Ethical Theory Essay, Research Paper
In Charlotte Perkins Gillman s The Yellow Wallpaper the author writes about the narrator s descent into madness. In this story the main character is a women whose reality is twisted by mental illness. Her mental state grows increasingly unbalanced as the story progresses. Her focal point is the disturbing yellow wallpaper that lines her bedroom wall. The narrator s descent into madness is shown by her transformation from an ordinary optimistic woman into a nervous, increasingly weak, paranoid, and delusional person who has lost all touch with reality.
The narrator starts out by describing herself and her husband as ordinary people. She is optimistic and rooted in reality as she describes her surroundings in pleasant detail: The most beautiful place and There is a delicious garden. (667) The narrator also talks about her husband and how loving he is towards her: He is very careful and loving and hardly lets me stir without special direction, he takes all care from me. (668) In the beginning of the story the narrator also doesn t like the wallpaper. She describes it as having repellant color, almost revolting, a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow turning sunlight. (669)
The narrator becomes increasingly nervous and pessimistic as time goes on: These nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing. (669) She grows more and more lethargic and has trouble concentrating. Things that she took pleasure in such as her writing are now becoming more difficult than they were: I find I get pretty tired when I try [writing]. (669) Her spiraling depression causes her to cry often and lay in bed and stare at the wallpaper by the hour: I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time. (671) The patterns in the wallpaper are beginning to mesmerize her: This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had! (669)
Now, the narrator becomes increasingly weak as time goes on, her lucid thoughts are becoming farther apart and require greater effort to muster: It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this nervous weakness I suppose. (672) She begins to separate herself from her husband and Jennie by referring to them as them . As she begins to lose her grip with reality she sees things in the wallpaper that are not there. At this point; however, she still wishes her husband would take her away from the house. She still has a glimmer of hope at this point in the story but it is quickly fading.
As the story goes on the narrator is becoming paranoid of her surroundings and her family. She begins to lose herself more and more into the wallpaper as she loses her touch with reality: The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing. (673) She becomes afraid of her husband and Jenny as well: The fact is I am getting a little afraid of John. He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jenny has an inexplicable look. (674) She begins to think of the wallpaper as her own, and she believes that John and Jennie are trying to steal it away from her: I ve caught him several times looking at the paper! And Jennie too. I caught Jennie with her hand on it once. (674)
At this point in the story the narrator becomes extremely delusional. She begins to think she is feeling so much better: I am feeling ever so much better! I don t sleep much at night for it is interesting to watch developments [in the wallpaper] but I sleep a good deal in the daytime. (675) She has convinced herself that there is someone inside the wallpaper and she really does move about. She imagines that the woman in the wallpaper moves about outside of the house as she claims to watch her from her bedroom windows. She has also withdrawn completely from her husband and wants him to move to another room. She trusts nobody and is no longer trying to fight off her illness at this point.
By now all reality is gone and her descent into madness is in its final stage. She believes she is no longer alone at night for the paper is always with her: I wasn t alone a bit! As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her. (677) All the narrator cares about now is the paper. She tries to free the woman who is held within the wallpaper by tearing the paper down from the wall. Finally, she is completely lost when she attempts to tie the woman with rope as she comes out of the paper but unknowingly ties herself up.
In the beginning of the story this house seemed like it was the best thing for the narrator but as the story progressed this clearly wasn t the case. The narrator has gone from a hopeful recovery in the beginning of the story to a person who has lost all her sanity. In the end, the narrator has become completely insane.