The Yellow Wallpaper is a profound story that
may seem simply weird and literal, but actually shows the complete mental
breakdown of a mostly healthy woman into an entirely other being. The woman,
who begins unnamed, is forced to endure the rest cure for her depression. Her
isolation in a room where there is absolutely nothing to focus on aside from
the wallpaper, is unhealthy for anyone. She begins to realize she has nothing
else to live for besides studying the walls; her baby is cared for, her husband
works, and she is more of a hazard than help, “It is fortunate Mary is so good
with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes
me so nervous” (Gilman 3). She knows that she is not a good fit for her own
child, leading her to have even less to care for. Her obsession with the yellow
wallpaper of her bedroom and lack of social interaction leads her to mentally
die; the person she once was disappears for it could endure no more suffering
in the same bed at all hours. She becomes a new woman, the one she had been
studying so closely in that wallpaper, until she knew nothing else but the
yellow paper. For this reason, she thinks she was born in the wallpaper and
does everything she can to be free of it which involves her ripping it all off
to her husband’s shock. At the very end of the story, the woman she once was is
finally named, “’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 9). Jane was the woman who had
been mentally stable through most of the trauma, trying to reason with herself
and remain optimistic. Once Jane reaches her breaking point, she dies only to
leave her body in the hands of a creeping woman who came from the walls. The
woman was able to get out, not only past the paper but also past her own sane
self.
This
intense story is mostly relevant in the nineteenth century, for that was when
rest cure was very popular but it is still important today for it shows how
harmful isolation really can be. Jane’s lack of interaction and exercise led
her to have no purpose in life, so instead of physically killing herself, she
mentally did so by obsessing over the wallpaper of her room. Anyone, even
today, who is constantly alone and bored, whether forced to or not, needs to be
aware of the story and how harmful their lack of interaction really is.
Work Cited
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow
Wallpaper. N.p., n.d. United States Library of
Medicine. Web. 11
Mar. 2015.
