Showing their role in society, women in literature are often portrayed in a male dominated position. Especially in the nineteenth century, women were repressed and controlled by their husbands as well as other male influences. In \”The Yellow Wallpaper\”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonist is oppressed and represents the effect of the oppression of women in society. This effect is created by the use of complex symbols such as the house, the window, and the wallpaper which encourages her oppression as well as her self expression.
It is customary to find the symbol of the house as representing a secure place for a woman’s transformation and her release of self expression. However, in this story, the house is not her own and she does not want to be in it. It represents a prison in which she is trapped. She declares it is \”haunted\” and that \”there is something strange about the house\”(Gilman 195). Although she acknowledges the beauty of the house and especially what surrounds it, she constantly goes back to her feelings that \”there is something strange about the house\”(Gilman 195).
Her first impression of the house almost tells you that the narrator knows of the upcoming transformation that will take place in the house while she is there. The barred window in the bedroom, is a specific characteristic of the house that symbolizes her trapped feeling in the house. Traditionally a window symbolizes the felling of a view of possibilities, but now it is a view of things she doesn’t want to see. Through it she sees all that she could be and could have. But closer to the end she says \”I dont like to look out of the indows even – there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast\”(Gilman 205).
She knows she has to hide or she too will have to creep in order to be part of society and she does not want to see all the other women who have to do the same because she knows they are a reflection of herself. \”Most women do not creep by daylight,\” means that they need to hide in the shadows; they try to move without being seen (Gilman 203). The window no longer holds as a gateway for her because of the bars holding her into her place in society. She will be controlled by man and will not be allowed to express her self.
She will be forced to creep. The most important symbol in all of \”The Yellow Wallpaper\” is the wallpaper itself which plays a double role. Not only does it hold her prisoner within its complicated pattern that leads to no where, but it also holds the women inside and separates her from the narrator. But it will also set her free. She describes the wallpaper as being the worst thing she has ever seen: \”the color is repellant, almost revolting: a smouldering unclean yellow, trangely faded by the slow turning sun\” (Gilman 196).
She is stuck in this room for John has taken all her activities away so her only escape is the wallpaper. In her first reference to the paper she says \” I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long\” (Gilman 196). She become lost in following the patterns of this paper while trying to find its end. This is the beginning of her downward spiral in her health. Not afraid of what is happening to her she allows herself to drawn into her fantasies. She is going mad, but she is not scared.
She realizes that it is herself in the wall paper and not another woman; as well as all the other women in general and therefore all women in her society are trapped. The complexity of the symbols used by Gilman, create a picture of the women oppresses by male dominance in the nineteenth century. The traditional twist on symbols she uses provides a scene to what women contend with such as oppression and the feeling of being trapped. By taking this to the ultimate limit Gilman uses these characteristics associated with women and uses them against the narrator, to assist in her own oppression.
