Creating Madness in The Yellow Wallpaper - 2777 Words

As summer progresses in the story The Yellow Wallpaper, Johns treatment of the narrator as though she were a helpless docile child becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; she sheds the skin of her adult self and gives birth to her inner child via the wallpaper. From the moment she implies she is sick, his behavior becomes more and more parental and authoritarian. Under this guise he slowly disintegrates any resemblance of an adult wife he had. At the end hes victorious because he does beget a child. Simultaneously, hes a loser because the behavior of this childlike being mirrors his own attitude toward his wife: shes defiant and assertive and runs right over him. The tables have reversed. In the beginning of the story, John†¦show more content†¦As Conrad Shumaker writes, John wants to deal only with physical causes and effects: if his wifes symptoms are nervousness and weight loss, the treatment must be undisturbed tranquility and good nutrition (591). He knows how to treat the physical body but not the soul. John takes her sensitivity as a sign of lacking proper self-control (Gilman 179). Because of his callous opinion, she must hide parts of herself. This reminds the reader of a parent telling a child to grow up. The colorful, sensitive side of her psyche is being pushed aside for his more black-and-white male perspective. His view is one of a colorless world that is cut, dried, and neatly organized with no room for varying shades. If he cant see or touch it, then it doesnt exist. Beverly Hume writes, John is mechanistic, rigid, predictable, and sexist; he combines as Rachael Duplesis notes the professional authority of the physician with the legal and emotional authority of the husband (478). Not only does John not sleep with her, but he decides they will take the nursery at the top of the house (Gilman 179). The words barred windows (181) and gate at the head of the stairs (181) have nursery analogies such as the spindles of a crib and the gates in the doorways of nurseries. When she timidly requests that they sleep downstairs, her preference means nothing to him in the matter. He is the authoritarian father figure whose word is law.Show MoreRelatedThe Yellow Wall Paper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman1107 Words   |  5 PagesIn January of 1892, author Charlotte Perkins Gilman published her short story, â€Å"The Yellow Wall-paper† in The New England Magazine. Gilman’s work illustrates the public perception of woman’s health in the 19th century and is considered to be an important part of early American feminist literature. 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