Essay on Condemnation of a Patriarchal Society in Yellow Wallpaper

Condemnation of a Patriarchal edict in The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman was crafty. Taken at face value, her rook work, The Yellow Wallpaper, is simply the diary of a woman going done a mental equipment failure. The wallpaper itself is the arbitrary object on which a troubled mind is obsessively fixated. The fact that Gilman herself suffered from a nervous breakdown makes this interpretation beguilem quite viable. This explanation is, however, dead wrong. The wallpaper is not merely the object upon which she obsesses. The madness that over shows the narrator is not grow in any nervous disorder that her husband diagnoses. The wallpaper is actually meant to fit a mould into which all women atomic number 18 supposed to fit. The insanity is rooted in the narrators inability to fall easily into that mould. Gilmans descriptions of the wallpaper are rattling eloquent delineations of the restrictions and constraints placed upon women. In short, the wallpaper is what all proper women are supposed to be the narrator is one woman who is unable to conciliate and, hence, she becomes a lunatic. The narrators first description of the wallpaper puts forth most manifestly what the nature of women is believed to be dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the crippled uncertain curves for a little distance they . . . destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions (Gilman 4-5). Initially here, women are depicted as confusing objects so fuddle that they are always annoying and yet curious enough to deal study or scrutiny. Upon further examination, women are then found to be lame uncertain curves so full of contradictions they ... ...f the wallpaper and towards schizophrenia. It is easy to see how someone could misinterpret what Gilman was attempting to express in The Yellow Wallpaper, but if you take into account her other books (which are clearly feminist), her intentions become more apparent. She simply uses the wallpaper as a medium to expose the constraints that were placed upon women in the 19th century. Her attitude towards these restrictions is quite apparent from the narrators account of the wallpaper and her concomitant insanity from overexposure to it. She despises the general view of women and of their mental capabilities. This work lashes out at a patriarchal societys belief system and, the funny thing is, not many of the patriarchs noticed. Work Cited Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. 1892. Alexandria, VA Orchises Press, 1990.