nursery that has
21. 0:53barred windows.
22. 0:55In the rising action of the story, the
23. 0:57narrator explains that the room has
24. 0:59tattered yellow wallpaper with an
25. 1:00intricate pattern that the narrator
26. 1:02finds irritating.
27. 1:04Weeks pass and the narrator finds that
28. 1:06her anxiety and depression have
29. 1:07increased and even the smallest tasks
30. 1:10have become overwhelming.
31. 1:12She asks John if they can leave the
32. 1:13house, but he doesn't think it's
33. 1:15practical or reasonable to give into
34. 1:17this fancy.
35. 1:19The narrator continues to obsess about
36. 1:21the wallpaper, finding it both appalling
37. 1:23and mesmerizing. She spends hours each
38. 1:26day looking at it, tracking it with her
39. 1:28eyes and trying to follow the pattern to
40. 1:30its stopping point.
41. 1:32As time passes, she becomes more and
42. 1:34more paranoid about the color and the
43. 1:36smell and increasingly fascinated by the
44. 1:39pattern of the wallpaper.
45. 1:40She becomes convinced that there's a
46. 1:42woman trapped behind the pattern trying
47. 1:44to get out.
48. 1:46Apparently hallucinating, the narrator
49. 1:49feels better and more energetic as she
50. 1:50becomes more interested in the woman
51. 1:52behind the wallpaper.
52. 1:54Sometimes she sees many women all
53. 1:56creeping about behind the pattern.
54. 1:59As the summer draws to a close, the
55. 2:01narrator begins to feel that she must
56. 2:03help the women escape before she leaves
57. 2:05the house.
58. 2:06At first, she peels the paper a little
59. 2:09bit at a time.
60. 2:10But in the climax of the story, she
61. 2:12locks herself in the room and begins to
62. 2:14tear away massive swaths of the paper.
63. 2:17In the falling action of the story, she
64. 2:19completes this task and begins to
65. 2:22identify herself as the woman in the
66. 2:24wallpaper, creeping along the floor
67. 2:27around the room, following the streak on
68. 2:29the wallpaper.
69. 2:31And when John finds her in this state,
70. 2:33he faints in her path.
71. 2:35In the resolution, the narrator keeps
72. 2:37right on crawling and creeping along the
73. 2:39wall.
74. 2:44Let's talk about the characters in
75. 2:46Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story,
76. 2:48The Yellow Wallpaper.
77. 2:50The story is told through the journal
78. 2:52entries of an unnamed narrator, a new
79. 2:54mother suffering from what male doctors
80. 2:57call a nervous condition.
81. 2:59They have prescribed total rest as her
82. 3:01treatment, which means that she must do
83. 3:03very little that is physically or
84. 3:05mentally stimulating.
85. 3:07This kind of rest cure was thought to
86. 3:09improve a woman's mental health.
87. 3:12However, the confinement and inactivity
88. 3:14only deteriorate the narrator's mental
89. 3:16condition. She becomes obsessed with the
90. 3:18color, smell, and pattern of the
91. 3:21wallpaper in her room, and her
92. 3:23preoccupation with its twists and turns
93. 3:26turn to hallucinatory delusion.
94. 3:29As she comes to see another world in the
95. 3:30wallpaper, her view of other people
96. 3:33becomes more and more paranoid, and she
97. 3:35begins to behave erratically.
98. 3:37By the story's end, her treatment seems
99. 3:40to have made her insane.
100. 3:43The narrator's husband, John, is a
101. 3:44respected physician, and he comes to
102. 3:47embody the rest cure and 19th-century
103. 3:49patriarchal oppression of women.
104. 3:52While he's depicted as confident in his
105. 3:54wife's diagnosis, and he infantilizes
106. 3:57and controls her, speaking to her like a
107. 3:59child, installing her in the nursery,
108. 4:02giving orders that she must obey, and
109. 4:05restricting her freedom to an extreme
110. 4:07degree by modern standards.
111. 4:09He seems naive about her need for
112. 4:11intellectual exercise. And in the end,
113. 4:14he is shocked to the point of fainting
114. 4:16by the extent of her mental
115. 4:18deterioration.
116. 4:20John's sister, Jennie, serves as the
117. 4:21couple's housekeeper. The narrator calls
118. 4:24her a dear girl, but she also says, "She
119. 4:27must not let her find me writing."
120. 4:29Suggesting that Jennie's complicit with
121. 4:31John in suppressing the narrator's need
122. 4:32for a creative outlet.
123. 4:34Jennie herself seems rather dull, a
124. 4:36perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper who
125. 4:39doesn't aspire to anything more.
126. 4:42The narrator describes caretaker Mary as
127. 4:44so good with the baby, the very baby the
128. 4:47narrator is too anxious to take care of.
129. 4:50The caretaker isn't mentioned again by
130. 4:52name, although readers learn that the
131. 4:54baby is well and happy.
132. 4:56Like Jennie, Mary is another part of the
133. 4:59isolation that cuts the narrator off
134. 5:01from her roles as mother and head of
135. 5:03household.
136. 5:08Let's talk about some of the key symbols
137. 5:10in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short
138. 5:11story, The Yellow Wallpaper.
