Published in 1892, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is one of the most successful works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which established her as a prominent industrialization-era feminist figure. This piece frames on a domestically set narration that revolves around the narrator’s descent into mental health issues, which culminate in her getting entrapped into an enclosed room adorned with a metaphoric yellow paper. Like most feminist literary works, The Yellow Wallpaper questions the 19th-century predominantly patriarchal society that establishes limitless constraints on women’s freedoms and assesses how such limitations affect women in various ways, including by impeding their mental health. Still, readers can trace the awakening of women as the protagonist slowly unravels her position despite being in psychological turmoil. Throughout the text, Gilman employs rich symbolic figures that put the reader into the protagonist’s position and enhance their empathy and understanding of the struggles of the 19th-century American woman.
The author leverages the yellow color to connote the ethical rot and foul attitudes of the industrialization era American society had about women. In essence, and across various literary contexts, the yellow color is often associated with the sun’s brightness, which usually evokes positive and energetic emotions of energy, joy, optimism, and overall happiness. Bálizs (101) adds that the color yellow has deep meanings that allude to health and purity but also to envy physical weakness or death in Hungarian cultures. However, the narrator encounters a completely different shade of yellow, which she refers to as “smoldering unclean,” but also “repellent” and “almost revolting” (Gilman 649 ) by appearance. Through the symbol of yellow, readers can trace the disconnect between women’s expectations in the wake of new economic realities of an increasingly industrializing society and the realities of even lesser freedoms accorded to them as they become relegated to play the role of domestic keepers whose responsibilities revolve around taking care of their families. This disconnect manifests even more clearly as the narrator comes to the full realization of the expectations that the new society has established for either gender and how it will eventually shape her future as well as those of other women.
Gilman also leverages certain symbolic items within the setting of the novel to trigger and shape readers ‘ perspectives on the gender politics of the industrial era American society in a certain direction. The author’s intentions of using symbolic artifacts within the character’s setting manifest from the very onset of the story and reveal the author’s efforts to establish a dramatic irony of expectations vis-à-vis the reality, which would ultimately spark readers’ curiosity over the truths surrounding the narrator’s day-to-day experiences. Gilman instantly introduces her readers to tense surroundings in which the narrator is entrapped in a “haunted house” (Gilman 648)but also surrounded by a “colonial mansion” (Gilman 651). The reader then gets to know John, the narrator’s husband, who makes the unquestionable decision that she will stay in the nursery. The nursery, in this case, is a symbolic connotation of the family-caring responsibility to which the industrialization era American society assigns women. This limiting role becomes a popular culture in that society, despite women’s far more ambitious aspirations of contributing more meaningfully to the industrialization process, as symbolically connoted by the narrator’s resistance to staying in the nursery. Consistent with Abba (138), the symbolic nature of Gilman’s setting is crucial for elevating her narration of the character’s immediate surroundings to shape the reader’s views and potential commentary on the gender imbalances that feature in 19th-century American society. Gilman’s readers can become part of the story and offer a more immediate context to the thematic truths of the author’s work.
Lastly, Gilman metaphorically exploits the wallpaper as a symbol, alluding to the structural organization of the traditional family setting, which entrapped and directly impeded industrialization-era American women’s freedoms. The woman’s initial experiences of the wallpaper reveal it as an unpleasant, ripped, soiled object that she generally perceives to be “unclean yellow,” (Gilman 648) but which also assumes an ostensibly formless pattern. However, surprisingly, to the reader, the narrator appears fascinated by the rather unattractive wallpaper and seems drawn to the temptation of figuring out its pattern and organization. It does not take long before the narrator finds out that the patterns to which she is drawn morph into a cage from which she can no longer escape. Gilman portrays the wallpaper, rather, the traditional nuclear family structure that dominated the industrialization of American society, as domestic and humble with intensely appealing effects on the narrator, but also designed to imprison and entrap members of the society, particularly women. Gilman’s portrayal of the industrialization era situation of the women aligns with historical accounts suggesting that women were relegated to a lesser status in which they mainly undertook caretaker responsibilities to their families under the absolute and unquestionable leadership of men (Bartkowski xv). Clearly, Gilman’s narrator can only desire to free herself from the allures of the wallpaper, but trying to escape may have more severe consequences than remaining entrapped.
The two main characters in “The Yellow Wallpaper, ” the narrator and John, her husband, provide a symbolic reflection of the industrialization era American society’s attitudes towards women. Gilman skillfully integrates the symbol of the yellow color to demonstrate societal decays that relegated women to lesser humans who can best behave under patriarchal influence. Not only was the industrialization era American woman not permitted to explore their own choices to contribute to societal progress in ways that suited their capabilities, but their rebellion against patriarchal influence amounts to unquestionable restrictions. Gilman’s use of setting and relational symbols successfully engages her readers and riggers their contribution to the story.
Abbar, Emad Mohammad. “A Critical Analysis of Symbolism in Modernist Literature with reference to T.S. Eliot and Roland Barthes.” South Asian Research Journal of Arts, Language and Literature 5.4 2023: 138–142. https://sarpublication.com/media/articles/SARJALL_54_138-142.pdf
Bálizs, Beáta. “Meanings of the Color Yellow and Its Color Associates, Yellow-Black and Yellow-Green.” Journal of the American Hungarian Educators Association 14.1 2021: 101-129. https://ahea.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/ahea/article/view/430/798
Bartkowski, Lindsay. . Figuring women’s work: the cultural production of care and labor in the industrial U.S. Ph.D. Dissertation. Pembroke, NC: University of North Carolina, 2020. https://scholarshare.temple.edu/handle/20.500.12613/4769
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The New England Magazine 5.5 1892: 647-656. https://yellowwallpaperedition.com/