1 Example Student Symbolism Essay Thesis: yellow highlight Topic Sentences: blue highlight

1

Example Student Symbolism Essay

Thesis: yellow highlight

Topic Sentences: blue highlight

Concluding Sentences: green highlight

Student Name

Eng-1B

Professor Nelson

3/15/09

Symbolism in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Based on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s own experiences with depression and her sufferable treatment, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, provides a first-person account of a young mother’s descent into psychosis but moreover, offers deep symbolic undertones. Gilman’s work recounts the story of a young woman who, per the request of her husband, spends the summer in a secluded colonial mansion to “rest” from her nervous condition. Her bedroom is an old nursery covered with unpleasant, yellow wallpaper. The more time she spends alone, the more she becomes obsessed with the wallpaper’s patterns. Through the narrator’s writings, we trace her metal breakdown as she begins to imagine a woman behind bars in the paper. Finally, she loses her sanity and believes that she is the woman in the wallpaper, trying to escape. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman utilizes the mansion, the relationship with her husband, John, and the wallpaper to reflect the sense of entrapment the narrator intimately endures.

The structure of the house and its surroundings lend itself symbolically to the representation of confinement in the story. The narrator describes the house as being, “…quite alone, standing well back from the road…there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of little separate houses for the gardeners and people” (Gilman 158). Through this quote, the narrator is sharing her point of view about the house thus indulging the reader into her state of mind. When she looks at the mansion, she observes it as isolated, standing alone and away from the road. Moreover, the mansion is confined within hedges, walls, and gates. The mere fact that the gates lock suggests imprisonment. Everything is separated and divided, like the houses for the gardeners and people. Yet, they are still boxed in within the property and locked by the gates. Prisons share a similar layout containing separate cells, each divided and locked. Outside those cells are various open areas surrounded by tall walls and barbed wire, similar to the mansion and its surroundings. Thus, the mansion serves as a visual symbol for imprisonment. The narrator subconsciously envisions the house the same way through her description and in many ways, reflects the circumstances surrounding her entrapment. Like the mansion, she is isolated even amongst her husband, baby, and sister-in-law and is virtually confined to one room within the house. She is alone in her thoughts and barely speaks to anyone and when she does speak to her husband; her sense of confinement is only enhanced. Consequently, the mansion and its surroundings serve as a symbol for entrapment in the narrator’s life.

In addition to the house, the narrator’s relationship with her husband, John, is also symbolic of entrapment. It doesn’t take long for Gilman to introduce the readers to John’s patronizing attitudes toward the narrator. For instance, she makes it very clear that she does not feel comfortable in the airy, yellow-wallpapered room upstairs and asks her husband if she can have the more feminine, decorated room downstairs and when she does, “[he] would not hear of it” (Gilman 158). She elaborates, “He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another. He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction” (Gilman 158). In one of her initial attempts to embrace her individuality and freedom through simply picking her bedroom, she is denied and John’s reasoning is that he would not be able to keep a close enough watch over her. He is so sure he knows what’s best for his wife that he disregards her own thoughts and points of view. The fact that he “would not hear of it” also suggests that he did not even acknowledge her request, perhaps refusing her before she even finished professing her case. The narrator also comments on how John doesn’t let her do much of anything without his conjecture. He represents an all-encompassing authority figure over her; much like a father would be to a child or for the sake of this story, prison guards over prisoners. The relationship, as depicted here, is entrapping in nature for the narrator and symbolic of the limitations that she must abide by. What’s more, by saying that John is caring and loving while also commenting that he doesn’t let her “stir without special direction”, the narrator seemingly buys into the idea that the man is always right and does know what’s best. Her husband has reduced her to nothing more than infantile for her to say such a remark. Once again, she is trapped, confined to the demands of her husband and this is internalized in her. Evidently, Gilman uses the relationship between the narrator and her husband to symbolize her restraining lifestyle.

In addition to the narrator’s relationship with her husband, the yellow wallpaper, particularly the figure in it, serves as a symbolic metaphor for the narrator’s own feelings of confinement. Following her increasing preoccupation with the paper, she one night discovers that there is a woman behind it crawling around and shaking it to somehow break through. It is at this moment when the meaning of the wallpaper takes great shape. Gillman writes of this woman, “…she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard…And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern- It strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads.” (166). In its literal meaning, the narrator has dove deeper into her mental instability concocting a woman who exists in the wallpaper constantly trying to break through it. The quote goes further to explain that no one could do such a thing as the pattern “strangles so”. This woman in the paper is obviously trapped and by shaking the bars, it is evident that she, indeed, desperately wants to break free. At this point in the story, it is made clear that the narrator has endured much captivity from her surroundings and the people around her. She is not able to write, socialize about her work, be with her baby, or express herself to anyone in the house nor is she given the freedom to explore outside. She wants to do all of these things, but she cannot. In her every attempt, she is shot down and her suffering is deepened, much like the wallpaper strangles the women that try to climb through. Hence, it wouldn’t be farfetched to assume that the woman she envisions in the wallpaper is a symbol of herself; trapped in her own life, and the many “heads” in the pattern represent all of the things she wants to do. Through this symbolism in the wallpaper, the author furthers the theme of confinement.

Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper” offers more than just a story about the physiological unraveling of a young mother but an underlying theme of entrapment and confinement in the narrator’s life. Conclusively, Gilman utilizes the house, the relationship between the narrator and her husband, and the wallpaper to symbolize just that. The isolated, prison-like house, presented a visual symbol for entrapment that mirrored the life of the narrator herself. In addition, the way the narrator’s husband, John, treated her, proved to be very patronizing and confining in the extreme; another oppressive force in her life. Finally, by crafting an imaginative woman struggling to break free in the wallpaper, the symbol of entrapment is thoroughly expressed and captured. All of these symbols are used throughout the story to explore the sense of entrapment that this anonymous woman found difficult to overcome and serves as an even greater representation of women in general. During the time that this was written, many women were subject to this kind of oppression and today; many still struggle to maintain their individuality and their freedom within a male-dominated society. The symbolism of entrapment in “The Yellow Wallpaper” proves to be a timeless reminder of what was and what still is.

Works Cited

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Literature and its Writers: A

Compact Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama 4th ed. Eds. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2007. 156-169.