139. 5:16The pattern of the yellow wallpaper
140. 5:18symbolizes the narrator's confinement,
141. 5:20and perhaps the social limitations of
142. 5:22women in general.
143. 5:23The pattern traps and fixates the
144. 5:25narrator's thoughts, such that her rest
145. 5:28cure seems to drive her insane.
146. 5:31She comes to believe that the
147. 5:32wallpaper's pattern consists of bars
148. 5:34that imprison a woman, sometimes many
149. 5:37women.
150. 5:38This woman shakes the bars trying to get
151. 5:40out.
152. 5:41At the end of the story, the narrator
153. 5:43frees the woman by tearing the paper
154. 5:45from the wall, an action that may
155. 5:47represent her own desire to free herself
156. 5:50from confinement. The yellow wallpaper
157. 5:52also symbolizes contemporary xenophobia,
158. 5:55particularly fears of Asian immigration.
159. 5:58In this way, the wallpaper evokes a
160. 6:00powerful combination of debilitating
161. 6:02cultural anxieties.
162. 6:07The estate reflects the narrator's own
163. 6:10isolation.
164. 6:11The boundaries of the gardens, house,
165. 6:14and room symbolize the ever smaller
166. 6:16spaces of her physical and mental
167. 6:18freedom.
168. 6:22The moon, with its monthly phases long
169. 6:24connected to a woman's menstrual cycle,
170. 6:26symbolically represents womanhood.
171. 6:29Moonlight first reveals the wallpaper's
172. 6:31sub pattern, making a symbolic
173. 6:33connection between the narrator and the
174. 6:35woman she sees trapped behind bars.
175. 6:38Both may be unnoticed and unseen during
176. 6:40the day, but they move around freely at
177. 6:43night.
178. 6:47Let's talk about some of the themes of
179. 6:49Gilman's short story, The Yellow
180. 6:51Wallpaper.
181. 6:54The theme of conformity versus
182. 6:56self-expression can be seen in the
183. 6:58relationship between the narrator and
184. 6:59her husband.
185. 7:00John has decided that she must remain
186. 7:03inactive and in her room.
187. 7:05And because he is both her husband and a
188. 7:07respected physician, she has no choice
189. 7:09but to obey.
190. 7:11As a wife and a woman, she must conform
191. 7:14to society's norms. The narrator accepts
192. 7:16her role with little outward dissent,
193. 7:19but her need for freedom of expression
194. 7:21reveals itself in her private journal.
195. 7:24She writes secretly and stays awake at
196. 7:26night to have time to herself.
197. 7:29However, the overall trajectory of the
198. 7:31story shows that her need for healthy
199. 7:33self-expression goes unmet. Instead of
200. 7:35engaging meaningfully with those around
201. 7:37her, the narrator comes to see a
202. 7:39confined woman behind the bars of the
203. 7:41yellow wallpaper and creeping women
204. 7:44outside her windows.
205. 7:46Gilman in this way shows us how
206. 7:48unhealthy forced conformity can be.
207. 7:52Confinement is a constant theme in The
208. 7:54Yellow Wallpaper seen in the setting in
209. 7:57the form of the secret journal and in
210. 7:59the narrator's overall descent into
211. 8:01madness. The narrator is physically
212. 8:03trapped by her surroundings and her
213. 8:05husband's directives. The borders and
214. 8:07walls of the estate isolate her.
215. 8:10Beyond these physical barriers are those
216. 8:12set up by society to limit women. Her
217. 8:15journal sets the confines of her mental
218. 8:17activity and proves inadequate to the
219. 8:20task.
220. 8:22Confined also by her fixation with the
221. 8:23yellow wallpaper, the narrator traces
222. 8:26the pattern for hours at a time.
223. 8:28In this way, the pattern traps her mind
224. 8:31even as her physical self is confined.
225. 8:35Women's roles were certainly limited at
226. 8:36the time Gilman wrote The Yellow
227. 8:38Wallpaper with mother and house manager,
228. 8:41the normalized domestic sphere for
229. 8:43upper-class wives.
230. 8:45But the narrator in Gilman's story is
231. 8:46much more limited. At the mercy of male
232. 8:49physicians who prescribe total
233. 8:51inactivity of mind and body, she's
234. 8:53already removed from her roles of mother
235. 8:56and house manager when the story begins.
236. 8:59Her woman's identity is thus split off
237. 9:01into other characters. Mary takes on the
238. 9:04narrator's role of mother and Jenny
239. 9:06manages the house including taking care
240. 9:08of the narrator.
241. 9:09The narrator thus loses all agency over
242. 9:11her life and she's treated like a child
243. 9:13who must be cared for.
244. 9:16Charlotte Perkins Gilman was herself of
245. 9:18the strong opinion that women need
246. 9:21meaningful work suited to their natural
247. 9:23abilities and inclinations.
248. 9:25Her story intensifies the limitations
249. 9:27put on women to show the mental decline
250. 9:30that results.
251. 9:33Mental illness is shown in the story to
252. 9:35result from the narrator's forced
253. 9:36conformity, her confinement, and her
254. 9:39limited responsibilities, making the
255. 9:41question of insanity a kind of umbrella
256. 9:44theme that encapsulates the others.
257. 9:46What kind of mental health can we expect
258. 9:49from such cultural traditions?