American Literature

The nineteenth century was marked with the growing womens dissent over their position in the patriarchal society. Women no longer wanted to tolerate the pressure of the patriarchal norms and wanted equality and freedom of self-realization. Literature became an excellent means for women to express their social disagreement. Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper describes how women rebelled against their patriarchal imprisonment. The Yellow Wallpaper discusses, evaluates, and expresses negative implications of the continuous opposition between a woman and the rest of the patriarchal world. In her story, Gilmans reflects upon the complex connection between a womans insanity and her conflict with the realities of the patriarchal life. In Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper, the female characters visible insanity is nothing but a rebellion against the stifling conventions of her society, as well as the reflection of her continuous striving to break the dichotomy between a Victorian woman and the rest of the world.

In the nineteenth century, the society expected women to maintain the domestic sphere (Quawas 35). Women had to be a pure haven for their husbands every evening they returned from work (Quawas 35). Only women who exemplified patriarchal submissiveness and domesticity were believed to be happy and contented with their life at home (Dock 53). However, a woman is not always what society wants her to be sometimes, a woman will try to rebel against the stifling conditions of her patriarchal life Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good (Gilman). The narrators ideas about her life, her work, and self-realization go against the basic patriarchal ideas about womanhood. Victorian womanhood comprised the four essential elements a dichotomy between home and the rest of the world, the designation of home as the womans only proper sphere, the moral superiority of women, and the idealization of motherhood and functions of wife (Quawas 36). As a Victorian woman, Gilmans narrator lives (or, rather, exists) in a small world of her bedroom, waiting for her husband to come and decide upon her future. The woman does not like her room and wants another one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window (Gilman), but she cannot go against her husbands decisions. This room and the yellow wallpaper gradually lead the woman to the state, in which resembles an insane woman. In reality, however, her insanity is just a reflection of the conscious rebellion against the stifling conventions of her life.

The young woman rebels against her relations with John her husband, the bright example of the utmost love and care, is a person absolutely indifferent to his wifes inner anxieties. His love and care border on tyranny and discrimination, which the young narrator finds difficult to tolerate He is very careful and loving. And hardly lets me stir without special direction. I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more (Gilman). Care is not the only thing John takes from his wife he does not let the narrator use her rights and privileges. Instead, he deems necessary to close the woman in a yellow papered room without any chance for an escape. John applies to Neuropathy to justify his intentions, and his medical degree makes his arguments even more convincing. Delashmit compares Gilmans John to Brontes John Reed from Jane Eyre  both men are equally caring and authoritative (32). Gilmans John, according to Delashmit, uses his medical knowledge to create an impression of an infallible professional correctness and the young woman, due to the lack of appropriate education, can hardly oppose to it (32). Her insanity is no more insane than the patriarchal norms she is bound to follow. This insanity is a form of rebelling against the stifling conditions of her patriarchal existence. She cannot work. She is physically and morally imprisoned. She dreams of jumping out of the window, but the bars are too strong even to try (Gilman). The room on the second floor of a remote gothic house becomes her insanity ward she is torn between the standards of her family life and her own standards of self-realization.

Gilmans female narrator wants to erase the existing dichotomy between her and the rest of the world. She rebels against the norms of the patriarchal society, which associate women with domesticity and motherhood and treat them as childlike and incapable of taking adult decisions Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose and said he would go down to the cellar, if I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain (Gilman). The narrators husband is doing everything possible and impossible to close his wife from the outside reality. That reality and the real world can harm her health and nervous stability is a good justification of his patriarchal intentions. Meanwhile, the woman imagines herself far outside the domestic circles (Golden 80). The conflict between her and the outside world becomes even more complex and problematic, when the reader understands that the woman is not insane at all. Her thoughts are reasonable and well-formed, and her arguments are well-crafted I it so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work. When I get really well, John says we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit but he says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let me have those stimulating people about now (Gilman). In the dichotomy between the woman and the world, the former is secondary to everything else. She does not have power necessary to invite her relatives and family members and to see them.

The world interprets every attempt to express her dissent as the sign of her mental sickness that is why she must take medicines  another patriarchal convention to follow. The narrator wants to erase the existing woman-world dichotomy in which any sign of rebellion is considered as hysteria, neuropathy, and requires medical treatment and isolation from the rest of society. This visible insanity is the reflection of the double standards, which tear the woman between her inner world and her society and do not leave her a single chance to protect her rights and to realize her strivings.

The yellow wallpaper is the turning point in the understanding of this moral and spiritual rebellion. The yellow wallpaper is the direct reflection of the womans inner fears and anxieties it is the mirror of her female spirit and soul. I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy store (Gilman).

Through the yellow wallpaper, the narrator associates herself with an inanimate object, while the rest of the patriarchal society seems unaware of how much expression she hides within herself. In the second half of the story, while looking at the yellow wallpaper, the female narrator suddenly sees a woman behind the bars. This is where she finally understands that she must free the shadow of the wallpaper woman from her imprisonment (Quawas 47), but is there any opportunity to help her realize her strivings These are the realization of her weakness and her inability to change the conditions of her life that result in the state close to that of insanity. When the woman rebels against her husband, she also rebels against the rest of her society. Knight is correct, saying that the womans anger is the basic driver of her desperate actions. The conditions she lives in are worse than those in a madhouse the faceless gaze of her husband and the rest of society finally throw her into madness (Bak 42). This madness, however, is not madness in usual terms. Rather, it is the womans expression of the dissent with the dominant conditions of her life. Her insanity is nothing but a rebellion against the stifling patriarchal conventions, as well as the reflection of her continuous striving to break the tragic dichotomy between her and the rest of the world.

Conclusion
Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper was written at times when an ideal woman had to exemplify motherhood and her commitment to home and her husband. A Victorian woman had to display submissiveness to the norms of the patriarchal society and did not have a single chance to realize herself outside of her home. The Yellow Wallpaper is the cry of a woman for equality and freedom. The narrators visible insanity is just the reflection of her dissent with the stifling conditions of life in a patriarchal society. She tries to break the dichotomy between herself and the rest of the world. She rebels against her spiritual and moral imprisonment. The faceless gaze of her society leads to a state close to that of madness, but this madness is no more insane than the norms and standards of life a woman must follow.