A Fractured Sense of Self: Deconstructing the Narrator’s Isolation in The Yellow
Wallpaper
Most critical readers of Charlotte Perkins Gilman choose to focus on the feminist
significance of the work. While this is clearly the most important historical aspect of the
short story, it also provides an interesting window into the psyche of someone who is at
first forced, and then opts of their own free will, to spend time introspectively. Is the
result of such introspection always madness? And is that indeed what occurred at the end
of The Yellow Wallpaper?
Golden states that the narrator uses the noun “one” when referring to herself
frequently in the story to become an anonymous “haunting echo” (195). The wallpaper at
first is something that the narrator despises. “The color is repellent, almost revolting; a
smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight” (4). However,
towards the end, the narrator becomes obsessed with the wallpaper: “that is why I watch
it always” (16). The narrator’s Selfhood can first be described as being split into two: a
docile, agreeable wife and a furtive journal keeper. Later, a third self emerges, one that
could represent a liberator, a protective projection of Self, or a decent into madness.
Another possibility for this Self, suggested by critics, is that it is a separate presence in
the house that materializes from the narrator‘s repressed rage, a supernatural entity. Such
critics put The Yellow Wallpaper in the Gothic genre of horror. The split can also be put
in a Lacanian framework. The narrator’s shifting self from person to non-person, or
splintered echoes of her personhood, gives us an opportunity to psychologically and
philosophically examine the narrator’s experience of Self.
Gilman’s work is similar to One Hundred Years of Solitude, where an entire town
, spends time in isolation. In Marquez’s work, incest dooms the family, which is a form of
introspection by way of amplifying rather than diversifying one‘s genetic components.
The energy of the ants eating the last member of the founding family seems to be the
same energy that causes the wallpaper to bulge, crawl, and become pregnant with fully-
formed women. As Dr. Snyder-Rheingold points out, the narrative takes place totally
inside the an internal space that interrogates itself (1999 np). The wallpaper is a
metaphor for this type of interior space, because it is the “absolute antimony of all that is
external to it, which is everything” (ibid.). We can see that the room is a horrid color and
that the plaster is deteriorating; this is in stark contrast to the gardens that can be seen
from the window and the downstairs room that the narrator wishes she could live in
instead.
The narrator is at first splintered into two separate psychological entities by an
external force: her husband. “The narrator is forbidden to engage in normal social
conversation; her physical isolation is in part designed to remove her from the possibility
of over-stimulating intellectual discussion” (Treichler 61). The narrator must journal in
secrecy, and worries that her husband’s sister may also confiscate her journal. The breaks
in the journal (the spacing) allude to this fractured sense of self (Golden 194). She often
subdues her true thoughts because her husband fears they are “negative” and will impede
her healing process; she also must abstain from “fancy,” or imaginative story-telling (7).
Given that her concerns and feelings are often dismissed with childish pet names and
scolding, the narrator comes to realize that she is simply wasting her time trying to
discuss anything of substance with John and must keep her creative side suppressed.
The narrator is also split into two attitudes towards her husband. On the one
Wallpaper
Most critical readers of Charlotte Perkins Gilman choose to focus on the feminist
significance of the work. While this is clearly the most important historical aspect of the
short story, it also provides an interesting window into the psyche of someone who is at
first forced, and then opts of their own free will, to spend time introspectively. Is the
result of such introspection always madness? And is that indeed what occurred at the end
of The Yellow Wallpaper?
Golden states that the narrator uses the noun “one” when referring to herself
frequently in the story to become an anonymous “haunting echo” (195). The wallpaper at
first is something that the narrator despises. “The color is repellent, almost revolting; a
smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight” (4). However,
towards the end, the narrator becomes obsessed with the wallpaper: “that is why I watch
it always” (16). The narrator’s Selfhood can first be described as being split into two: a
docile, agreeable wife and a furtive journal keeper. Later, a third self emerges, one that
could represent a liberator, a protective projection of Self, or a decent into madness.
Another possibility for this Self, suggested by critics, is that it is a separate presence in
the house that materializes from the narrator‘s repressed rage, a supernatural entity. Such
critics put The Yellow Wallpaper in the Gothic genre of horror. The split can also be put
in a Lacanian framework. The narrator’s shifting self from person to non-person, or
splintered echoes of her personhood, gives us an opportunity to psychologically and
philosophically examine the narrator’s experience of Self.
Gilman’s work is similar to One Hundred Years of Solitude, where an entire town
, spends time in isolation. In Marquez’s work, incest dooms the family, which is a form of
introspection by way of amplifying rather than diversifying one‘s genetic components.
The energy of the ants eating the last member of the founding family seems to be the
same energy that causes the wallpaper to bulge, crawl, and become pregnant with fully-
formed women. As Dr. Snyder-Rheingold points out, the narrative takes place totally
inside the an internal space that interrogates itself (1999 np). The wallpaper is a
metaphor for this type of interior space, because it is the “absolute antimony of all that is
external to it, which is everything” (ibid.). We can see that the room is a horrid color and
that the plaster is deteriorating; this is in stark contrast to the gardens that can be seen
from the window and the downstairs room that the narrator wishes she could live in
instead.
The narrator is at first splintered into two separate psychological entities by an
external force: her husband. “The narrator is forbidden to engage in normal social
conversation; her physical isolation is in part designed to remove her from the possibility
of over-stimulating intellectual discussion” (Treichler 61). The narrator must journal in
secrecy, and worries that her husband’s sister may also confiscate her journal. The breaks
in the journal (the spacing) allude to this fractured sense of self (Golden 194). She often
subdues her true thoughts because her husband fears they are “negative” and will impede
her healing process; she also must abstain from “fancy,” or imaginative story-telling (7).
Given that her concerns and feelings are often dismissed with childish pet names and
scolding, the narrator comes to realize that she is simply wasting her time trying to
discuss anything of substance with John and must keep her creative side suppressed.
The narrator is also split into two attitudes towards her husband. On the one
