Through The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman portrays the evolution of insanity. The narrator, wife of the overbearing physician John, records her own transition from the grip of sanity into the tumultuous throws of mental instability. Does she realize that she is insane from the beginning or is it only when she breaks through the wallpaper does she knowingly allow it to consume her. At the beginning of the story we see our narrator as “mere ordinary” (p. 424); her husband and her brother, both physicians, have diagnosed her with a nervous condition, “ a slight hysterical tendency,” (p. 425) and sentenced her to a rest cure. We are never told the catalyst for this diagnosis. However, this condition is the reason for her and her husband’s stay at the house in the country. The narrator is forced into an “airy” room where she can recover her mental stability; she can only concentrate on the yellow wallpaper. Her descriptions of the wallpaper become increasingly lively, as does her condition. Her insanity is shown through her style of writing.
She writes of the house and it’s surroundings, she is very descriptive, her vocabulary is extensive, and her words paint a vivid picture for the readers. When she writes of John, her writing becomes shortened, direct and minimalist, similar to the words of her husband. He is limiting. He does not want her to write; it is almost as if he is forcing her to become more like himself, “practical in the extreme (p 424). The difference between husband and wife can be seen stylistically and through her own descriptions. However, it is as if the narrator refuses to accept that tension. She disagrees with his diagnosis and she blames him for her slow recovery ( p 424), then she reminds herself “he is very careful and loving… he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more.” She writes “I am too wise.” Then she writes “he is so wise. (p. 429)” She has no power over herself and all of her actions are decided for her with “special direction (p. 425). John’s influence is so great that the narrator cannot enjoy the solace of a private diary without fear of invasion, both physically and mentally. She reprimands herself as she writes; why would she not edit herself as she writes in order to appease John? I feel as if her most ridiculous thoughts she keeps solely to herself and not on the page, even though it is only “dead paper. (p 424)”
Ironically, it is within the wallpaper of her room her mind escapes her. As she falls further and further from reality the pattern on the wall becomes more alive. Behind the pattern, she can see “ a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to skulk around behind that silly and conspicuous front design. (p 428). She is able to escape in the formlessness and haphazardness of the design. Just as we find her spiral into madness mesmerizing, she finds “ it is so interesting to watch developments (p. 431)” in the paper; her descriptions, all the while, are increasingly insane. The paper begins to appear just as her mind; a loose barrier covering “the creeping woman” inside. Until, finally, she rips free, breaking through her husband’s oppression and her own sanity. It is through her descriptive writing we see her evolution into insanity and we know she is proud of it, for the diary is representation of a conscientious self-recording. (591)
Taylor, "Does she realize that she is insane from the beginning or is it only when she breaks through the wallpaper does she knowingly allow it to consume her?" For me, the saddest and most ironic part of the story is that the further removed from reality she becomes the less aware she is of what's happening to her. At the beginning, she knows she is suffering from nervous exhaustion (what today might well be called post partum depression); once she begins to identify with the creeping woman, however, she thinks she is becoming more clever and perceptive when in fact she is hallucinating and becoming completely obsessive.
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