American Literature

The short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman depicts how a woman was harshly shoved towards the brink of insanity through the unjustified perceptions other people pelted at her.

The main idea that I would like to propound is that Jane was thought to be mad by her husband and her other close relatives. This belief is being buttressed by the way which they see Janes behaviors which usually have the tendency to be hysterical or finicky. Aside from that, they conceive that Jane often throws tantrums and she is out of their control  that she is not in the normal state of mind to be tamed or talk seriously with. Guided by these conceptions about Jane, the people around her treat her in a different way. On Janes part, being at the receiving end of this different treatment only gives her much pressure and makes her feel more restricted. We can view this as an idea that is actualized as a cycle. Jane is not insane in the completely medical sense, but the people around her regard her as such. This view prompts them to act on Jane as if she is really insane, only to make her feels sad, empty and alone, and pushing her closer to the brink of total madness.

Janes condition was only made worse by the way other people treated her. Being viewed as an inferior, at least on the mental or behavioral level, Jane was also controlled, furthering the degradation being made on her character. Here is one thing that Jane said which implied that she was, or she felt like being controlled So I take phosphates forbidden to work until I am well again. This statement by Jane significantly implies how she feels. Obviously, she was aware of the others restrictive treatment of her and which compels her to believe things about herself and behave in a manner that she did not initially chose. Her use of the word forbidden is telling us that other people are deciding the things that she can do or not. If we closely read the utterance of .until I am well again, we can come to the idea that Jane was being told or made to feel that she is not well and that she must aspire for wellness before she can lift the prohibition on her to work  that she must aspire for wellness before she can do things which only well people can do.

Arriving at this idea, we can further speculate that the people around her have the privilege of making decisions for her and about her life. Jane was divested of the capacity to think for herself and act independently. However, Jane was not completely inert in the face of these adverse reactions she was receiving from others. She resorts to writing in her diary as a means of escape -- a turning away from a world that is harsh to her and creating new dimension where she is simply herself and no one judges her unfairly. Once in the story, she said I did write for a while in spite of them. This statement implies how she views the process of writing in her diary. She attends to that activity as an expression of her disapproval to the way other people perceives and acts in relation to her. Even though she was being forbidden to write, she kept on doing so because of the melioration she might be obtaining from doing it.

It is in the act of writing where Jane gets a sense of solace. However, it was not merely an act of escaping from the world that is readily available to her. She was able to create a wonderful dimension where she can see and appreciate the things present in her world Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give away to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making, a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies

Writing in her diary does not only provide her an avenue for escape. It also makes her feel able and powerful as she can create dimensions that are deprived from her by the real world. In that sense, it became her device to handle the untoward responses she was getting from other people. It became her weapon to ward off the elements that put her down and underestimate her personality. Although there was an attempt to go against the people who belittle her, the fact that she did not stand doing nothing in the face of it is already telling. It speaks of Janes, or the womens ability in general, to do an alternative act when met by a limiting force.