Gender Roles in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wall-Paper

An exploration of tensions between liberation and conformity of female gender roles in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story The Yellow Wall-Paper was published in 1892 amidst the Victorian Era. Through contortion of the conventions of Gothic texts, Gilman presents a pessimistic picture of the marital life of an unnamed narrator and her husband John which serves to present a most poignant critique of the stifling aspects of Victorian society in regards to personal potential, particularly that of women. Eugenia DeLamotte articulates the thematic concerns of Gothic texts as pertaining to issues of: “self-defense; the encounter with a Hidden Woman; speech and silence; … the horrors of repetition; and the problem of freedom.”[1] In examining some of these concerns and the ways in which Gilman has perverted the conventions which traditionally present them it becomes apparent that the greatest defiance of the Gothic codes in Gilman’s text is in her failure to resolve the concern of freedom. This is the result of constant and articulated tensions between liberation of and conformity to prevalent Victorian social morays.

To explore the theme of self-defense in this text, the reader must first identify the threat or in this case: the villain. As true to Gothic conventions, it is often the self-cast hero whom becomes the villain. In the case of The Yellow Wall-Paper it is the gracious husband, John who is gradually revealed to be the villainous character. His evolution into the role of villain is contingent upon his wife’s growing self-awareness: firstly, in the understanding of her feminine role and sphere and finally, in her resentment of it. Thus as the narrator begins to understand the villain as the threat, her behavior can then be classed as ‘self-defense.’

John’s narrative participation as the villain can be seen in the three forms of oppression he imposes. Firstly, in his physical confinement of his wife to the domestic (and thus feminine) sphere. This is evident in his perpetual insistence that she sleep, his transportation of her to a place of confinement, the “colonial mansion.”[2] The negative connotations of these actions are provided to the reader in the first journal entry, the narrators comment on the estate was that “Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it … John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.”[3] This not only subtly (if not subconsciously) expresses the narrators ill feelings towards not only her domestic containment through comment on the estate, but also the seeds of her resentment of John.  The second example of John’s oppressive tendencies is in his control of the domestic and feminine sphere. This is most evident in the process of room selection: “I don’t like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, … But John would not hear of it. He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another.”[4] This excerpt not only demonstrates John’s complete control of the domestic sphere but also juxtaposes his own freedoms with that of his wife. The two deciding features of their bedroom allow his freedom to either take another bed, or another room than that of his wife. This alludes to the fact that his marital freedoms as a man might extend beyond the domestic sphere and into an extramarital affair, this suggestion is furthered by John’s regular absences: “John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious.”[5] Also again in the staunch denial of a change of wallpaper, an act of control which had obvious mental effects on the protagonist that cannot be overstated and are reiterated in the title of the story.[6]

The most important example of John’s oppression is seen in his definition of the masculine sphere as being one of knowledge. The only two male characters in which we are given insight[7] are both physicians a profession which in the Victorian era was confined to men. This masculine sphere repeatedly exerts control over the narrator’s life:

“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- a slight hysterical tendency- what is one to do?... My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing… So I take phosphates or phosphites-whichever it is- and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again.”[8]

The narrator again expresses discontent for her physical confinement while underscoring the social standing of both men and the masculine sphere. This conflation of masculine influence expresses the latency of her self-awareness at this early juncture in the text.

Applying a feminist reading to the text it could be viewed that the narrators exclusion from the masculine sphere or at least it’s dominance over the feminine sphere is the cause of her “nervous tendencies”, the narrator alludes to this: “John is a physician, and perhaps-(I would not say it to a living soul …)-perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.”[9] The narrators attempt to penetrate the intellectual field that is reserved for men, and expressly forbidden to her is most easily seen in the pursuit of writing.

Writing and much of respected Academia in the Victorian Era was kept almost exclusively to men. The act of writing in The Yellow Wall-Paper pertains to the Gothic concern of speech and silence for obvious reasons. The act of writing on the part of the narrator not only increases the narrator’s self-awareness through the increased repetition of the noun, “I”[10] expressing a broadening awareness of the narrator’s awareness of their own individuality, and not merely a wife. The act of writing, as well as strengthening the narrator’s individuality also presents a dissonance between the narrator’s wishes and that of her husband’s. This disobedience gives the narrator a feeling of empowerment,[11] not only is this act penetrating the masculine sphere it is simultaneously diminishing its power. By hiding this from John: “I did write … in spite of them; … having to be so sly about it, or else met with heavy opposition.”[12] The narrator has removed an element of control from the masculine figure in the text, undermining the authority of the masculine over the feminine.

The narrator can further be seen to rebel against the masculine influence in the act of tearing the wallpaper from the walls. This pertains to the theme of speech and silence through the narrator’s perception of the paper. Not only is the paper a symbol of the patriarchy as John refused to change it[13] but the narrator’s depiction of it as “living”[14] means that the act of removing it turns it into “dead paper”[15] much like that on which the narrator writes. This transformation can then be seen as a liberating act for the narrator, she is creating the potential to further strengthen her voice and herself through the act of writing by creating more “dead” paper and symbolically destroying the control of the patriarchy.

Ironically though, it is in this act of ‘writing’ that the tension between the narrator’s act of liberation and the societal pressures of conformity become apparent. Ultimately the narrator’s transgression into delusion is as a result of her writing, the intimacy with her imagined Hidden Woman. DeLamotte suggests that the narrator’s indulgence of imagination in the creation of the Hidden Woman acted as a technique of self-defense; a means to disguise her own suffering as she was coming to terms with it.[16] Throughout the text Gilman flirted with Gothic conventions, a “haunted house”[17] and a Hidden Woman as a representation of a romanticized escapism to mask the narrator’s unconscious desire for escape.[18] Ultimately, the narrator refused a real escape from her circumstances and instead escaped from reality while still staunchly confined in the physical world to her domestic sphere. Thus we can read her attempts at liberation to have failed due to the aforementioned tension between expectations of conformity and desires of liberation.

