Journal for Gilman (E.C.)

Francesca Cricchio
Journal for Gilman
English 48B

“By the moonlight- the moon shines in all night when there is a moon-I wouldn’t know that it is the same paper. At night, in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars!” (815).

“Through her Utopian fiction, Gilman described the kind of world she envisioned for women. In "The Yellow Wallpaper" (1892), although not Utopian, she depicts the escape of a women from the pressures of seemingly a seemingly unwanted marriage and consequent marriage into a new self housed in the wallpaper of her bedroom.” (From Webster.edu)



The Yellow Wallpaper is a compilation of journal entries written by a woman who is forced to rest and avoid any physical labor after being diagnosed with “nervous depression”. The narrators overbearing husband forces her to lay in bed upstairs all day, and the narrator quickly becomes bored and secretly turns to writing in her journal. Much of her entries consist of descriptions of the home and her attempt to get better. At first, she feels like the rest is really helping her, but then she begins a rapid descent into insanity when she becomes enamored with the surrounding yellow wallpaper which she describes with such spite and disgust. The wallpaper is a catalyst that flings her into her eventual breakdown.

This story was very much about woman of the time, and their lack of individualism due to marriage. Most women on the 19th century spent their life dedicated to their husband or children, this left no time for themselves. In the narrators case, she was controlled by her husband, and her every move was monitored by him. When she falls “ill”, he is the one who calls the best doctor to cure her. When the doctor prescribes “bed rest” as medication, John (husband) forces her to lie down all day and makes sure his sister and other household staff watch over her. John’s condescending nature makes the narrator feel like a child. His attitude only worsens the situation because he is always making decisions for her and without her opinion. The narrator is left to lay there and not think. The simplicity of such a task is what leads to her eventual breakdown, and the wallpaper is a huge reflection of her captivity within her marriage. The narrator sees a woman behind bars who cannot get out. This imagery is almost a literal representation of the her own inability to escape the grip of her controlling husband.