course material

1. Analysis of character setting and symbolism in ‘ The Yellow Wallpaper’
Analysis of character setting and symbolism in ‘ The Yellow Wallpaper’ The yellow
wallpaper is written as a series of the narrator’ s journal. The story is written in the first
person and the narrator is a woman, confined into a room by her husband because of her
mental condition. She has been locked and restricted from doing any work. The only thing
that she could do is to write her experiences in to her journal. The story is basically about
the effect that this restriction has to the narrator because it makes her descend into real
insanity. As the story begins, she appears to be normal but as the story moves on and
approaches the end, the narrator shows insanity (Crewe). The point at which she loses her
sanity and begins to show severe psychosis is when she notices a strange yellow on the wall
of the room. The story has developed several interpretations that make sense. One of the
main interpretations is a result of a feministic perception (Johnson). The whole story
focuses on the position of women in the society during that particular moment. Women
used to be oppressed by men quite a lot and their freedom taken away from them. They
were tied with situations and circumstances around them that they could not engage in any
meaningful activity. This paper intends to create a profound argument on this theme
through the analysis of character setting and symbolism in the story.SymbolismMost of the
symbolisms created in the story are aimed at bringing out the idea of how women were
treated in the society at that moment. The society at the setting of the story was generally a
male dominated society where women had no say or freedom. The first and major symbol in
the story is the use of the yellow color. This color plays an important role in pointing out
how women were discriminated upon in this society. The use of the yellow color is mainly
linked to sickness. This brings out the perception that men had to women. They treated
them not as normal individuals but as sick people.The yellow wallpaper that the narrator
saw symbolizes a mental picture that women are constantly placed into by their male
counterpart (Haney-Peritz). This was however the norm in the setting of the book. Men had
developed a mental picture about women that treats them in a manner similar to enslaving
them. One other major symbolism used in the story is the two windows where the narrator
used to see the world. The husband had locked her into a room with protected windows and
means where he could control her movements into the house. It was only through the
window that she could get an opportunity to see the outside world. This symbolizes the
opportunities for equality that women had with men. However these opportunities were

2. impeded by the enslaving of women and they could only see them from a distance.The
narrator says that she has never seen a wallpaper of this nature in her life. She considers it
to be the worst wallpaper ever. This creates a picture that always exists in the minds of men
towards women. The narrator further describes the color yellow on the wallpaper as
infuriating, hideous, unreliable and torturing (Gilman). This creates the picture of the extent
to which women were limited in the society. This can also be interpreted to mean that
whenever men refuse to give the women equal opportunity, the act is termed as hideous by
the narrator (Hume). Even if the men decide to give a little bit of equality, the narrator
considers that equality as unreliable. ‘ Torturing’ has also been used by the narrator in this
sentence to show the exactly how women were feeling in the presence of their husbands.
When she says that she cannot work because the husband did not let her to, is a clear
indication of all the torturing and infuriating experiences women went through in the 19th
century society.Both her husband and brother were of the opinion that she is not supposed
to work because of the state of her mind. The author has put the word work in brackets
showing that it represents more than the meaning of the word. The term has been used to
represent the freedom to interact intellectually with anyone and reason philosophically
with just anyone. The narrator says that the work that is most exciting to her is one that is
different from what is used (Gilman ,p. 10). This means that in this particular society,
women were never taken seriously in public. Whenever they were seen in public people
would assume that they are seeking for a congenial work which has implications of being
prostitutes. She says that if only she could be allowed to do what the men deny her not to do
she would do it better or equally good as the men.Some of the statements that the narrator
uses are a direct and clear representation of what women were going through in the society
of the setting of the story. For instance, the narrator says that she wishes she would receive
no opposition and get to interact with the society more but her biggest obstacle is her
husband, who does not want to her to even think about her condition. (Gilman ,p. 9). From
this statement, she needs to interact with people in the society and that she wishes that she
never had any opposition from her husband to do whatever she wants. From the statement
it is also clear that her husband is aware of what he is doing denying his wife her freedom
and tries to encourage her not to think about her circumstances because it would make her
feel bad. This can be considered to a plan to enforce that idea that women are inferior by
making them feel good about their oppressed position in the society. The whole point is that
women did not take part in making their own decisions as independent individuals. All their
decisions were made by the men (Johnson).CharacterThe protagonist in the story is the
narrator as she narrates of her experiences locked from the world. As she goes through this
experience she realizes a lot about herself and her inner reality. She spends time pondering
about her position and what she really is supposed to be. For instance she realizes that she
is worth more than what the small ideas that her husband and brother try to put into her
head. She figures out that opportunity is out there where she has been locked from.
Everything around her seems to be so innocent (Hume). The people, the situations, the
images are all innocent. But the reality of the matter these things oppress her and they all
have a sense of weirdness. For instance the husband seems to be innocent when he tries
encouraging her not to worry about anything, not even her circumstances, but the reality is

