The Yellow Wallpaper Symbolism
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The Yellow Wallpaper Symbolism
Around the period Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, women were under the full control of their husbands. The women had no right to speak publicly, work, or fully inherit wealth when their husbands died. Men owned the women plus everything else that belonged to the women. With the Yellowpaper Symbolism, the author wanted to pass her message in a coded way.
In the story, Gilman aimed to change this narrative by highlighting the plight of women during her time. Gilman highlighted what women were undergoing in their families using various symbols such as the yellow wallpaper, the bedstead, the moonlight and sunlight, and the narrator's room. The Yellow Wallpaper symbolism is used to represent the struggle of women for equality, lack of interaction, the possibilities, and the restrictions that women were subjected to.
The Yellow Wallpaper Symbol
Gilman's largest symbol in her story is the yellow wallpaper, representing several things concerning the narrator. The yellow wallpaper symbolizes the psychological block men placed on their wives and other women in the nineteenth century. Most people associate yellow with weakness and sickness (Simon, 2012). The narrator suffers from a mysterious ailment, emphasizing how men oppress women. As the story progresses, the yellow wallpaper accelerates the narrator's sickness. The narrator says, "The color is hideous enough and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing." (Gilman, 1994) The statement shows how the men inflicted restrictions on women. By referring to the color as" hideous," the narrator expresses how she thinks men are horrible for denying women equality rights.
The Bedstead as a Symbol
Gilman used the bedstead as a symbol to represent the narrator's sexuality. The bed is nailed to the floor to prevent the younger and formerly occupied room occupants from pushing it around the room (Macpike, 1975). The bedstead prevents her from meeting anyone else and nurturing her child, symbolizing the stagnant nature of her sexuality and expression.
The Narrator's Room
The narrator's room is another symbol Gilman used to depict the woman's societal position. The narrator's room is a nursery indicating she is seen as a child in all angles of life: economically, psychologically, and socially. Being a child, the narrator must follow the leadership of her husband without question (Macpike, 1975). The narrator's social status as a child is threatened by her going to work, and the husband is convinced this is enough to prevent her from going to work. He says that the narrator's job is dangerous, only that the danger is to himself, not her, because if she goes to work, he won't control her.
Daylight and Moonlight
Finally, the narrator uses daylight and moonlight to symbolize gender inequality. The sunshine is usually affiliated with masculine energy. The sunshine dominates the narrator's room during the day (Simon, 2012). Also, during the day, the narrator's husband, John, dominates her, giving her a prescription every hour and ensuring she does not see the outside. During the day, the narrator cannot think because she is disturbed by the color of the wall illuminated by daylight (Simon, 2012). On the other hand, moonlight is affiliated with the feminine world. At night the narrator's subconscious escapes leaving to dream. Therefore, the moonlight depicts the sensitivity and intuition of the women.
Conclusion
The narrator's room, the yellow wallpaper, the bedstead, the moonlight, and the sunlight symbolize what the narrator was thinking and her world that influenced the thinking. Gilman has successfully used these symbols to show how women struggled for equality and how the men in their lives restricted them. Gilman also uses symbols to depict how women were denied interaction with other people.
References
Gilman, C. (1994). The Yellow Wallpaper. Project Gutenberg.
Macpike, L. (1975). Environment as psychopathological symbolism in" The Yellow Wallpaper". American Literary Realism, 8(3), 286-288. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27747980.
Simon, M. (2012). Symbolism in the Yellow wallpaper by charlotte gilman perkins. Eruditio–Educatio, 165. http://e-eruditio.ujs.sk/archive/EE2012_3_belivek_NYOM.pdf#page=165.