Oppressive_Symbol_of_Yellow_Wallpaper

The Oppressive Symbols in The Yellow Wallpaper In the late 19th century, the feminist movement was a striking period for women in the United States. Feminists focused on many societal issues like women’s suffrage, domestic violence and equal pay. Among these women, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, also known as a writer, contributed to the pioneering of women’s rights through her literary works. She mainly concentrated on women’s unequal status in marriage and expressed her views on this matter particularly in The Yellow Wallpaper. This short story examines the oppression of women in a male dominating society through the use of complex symbols such as the bed and the window, the wallpaper and the daylight and moonlight. Oppression, the main theme of the story, is the state of being neglected from others. In the narrator’s case, she is oppressed from society by being confined into a room containing prison-like elements like an immovable bed and barred windows. For instance, the immovable bed signifies that she is nailed-down to her husband’s mentality; he keeps her from moving symbolizing the restrictions enforced upon her. The bed is also a parallel to the society that she inhabits; an ‘‘immovable’’ society that cannot be changed. It is the symbolism of the bed that helps the reader understand that the narrator is undergoing a sense of entrapment. Just like the bed, the barred windows also develop the narrator’s oppression. Traditionally, windows represent a view of opportunities. However, in the story, these gateways have been completely obscured since they are all barred. This symbolizes a jailhouse where she is physically and mentally barred from society due to male dominancy. Although she would like to escape out of these windows, she knows that she can’t because ‘‘the bars are too strong even to try’’ (Gilman 14). This symbol of oppression reveals how she is facing captivity because of society’s strong masculine mentality. The narrator’s captivity is also developed profoundly through many other symbols. As the most important symbol of the story, the wallpaper characterizes how the narrator and women in general were perceived and how they felt during the time of this oppressive society. To start, the yellow color of the wallpaper symbolizes inferiority reflecting the narrator’s status in society. The more she is trapped in her ‘‘atrocious nursery’’, the more she becomes aware of her inferiority through the appearance of the wallpaper’s smell (3). She wants to get rid of it, even thinking of burning the house, which shows how badly she wants to escape her low status in society. This wallpaper is also made of patterns, angles and curves ‘‘that destroy themselves in unheard of contradiction’’ (3). This characteristic of the wallpaper reflects her chaotic mind as an oppressed woman. She feels that she is being constantly watched by the ‘‘absurd, unblinking eyes’’ of the wallpaper just like how prisoners in prisons are always surveyed (4). Other than the signification of these traits, the deep meaning of the wallpaper is developed throughout the story. As the story progresses, the narrator begins to call it the ‘‘paper’’ instead of the ‘‘wallpaper’’. This signifies that it has become a form of literary text that she interprets in order to discover its true sense. As she begins to analyze the wallpaper, she sees a woman ‘‘creeping’’ behind the pattern implying the women’s subservience in society. This woman shakes the bars of this torturing pattern and wants to climb out because ‘‘it strangles so’’ (11). This shows that the woman and many other women of the time were imprisoned. In the end, the narrator peels off the paper in order to liberate that woman who is actually herself: ‘‘I’ve got out at last […] in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the wallpaper, so you can’t put me back’’ (15). Thus, the wallpaper, which traditionally represents a domestic and feminine feature, symbolizes the oppression of female domestication. However, the symbolism of the wallpaper could not have been so profoundly developed without the symbolism of the daylight and moonlight. Hence, these symbols are essential to the development of the theme of oppression. In many traditions, the daylight is a symbol of the male principle which is dominancy while the moon represents the female principle because of its intuitive, sensitive energy. The daylight dominates the day just like John, the narrator’s husband, dominates her during the day. He controls her every move where he makes her sleep most of the day and alienates her from human interaction. It is the period of time where she feels useless and ignored. However, during the night, she is freer to liberate her emotions. She mostly expresses her thoughts in her diary, a symbol of self-expression, especially when no one is around which is during the night time. As the story progresses, these two time periods become even more significant to the development of the wallpaper and to the narrator’s oppressed state. The narrator remarks that the wallpaper ‘‘changes as the light changes’’ (9). For instance, in daylight, the figure of the woman in the wallpaper is ‘’subdued, quiet’’ just like the narrator (9). However, in moonlight, this figure creeps all night and ‘‘takes hold of the bars [of the pattern] and shakes them hard’’ wanting to get out (11). In result, the narrator peels off yards of that paper at night in order to liberate the woman which is actually her. This signifies that the narrator becomes subconsciently aware of her oppression at night and seeks for freedom because that is when her true personality is permitted to wander. Therefore, the daylight is a symbol of the narrator’s submission to male dominancy while the moonlight is a symbol of female liberation from her oppressive husband, more particularly from the masculine society. Through the use of these detailed symbols, Gilman intensely portrays the theme of oppression in The Yellow Wallpaper. These symbols such as the immovable bed, the barred windows, the wallpaper and the daylight and moonlight depict the women’s status in the paternalistic society. Just like the other feminists, this author wanted to show society that women deserved the same rights as men. Thus, without her or many of the other feminists, women would not have emancipated and would still have been ‘‘creeping’’ in an oppressive society. Work Cited Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. ‘‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’’ http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohl part/alra/gilman.htm.