Assignment: Dissertation on "The Yellow Wallpaper"

The importance of the wallpaper in "The Yellow Wallpaper", and the 'three' sides

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper", Gilman makes direct or indirect reference to objects which play a symbolic role within the context of the story and elucidate its thematic fibre, a fibre which revolves around the main character and whose essence is integrated in her inner constitution. Thus, in order to come to terms with the story and draw certain conclusions based on this fibre, it is crucial to examine these objects and what they symbolise within this thematic fibre and obtain a better understanding of the main character.

The main object which forms the backdrop to this fibre and generates the thread of action is the wallpaper itself, a mirror image of the heroine Jane and her cohesive selves, an opaque medium into the subdivisions of her own mind. Jane, who is also the narrator of the story and its centre of consciousness, is recounting her domesticated and repressed way of life, as well as her husband's treatment of her as a result

However, Jane 2 can 'creep', but her freedom is still oppressed. The garden is restrictive, it denotes boundaries. The house itself and its environs are like a prison that lock away freedom- "for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock..."

Here the narrator's words reveals more than an intensity of the obsessed mind. The use of words such as "shook" and "pulled" suggest the battle between the conscious and the unconscious, the power which thrusts the unconscious into being. The wallpaper again reflects two planes of consciousness, but as it is divested by the conscious side of Jane, the repressed and unconscious side can take the role of the conscious. Also, the fact that" pulled" and "shook" switch roles in the struggle, with "I pulled" turning into "I shook" and the same evident shift with "she"- the secondary personality- shows the submergence of the selves, with the wallpaper as medium. ET Aul, who suffers from this disease commonly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, has written in her autobiography As You Desire Me: The Psychology of a Multiple Personality:

However, the wallpaper itself is not only a projection of Jane's conscious and unconscious. The field of interpretation can be taken to a much higher level when we speak of "split" personalities as stressed by ET Aul.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Wallpaper Gilman, Unconsciously Jane, ET Aul, Yellow Wallpaper, Consciously Jane, Jane I've, Ego Id, Hence Jane's, Multiple Personality, Et Aul, jane 1, jane 3, jane 2, et aul, yellow wallpaper, split personalities, own mind, conscious unconscious, jane 1 2, special conscious, pulled shook, jane's own mind, dictated circumstances own, circumstances own choice, own mind jane,
Approximate Word count = 1996
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)