3. that she does not like being denied her freedom as a rational human being. While she was in
that bedroom she gets to see things around her in a different perspective as before (Crewe
,p. 78).The narrator is locked and prevented from engaging in any activity where she would
begin thinking. This is the prescription that her husband has for her in treatment of her
temporally mental situation (Johnson ,p. 46). She does not seem to agree with her husband
on the idea of not thinking. This is not an appropriate treatment for her because it
oppresses her even further. She begins to have a negative feeling of the color yellow on the
wallpaper and this is because she imagines and likens the color to the circumstances
surrounding her. When she says that the color yellow smells bad, she begins to figure out
the nature of her real world where nothing around her seems to be impressive (Hume ,p.
67). Everything smells bad. She sees herself inside the wallpaper that has a bad smell. Then
she realizes that the woman inside the wallpaper is exactly what she is in the real world.
She undergoes a lot of oppressive situations as she interacts with her husband and other
man in the society.She further realizes how other women are equally trapped within their
domestic patterns. They are forced to creep every single day as the stay at home locked
from the outside world. She begins to think that she is the one to rescue her from the
situation and that if she wants to have her freedom, then she has to lose herself. This is an
indication that for women to have their independence, they have to fight for it and earn it. If
they do not fight, then they will continue to be trapped inside the idea that they are not
supposed to be rational beings and therefore do not deserve equality with the men. Finally
as the story ends, the narrator says that “ …I have got out at last …” (Gilman ,p. 101)
meaning that she finally attained what she really longed for.John is the other character in
the story. But John plays the role of the antagonist. He has a feigned innocence and this
aspect of him does not come out clearly in the story. He seems good as his suggestions to the
wife are aimed for the good of the wife. That is according to him. But however this
treatment fails to work because it was oppressive to the rationality of an independent
individual. His major problem comes in when he uses his position as both the doctor and
husband to the narrator to make decisions for her. He fails to consider the perspective of the
narrator and what she wants. He overlooks all that the narrator wants and assumes they do
her no good. John knows very little about his wife and has a superficial understanding what
is going on in her mind. He fails to realize that the wife is struggling to achieve certain things
in her life (Haney-Peritz ,p12).Both John and the narrator’ s brother are used in the story to
bring out the relationship between men and women. The narrator’ s brother shared a
similar view with her husband on the appropriate approach of treating her condition. This
was only a chauvinistic perception that was as a result of their gender. In the end, the
narrator and her sense of imagination proved both the two physicians wrong about their
prescribed treatment.SettingThe setting of the story is in the 19th century in an isolated
place in the country side. This brings out the whole feeling and attitude of isolation in the
story. To begin with, the house in which the narrator is locked into is isolated from the
entire countryside village. The house as described by the narrator is a good and fancy
house, however it is still lonely and separated from the rest. She describes it as a place that
limits and binds someone (Crewe ,p. 54). From what the narrator is going through
emotionally, it can easily be noticed from this setting brought about by the house. Still

4. inside the house there is a lonely room into which the narrator is confined. This room is
locked and designed in a way that the husband would monitor every movement of the
narrator (Johnson p.34).The setting of the story brings out the theme of isolation especially
in women. It shows how women were discriminated upon while separated from the rest of
the society. The narrator could only see the world outside from a window that could not be
opened. She was restricted even to move around her own house because of a misconceived
perception about her state and nature. This was an indication of how women were
entangled to their homes and domestic patterns. They were only left to see the world from a
distance but because of the nature of things in their homes and their denied freedom from
their husbands, they could only imagine what it’ s like to be independent.The story was also
written in a period when the view of women and their ability was misconceived. During the
19th century, there was increased women suffrage and discrimination in almost every
society, even the modernized societies. As the narrator says, women were entangled in
domestic patterns and their abilities were only restricted to procreation and work at
home.Works CitedCrewe, Jonathan. “ Queering ‘ The Yellow Wallpaper’ ? Charlotte Perkins
Gilman and the Politics of Form.” Tulsa Studies in Women’ s Literature (1995): pp.
273– 293.Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. Califonia: The New England
Magazine, 1892.Haney-Peritz, Janice. “ Monumental Feminism and Literature’ s Ancestral
House: Another Look at ‘ The Yellow Wallpaper,.” Women’ s Studies (1985): 113-
128.Hume, Beverly A. “ Gilman’ s ‘ Interminable Grotesque’ : The Narrator of ‘ The
YellowWallpaper.” Studies in Short Fiction (1991): 477-484.Johnson, Greg. “ Gilman’ s
Gothic allegory: rage and redemption in ‘ The Yellow Wallpaper’ .” Studies in Short Fiction,
(1989): volume 26, pp. 521– 530.