The Hidden Woman is a convention in the Gothic which usually allows the female protagonist to sublimate. Acting as an external, humanized object in which the female protagonist can project their ‘subversive’ desires or sexual desire, discontent, anger, so on and be absolved of them.[19] This technique functions to provide the female protagonists of the Gothic a ‘happily ever after’ so that they might carry on their lives in a socially sanctioned state of domestic bliss. This is another technique of the Gothic which has been contorted by Gilman. Denying the conflicted narrator this easy (albeit fictional) way out of a common feminine struggle in Victorian society, Gilman forces the reader to acknowledge her critique.

The epistolary form in which the text is present raises interesting questions about the mental state of the narrator and thus questions the extent of her escape from reality. While the reader understands that the narrator is obviously mentally unbalanced they are also presented with proof of her coherence and logic in the form of the final journal entry. Jurgen Wolter’s paper regarding The Yellow Wall-Paper suggests that the “coherent manner in which she continues to chronicle the events that transpire” suggest the narrator is “angry, not insane.”[20] Throughout the text the narrator can be seen slowly directing her anger in the direction of her husband, John: “I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition.”[21]  We could present the idea that in this final entry the narrator’s anger finally found its intended direction. This direct emotion is the culmination of the narrator’s self-awareness of her domestic sphere and her resentment of it and ultimately undermines the power of the masculine sphere. Predicated by Victorian society and indeed the narrator’s previously documented passivity, the power of the masculine over the feminine necessitates a feminine willingness.

In spite of the achievement of self-awareness -the ultimate goal for any individual- the narrator is still denied societal recognition. This denial is represented in the text by John’s fainting in the room, a most absolute way to deny acknowledgement of the narrator’s liberation; however involuntary she is still denied patriarchal acceptance of her self-awareness. We see this presented in the text as an obstacle for the liberated woman in the passage: “Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!”[22]   The masculine figure as a physical obstacle in the path of a ‘liberated’ female has obvious connotations if we continue the reading of this text as a social critique.

The final scene the reader is left with is a triumphant image for neither male nor female. The masculine figure has succumbed to all the symptoms of a “nervous disorder” almost exclusively reserved for women. While the rebellious ‘liberated’ woman has physically tied herself to her marital bed and willingly confined herself to the domestic sphere: “It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please! I don’t want to go outside, I won’t, even if Jennie asks me to.”[23]  This hopeless image which the reader is left with enables a plethora of different interpretations through its ambivalent suggestiveness. Unlike in a traditional Gothic text the reader is not presented with a triumphant hero, or a conclusion of any kind. It is in this denial to resolve apposite questions of Victorian society that the important Gothic concern of freedom is most sharply underlined and questioned.

DeLamotte, E.C “Male and Female Mysteries in ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’,” Legacy, 1988, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 3-14

Perkins Gilman, C. “The Yellow Wall-Paper” in Norton Anthology of American Literature Shorter Eighth Edition Volume 2: 1865 to the Present, ed. Nina Baym, 2013, pp. 485-497

Wolter, J. “ ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’: The Ambivalence of Changing Discourses”, American Studies, 2009, vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 195-210

---

[1] DeLamotte, E.C “Male and Female Mysteries in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Legacy, 1988, vol. 5, no. 1, pg. 3

[2] Perkins Gilman, C. “The Yellow Wall-Paper” in The Norton Anthology: American Literature Shorter Eighth Edition Volume 2: 1865 to Present, pg. 486

[3] Ibid

[4] Ibid, pg. 487

[5] Ibid

[6] There is an interesting suggestion that the denial for a change of wallpaper was a deliberately subversive act on the part of the husband due to the asbestos used in yellow wallpaper which was beginning to be understood as a health threat by the late 19^th Century. Wolter, J. “The Ambivalence of Changing Discourses” American Studies, 2009, vol. 54, no. 2, pg. 198-199

[7] Other than Cousin Henry Gilman, pg. 488 and again on pg. 490but little insight is given to his character beyond the description of he and Julia as “stimulating.”

[8] Ibid, pg. 486

[9] Ibid, pg. 486 This quote could also further the reading of John’s deliberately subversive attempts to worsen the condition of his wife which was proposed in Wolter’s paper.

[10] 38 times on Gilman, pg. 496 nearly twice as many times than pg. 486 in which it is only said 21 times. (Yes, I counted.)

[11] DeLamotte, pg. 6

[12] Gilman, pg. 486

[13] Dialogue documenting his denial Gilman, pg. 488 the line “He laughs at me so about this wall-paper!” most clearly articulates the clear hierarchy in the relationship, the wife is reduced to an object of ridicule.

[14] Gilman, pg. 489

[15] Gilman, pg. 486

[16] DeLamotte, pg. 5

[17] Gilman, pg. 486

[18] DeLamotte, pg. 4

[19] DeLamotte, pg. 6                       

[20] Wolter, pg. 204

[21] Gilman, pg. 487

[22] Gilman, pg. 497

[23] Gilman, pg. 496 this quote is extended with: “For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow. there is an interesting symbolic meaning that can be attached to the use of the color yellow in this passage. Wolter pg. 202 articulates that in the last quarter of the Nineteenth century yellow became the color of the feminist movement. Thus by saying she cannot creep beyond her own personal space further articulates the limited influence of the feminine sphere despite her liberation. It is yet to permeate into the more dominant masculine sphere and is self-contained.