How does the writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman create a sense of unease and madness in her short story The Yellow Wallpaper?

How does the writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman create a sense of unease and madness in her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”?

The theme of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is madness. The story is about the narrators decent into madness which finally leads to her death. Her husband and brother are both physicians who think they know what is best for her but it is the way that they treat her which makes her finally go insane and commit suicide. They forbid her from doing anything and put her in a room at the top of a house and she is not allowed to leave the room. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a semi-autobiographical short story as the writer, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, suffered from depression and almost a complete breakdown. She too committed suicide just like the narrator in her short story. Charlotte Perkins Gilman is writing from personal experience.

One way that the writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman creates a sense of unease in the story is that the story is all written in the first person but the narrator has to write in secret as she has been forbidden from writing or doing anything ‘absolutely forbidden to work’. This shows unease because the narrator has to do everything in secret no one must know that she is writing this or she will not be allowed to continue. The narrator is nervous when writing because no one else must know. The writer conveys an atmosphere of unease between the narrator and her husband at the beginning of story when she writes ‘John laughs at me’. This shows unease between the couple because her husband laughs at her the relationship is not right this shows that John does not respect her. This means the marriage is not right as he has no respect for his wife. Another way that the writer conveys a sense of unease between the couple is that the narrator writes ‘John is a physician… perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster’. The narrator blames her husband for her not getting better. This shows a feeling of unease because her husband is a doctor and should be able to make her better but she blames him for the fact that she is getting worse. John is practical to the extreme. This shows us that john is unable to empathies with her he is a practical minded person. This shows that things are strained and uneasy between them because he is not able to understand how she feels and what she thinks. In the short story we never hear john speak all the things that he does and says are filtered through the narrator. However from what the narrator says about we husband we can tell that he has a sinister tone we can tell this from when the narrator says ‘john laughs at me’. He laughs at his wife instead of respecting her he just laughs at her this shows he can be cruel to his wife. Another way the author conveys a sense of unease is by the fact that she is put into a room ‘at the top of the house’, ‘the windows are barred’ and a ‘gate at the head of the stairs’. This shows that things are not quite right because it is as if she has been locked away at the top of the house despite the fact that she protested to get another room. This shows a feeling of unease because she has been locked away at the top of the house she is not able to do anything she is not even able to leave her room.

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At the beginning of the story we know the narrator is not mad we are told that she has ‘temporary nervous depression’ we do not suspect her of being mentally unstable. This is because she is quite and does not argue with her husband she does not give us any reason to doubt her sanity. As the story progresses we see that the narrator gradually becomes more unbalanced. At the beginning the narrator ‘what can one do?’. She does not try to argue she just accepts what her husband says. Even though she feels that he is making her condition worse she does not try to argue she just does what he says. When she moves into the room and has to live with the wallpaper this is when we start to see her insanity at one point she thinks of ‘burning down the house’ just to get rid of a smell that she believes comes from the wallpaper. This shows her insanity because she believes that the wallpaper gives of a smell that hovers over her and she considers burning the house down to reach a smell that is all in her imagination. As the narrator spends more time in the room with the wallpaper we see that she becomes even more deranged. ‘I’ve seen her!’. The narrator now believes that there is a woman who lives behind the pattern. She starts to believe that she is the woman in the wallpaper who is trapped. This shows that the reason for her insanity is the way she has been treated by her husband who thinks that the rest cure is the best thing for her. The rest cure has sent the narrator insane. She is trapped in a room at the top of a house with a gate at the top of the stairs and now she believes that she is trapped behind this wallpaper. The way that the narrator describes the wallpaper shows that she is going mental. She describes the pattern on the wallpaper by saying ‘they suddenly commit suicide’. Instead of saying that they stop she says they commit suicide. The narrator commits suicide at the end of the story so this is an early indication that just like the pattern on the wallpaper she will commit suicide. We can tell from this that she is going insane because it is her insanity that causes her to commit suicide. She also says ‘that awful pattern began to laugh at me’. This shows her insanity and obsession with the wallpaper because she now believes it is laughing at her. It has become such an obsession she now believes that it is real and it is mocking her for not being able to defeat it. It is the obsession that is making her even more deranged. Charlotte Perkins Gilman creates a sense of madness in her play by the strong imagery of the wallpaper. She writes about the colour of the wallpaper being ‘sickly sulphur’. This shows us the menacing influence of the wallpaper because sulphur is deadly toxic. So the writer is showing that the wallpaper is deadly toxic to the narrator. It shows us that the narrator’s obsession with the wallpaper is deadly.

The narrator’s initial interest with the wallpaper grows into an unhealthy obsession. When the narrator first describes the wallpaper saying ‘It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following’. She describes the pattern as if it is dull and not that interesting. As we get further into the story she describes the pattern as ‘slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing sea-weeds’. She has obviously been studying the pattern a lot more showing that her hatred for the wallpaper has now turned into an obsession she is constantly studying trying to find out everything about it. It is the only thing that she has in the room with her she spends her time staring at it and the wallpaper has now become an obsession and sent her insane. The narrator’s obsession has become a distraction it is the only thing she thinks about she is locked away and isolated ‘three miles from the village’. Being isolated has made her obsessed with the wallpaper it is the only thing she can think about. Towards the end of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ the wallpaper is the only thing that the she writes about it becomes her life and in her mind she becomes part of it. ‘It becomes bars’ ‘the woman behind it’. The wallpaper has now become a metaphor for the narrator’s own life. She is the woman behind the pattern on the wallpaper and the bars represent her isolation and her confinement in this room. This shows her final decent into madness. All she can now think about is the wallpaper and her escape from it ‘I pulled and she shook’. She is now desperate to escape from the wallpaper this shows how desperate she is to leave the room and get free she is planning her death but still describing this wallpaper which shows that the paper is her life and she wants to leave it.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman is very successful in conveying madness at the end of the story because the narrator believes that she has come out of the wallpaper ‘I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did?’. She believes that she has come from the wallpaper and is now free. So the story shows her complete decent into madness which leads to her death. Gilman creates a sense of madness and menace when she writes ‘’It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it’. This shows us that she believes that the wallpaper is in a sense alive and it is mocking her by sticking and making fun of her. This shows her madness because she believes that the paper can see what she is doing and it is deliberately going against her. This shows how the wallpaper has tormented her and sent her insane. The tone and mood of the story change at the end of the short story. At beginning the mood was depressed and the narrator is helpless she just has to do as she is told ‘what is one to do?’ she just agrees and does as she is told. However the mood is happy as the narrator is no longer helpless and told what to do she is free to do what she wants. ‘I’ve got out at last’ ‘you can’t put me back’. She is free from them she has left the world where she is locked away at the top of the house with ‘barred windows’ ‘a gate at the top of the stairs’ and isolated from her baby her friends and family. She is now free from this to be happy and do what she wants. In spit of being told she is not able to write she has finished her story. However her triumph is that john will find her hanging dead. Gilman conveys the narrator’s sense of excitement and release when she writes things such as ‘I’ve got out at last’. She has been trying to break free for ages and now she has finally managed it no more isolation and depression. It shows her excitement and release because she has finally escaped and is now at peace.

Hannah Evans 11DF

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