The Yellow Wallpaper 5

A detailed Summary of The Yellow Wallpaper 5

"The Yellow Wallpaper", by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, tells the story of a woman trapped in her own life. Set in the 1800's, a time when women and men's roles were strictly defined by society, the woman reveals her true to desire to break free from the confines of her marriage and her life. All the while, she experiences an extreme sense of guilt and shame for her negative view of her life, consciously repressing her innermost desires and joys. Her feelings are revealed through her bizarre relationship with the wallpaper in her room in the house she and her husband are renting for the summer. She develops an illogical perception of the wallpaper, ugly though it may be, symbolically putting her own views of herself onto it. Eventually, the woman loses all ability to distinguish reality from illusion and completely loses her mind. Gilman suggests to the reader that by accepting the norms and roles of society and thus repressing one's true desires and feelings can only lead to a loss of identity and sanity. This attitude is brought to light in the reader's mind through observance of the woman's increasing mental instability as she gives more and more life to the wallpaper each time she resumes writing.

Her final entry shows her in a giddy and childlike sort of excitement as she reveals how she will help the woman. With John away for their final evening in the home, the woman "helps" her trapped friend tear off as much of the wallpaper as possible. Then she giddily tells of her plan of getting the woman out once and for all. She throws away the key to the room so no one can get in and begins to rip off the paper she could not get to before. All the while, she waits with a rope to tie the woman up if she tries to run away. She wonders if all the women she sees creeping outside her window came out of the paper like she did, her first blatant revelation that she perceives herself as the woman she has seen trapped behind the wallpaper shaking it to get out. Her husband comes home and finds her with the rope tied around her own waist, creeping around the room along the worn "smooch" she noticed long before. She happily shouts, "I've got out at last. . . in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, sop you can't put me back!" The woman is "out" of her trap, only to be lost to insanity. She breaks through the repression and stored passions, but loses her mind because of it.

With her third and fourth entries, the reader is doubtful as to the reality of what the woman is describing as truth. She speaks briefly of the wallpaper and her determination to follow "the pointless pattern to some sort of conclusion. . ." (429), but tells how tired she gets from thinking about it and studying it. Moving on, she tells more of her relationship with John. It is absurd to the reader how fatherly and controlling John is, and perhaps even more absurd that she accepts his control and internalizes his attitude about her and her illness. One feels sorry for her because neither husband nor wife is unaware of the quickly diminishing stability of her sanity. Both dismiss it as a temporary nervous condition when in reality, the reader sees it as a serious and possibly permanent condition of insanity. The woman simply states, "It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight," an ironic understatement of the gravity of her declining abilities. With full awareness of her mental state, the reader is now told what is behind the paper: "And it is like a woman stooping do

Some common words found in the essay are:
Perkins Gilman, Jane I've, woman reveals, loses mind gilman, reader wonder wallpaper, reader wonder, john absurd, repressing one's true, true self, reader senses, mind gilman, loss self, reader's mind, marriage life, wonder wallpaper,

Approximate Word count = 1541
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English