Jane's Depression In The Yellow Wallpaper

The inside of one's mind is more complex than could be imagined. The woman in the story, Jane, suffers from postpartumpost-partum depression that is brushed off by family members to only be temporary anxiety. Mental illness is not something that can be switched on and off, and the failure to recognize it by the family only exacerbated her state. The mental illness described in the story gives a deep dive into the way the woman’s brain worked and thought while in that type of mental state. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story The Yellow Wallpaper, she helps give insight on Jane, the main characters suffocating depression, utilizing the narrators’ point of view, symbolism, imagery, and personification.

Throughout the short story, the woman's mental illness is chalked up to be nothing more than just a frivolous situation by outsiders looking in on her dilemma. The narrator claims at the beginning of the story that, “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression, what can one do” (Gilman). Right here, she is rationalizing that what her husband is telling her is the truth based on his prior work experience and just the fact that they are married and he is telling other people it’s not a big deal what is going on with her. At this point in the story, she feels that something is not right with her mental health, but her husband shut it down so quickly and left her feeling helpless. With the narrator's family not buying into their relatives’ unknown mental illness, she is already “initially trapped within her husband's discourse, is unable to find her own words, or articulate her feelings” (Kasmer). Due to the husband assuring their family members that there was nothing seriously wrong with his wife, they seemed to have taken his word for it. This act showed that the husband was practically in control of his wife. As a result, the woman in a way loses confidence, the courage to speak her mind truthfully, or is unable to express what she is feeling heart and head to those around her. While always being looked down upon and others telling her what she has is nothing serious, “speaking of her anger, even though she has acknowledged that John does not believe she is sick and will not listen to her, she defines this emotion as ‘“unreasonable”’ (Kasmer). The woman begins to feel anger towards her husband as she feels like he is suppressing her and her emotions. Although she feels this anger towards her spouse, she retreats back to the fact that she is the one being unreasonable. She feels this way because of the fact that no one will listen to her, and how she is being made out to the irrational one by everyone as they dodge her point of view. The author zeros in on Jane’s point of view to show how she feels suppressed by others around her and uses symbolism to emphasize the reality of the situation. 

Gillman uses symbolism throughout the short story to emphasize the narrators’ point of view. The first thing the narrator had a problem with within her designated room was the paper on the wall, “the yellow wallpaper, which is the primary symbol of the story which not only represents the narrator's state of mind but becomes that state of mind” (Hedges). The woman does not like the wallpaper initially because she is forced to be in that room that she did not choose and grows a hatred for it. She begins to despise the wallpaper, due to having to spend so much time in that room and begins to be disturbed by the patterns within the wall as it all becomes a constant irritant, the wallpaper symbolizes her mind. Another example the author uses is “the fact that the narrator’s prison-room is a nursery indicates her status in society” (Hedges). The room the narrator is forced to stay in was an old nursery, indicating that she herself resembles a baby. Her husband takes care of almost everything for her from her daily pills to never letting her wander off by herself. In a sense, she is treated like a child or baby by her husband, and the fact that the room she is staying in was an old nursery symbolizes her status within her family and how they may view her. The bedstead is another example used by the author to symbolize “a representation of her sexuality, it is nailed to the floor ostensibly to prevent the former youthful occupants of the room from pushing it about” (Hedges). The bed represents not only her not being able to move, but she is stuck or trapped. Her husband is the major person that belittles her and makes her feel bad for feeling the way she does and the bedstead nailed down could also symbolize the sexual connotation between Jane and her husband. He keeps her how he wants and never lets her stray off and at this point in time, the man’s word trumped the wife’s feelings or thoughts. Another literary device the author uses is imagery to help create a picture of how the narrator's mind was thinking.

The woman describes her designated living space with unpleasantness, only leading her to feel and become more agitated. The woman’s husband [John] picked a room where she could rest and get better, only to her unliking as she describes the wallpaper of the room as, “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide, plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions” (Gilman). The narrator describes the patterns on the wall with unpleasantness explaining that it causes her to become irate. She uses strong words like “suicide” and “outrageous” to help paint a picture and emphasize the fact that the patterns in the wall were starting to drive her insane. As the woman is spending time in the room “many of the images she uses to describe the wallpaper appear to be related to the ‘“dear baby’' whom she cannot bear to be with” (Berman). The more and more time the woman is spending in that room the more things around there start to remind her of the baby she is not allowed to take care of.  Her mind associates the wallpaper negatively and anything the wallpaper seems to trigger now are negative images, almost like a Rorschach test that only triggers something negative. As time goes on, the narrator only grows more and more agitated, feeling trapped, “nor is escape possible from the yellow substance that oozes from the wall” (Berman). At this point in the story, the woman feels trapped, haunted by the yellow walls that surround her. She helps create a picture with the negative word usage that she could not escape the “ooze” from the wall, implying that she does not wanna be there anymore. The author gives a deeper look at the narrator's state of mind as she begins to personify the wallpaper. 

 As time continues, the narrators’ mental health starts to deteriorate as she begins to see a woman trapped inside the pattern of the wallpaper. While being alone with her thoughts at night, the woman in the story claimed “at night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern, I mean, and the women behind it as plain as can be” (Gilman). All the restless nights inside of that room alone, stating that once any type of light at night would make the wallpaper look like a jail. Her mental health is starting to deteriorate at this point and in the night light, she sees bars on the wall at night and a woman behind them. As Jane spends more time in the room she begins to realize “the narrator, imprisoned within the room, thinks she discerns the figure of a woman behind the paper” (Hedges). As the narrator continues to notice the girl behind the wallpaper, she can only help but see herself. The narrator is seeing a woman inside the wallpaper trying to get out and escape, as she seems to be trapped. The person behind the wallpaper symbolizes the narrator, trapped within the room trying to get out. The poor woman is now on the edge, ready to snap. The narrator finally snapped, referring to herself in the third person, and ended up tearing pieces of the wallpaper off claiming, ‘“I’ve got out at last,”’ said I, ‘“in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” (Gilman). After finally not being able to withstand the sight of the room and the woman trying to get out of the wallpaper, she went ballistic and started stripping off pieces of the wallpaper from the wall to try and free the woman figure in the wall. The narrator states that she got out, symbolizing the fact that she had felt trapped being in that room up until that point. She talks as if she is talking to herself and her husband. As if she blames her husband, and herself. She stated that she was not going to be put back which could mean that she was not going to let herself be suppressed by anyone again, not even herself. The narrator tearing all the wallpaper symbolizesymbolized her finally losing her mind and snapping. Claiming to have escaped after all the neglect from her husband and even speaking to herself in the third person as if she had something to do with it. 

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story The Yellow Wallpaper takes a deep dive into Jane’s mind, where she is struggling through a mental illness, the author utilizes the narrators’ point of view, symbolism throughout the story, imagery, and personification. The short story is a rollercoaster of emotions, where at times the narrator was frustrated, confused, and insecure about what her living situation was at home, pretty much being neglected the whole time. One can never be too sure if someones going through a mental illness, or how to help the situation.