“The Yellow Wallpaper" is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The story is set in the late nineteenth century in America. It is a first person point of view of what disconnection and insanity can lead to. Many people believe this is a semi-autobiography of Gilman’s mental illness and treatment approach. In the story, Gilman takes the readers into the psyche of a young wife and mother, Jane, whom is powerless in her insecurities which no one truly understands or makes the attempt to try and understand. Her husband, John, has moved her to the country to recover from her illness. John is a physician who is trying to treat Jane for being “nervous”. Although his intentions are good, he goes about it in the wrong way. Dismissing any wishes she may have and not allowing her to express her feelings and or opinions. For example, Jane wants to be in a different room. The narrator states, “I don’t like our room a bit. I wanted the one downstairs that opened onto the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hanging! But John would not hear of it.” (pg. 346) Making an assumption from what Jane reveals, she is not able to care for her newborn child and has now fallen in to an extremely emotionally unstable state. "It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous." (pg. 346-47. Gilman) Her husband, John, and the other people in her life, don't think she should do anything. She likes to write but John does not allow that so she sneaks it. "There comes John, and I must put this away - he hates to have me write a word”(pg. 346). Freud, Jung and Lacan psychoanalytic approach with mental illnesses were different in many ways. Lacan based his analysis on the majority of Freud’s research but many psychologists to this day have used Sigmund Freud as a foundation. Psychology is a very difficult thing to study, it didn’t become evident until the early nineteenth century, about the same time that Gilman wrote this short story. The rest cure is rarely in existence because it does more harm than help, most believe. Gilman had to endure the rest cure herself in the late 1800s, it is the reason she wrote the short story. She condemned the rest cure and thought it was a harmful cure for woman that were prescribed it by male physicians. Lets' look at this from psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud's point of view. Our character is spiraling into ID tendencies and primal thought. "ID is a reservoir of need-gratification impulses such as primitive instinctual drives of sexuality, aggression, and hunger. Freud believed the ID is to be inborn, operating on the dynamics of the pleasure principle, requiring immediate gratification or release without concern for external exigencies.” (Freudian Psychology Theory). That societal conditions are the order and there is constant conflict between oneself and societal responsibility. The societal conditions in the story, are the isolation of Jane and not being allowed to do anything but be left alone with her mind. Jane most likely has sexual issues and obviously, aggressive thoughts. She is bound to her husband and child. She is no doubt embarrassed of her condition and she has duties that she is being forced into neglecting. This would drive most people utterly crazy, especially a new mom. Let us reflect and relate on the women in the news today that kill or harm their children. It is usually because they are suffering from delusions and/or postpartum chemical imbalances. Now let's look at it from another psychoanalysts, Carl Jung. From the ideas of Jung, conventional examples may help us understand what the character may have been going through. There is a universal language through expression and experiences that each individual goes through. Freud believed that we were shaped from our past experiences growing up. Although, this is very true Jung believed not only were we shaped by the experiences of the past but also by our ambitions for the future. There lies a certain pattern with a general probability of outcomes. If we look at the main archetype outlined by Jung, each individual has four. The Self, the Shadow, the Animus or Anima and the Persona. There are also cultural archetype, e.g. the hero, the martyr, the virgin, mother, crone; whatever your preferences of looking at it may be. The self has to do with your personality and yourself being shaped by the experienced (past experience) and the inexperienced (your ambitions for the future). The shadow is similar to Freud's ID, the urges we have as animals to survive and reproduce. The animus or anima which is our male or female sides. We each manifest attitudes and behaviors of the opposite sex because of many centuries living together. The persona is the social mask, or, the person someone pretends to be in the public eye, but is not who we truly are. It is like we become an actor or actress in public. Most archetypes are an example of a collective unconscious. Jung’s primary contribution was an in individualistic approach and spiritual experience was essential for our well being. In comparison to this written piece of history there lies a collective unconscious of women ravaged by patriarchal society, women victim to societal responsibilities and chance of fortune. The archetypal examples are plentiful so we have to narrow it down. I see a failed heroine or a shining example for the rest of us. She embodies a struggle for freedom, the character is driven by thoughts and visions. Even if the outcome is bad, the outcome might still be good. Let's take a look at this story from one more psychoanalysts Jacques Lacan. Lacan has many parts to his theories, there is the real, the imaginary order, and the symbolic order (aka the big Other). The Symbolic is external reality or all the information coming from outside that we have to process. The Imaginary is our Ego or the way we like to imagine ourselves (minus the self-conscious stuff we find unacceptable about ourselves). The Real is the self-conscious content coming back to haunt us as symptoms that tear the fabric of the Imaginary. The Real is hard to define because it is outside the Symbolic Realm because it is beyond language. Now applying this to "The Yellow Wallpaper,” at first she has trouble describing what she sees on the wallpaper. This is similar to a child’s difficulty with language when it enters the Symbolic Realm but again it symbolizes the narrator’s entrance into the Symbolic realm herself. Throughout the story, she gets better and better at describing the yellow wallpaper until she is entirely absorbed in the Symbolic Realm and language to describe it. The narrator gets angry with the wallpaper because she begins to understand it which shows how one must always think through the limits of language and beyond. Finally, at the end of the story, the narrator enters the Real because she has left the Symbolic realm–she gets out of the wallpaper (language) that has had her trapped since her entrance into the Symbolic - the room, the wallpaper, and her husband forcing her to be there. Jacques Lacan bases a lot his theories from Sigmund Freud's. Lacan gets Freud's theories and expands the meaning. Therefore, this analysis of "The Yellow Wallpaper" through the theories of Lacan are similar to the analysis through the theories of Freud. The character in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is suffering from postpartum depression, that turns into postpartum psychosis. The rest cure is not the proper cure for postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis. The narrator states, “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus - but John says the very worst thing I can do is think of my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.” (pg. 345). The narrator is saying that if she had more stimulus she would have a better recovery. Her husband doesn’t allow that or, for her to think about the illness that they think is a “nervous” condition. Put yourself in her shoes for a second, even if a woman or any human being didn't have postpartum depression but was just isolated, kept away from their newborn child, had minimum contact with anyone other than when their husband or friend would check on them for a few minutes, anyone would go crazy. Isolation alone would drive you insane. Human beings are naturally social, we want to communicate and have friends. Taking all that she had taken away can lead to many mental illnesses, add all those factors to a hormonal imbalance from giving birth, you’re setting her up for her mental illness to turn into psychosis breakdown which is exactly what happened to Jane. Jane turns to the wallpaper as an outlet and it lets her psychosis take over her mind and body. The wallpaper becomes a symbol of herself and her thoughts. The woman in the pattern of the wallpaper is trapped behind the pattern, which symbolizes her feelings of being trapped against her will in the room, and the isolation she has been forced into.
Works Cited
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