“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is about a woman’s struggle in a society where patriarchal is dominated. Gilman wrote her story in 19th century, where man was superior to woman due to society’s norms encouraged the male to be protector and provider of his family. This man dominant society led woman in 19th century to be alienated from society; as it is shown in Gilman’s “ The Yellow Wallpaper”, the protagonist is not only alienated form society but also she is alienated from herself and her family; her baby, since her doctor prevent her form any activity during her confinement in the house they rent as part of her treatment.
Gilman is the author and narrator of the novella “The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the reader about a woman who suffers from depression; gradually developed into state of hysteria. Her husband John is her doctor, confines her in rented house and keeps her away from society as way of treatment he uses to cure her from postpartum depression. “l cry at nothing and cry most of the time.” (Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper”). In 19th century, the only treatment for this type of illness was rest cure. The rest cure usually last for many weeks. As way of treatment, doctor confines his/her patients in a room away from friends and family.
Karl Marx, a political philosopher, he is well-known for his social theory, the theory of alienation. In his theory, he proposed that labor has lost his own identity and his reality as laborer due to the system of capitalism that treated the laborer as a commodity or an object due to the nature or work. “A consequence of this alienation of humans from their own nature is that they are also alienated from each other. Productive activity becomes ‘activity under the domination, coercion and yoke of another man’. This other man becomes an alien, hostile being. Instead of humans relating to each other co-operatively, they relate competitively. Love and trust are replaced by bargaining and exchange.
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Human beings cease to recognize in each other their common human nature; they see others as instruments for furthering their own egoistic interests”. (Marx: AVSI, p36). The laborer is alienated from the products of his labor (i.e. what he makes), and even from his own human nature or “species-being.” Take, for example, alienation from our own human nature. It is not that we don’t know we are human; rather, what we think is misguided. As Marx’s alienation is clearly shown in “The Yellow Wallpaper” the protagonist is not allowed to speak to anyone but her husband who is her doctor and he is a way from her most of the time, busy interacting with outside society. She is not allowed to move around the house, her doctor made her physical movement limited in house, she spends most of her time in the room.
‘The most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village.'(Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper”). The place that husband rent symbolizes the woman’s physical imprisonment which can be referred as the protagonist alienation from the society and her family. Furthermore, the husband as her doctor puts her in place where he prevents her to communicate with anyone, making her socially isolated as well as he prevents her from writing which is the only way that she can express her thoughts and alleviate her struggle “I know John would think it absurd. But I MUST say what I feel and think in some way–it is such a relief!’, “There comes John, and I must put this away,—he hates to have me write a word.”
When she feels her doctor John approaches, she puts away her writing; who believes writing ruin the process of the treatment. This is a good example that her doctor is alienating her from herself as well. she is home alone most of the time while her husband is at work. She is mother, as a mother, she must be with her baby, but she knows she can be with him and takes care of him. “It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous” (Gilman “ The Yellow Wallpaper”). He prevents her to raise her own baby, which indicates that he alienated her from the motherhood.
In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the reader is introduced to characters that obviously reflect an image of the culture, norms and the way of living of the society in 19th century. The narrator, wife to a seemingly well-known doctor, gives us a clear vision into the alienation and loss of reality as human due to her confinement in room. she is prevented to communicate with anyone else; but her husband who is the only one she can see, but seems he is does not show her enough caring “pretended to be very loving and kind. As if I couldn’t see through him.” (Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper”). She finds difficulty to communicate with him as a mean to reduce the feeling of her loneliness and alienation from family, friends and society in general “It’s so hard to talk to John about my case…” (Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper”).
This alienation can also be attributed to her infantilization by her husband, that is shown in the novella “What is it little girl?”, “Bless her little heart.” (Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper” ) and “blessed little goose” (Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper” ), treats her like a child. The husband and his way of treating her as a child, gives us a vision that the protagonist faces another type of alienation, the alienation from the feeling of wifehood. ‘John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage’ (Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper”). The narrator here realizes her place among the order of society and even notes that it is to be expected. She is aware of her understanding that things between her and her husband are not equal not only because he is a doctor but because he is a man, and her husband. it shows, the protagonist is alienated from the feeling of self-esteem, from the feeling of normal woman.
The protagonist sees a woman coming through the wallpaper in the room. She becomes more familiar of seeing the woman all the time in the room behind the wallpaper. ‘At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candle light, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it as plain as can be” (Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper”). The woman in the wallpaper represents the narrator herself, her unconscious and her mental hallucination status. The more her hallucination developed, the more the woman behind the wallpaper becomes real to her. The distance between the image of the woman in the wallpaper and its meaning proves her own alienation from wife-self as she increasingly becomes the paper women.
Also, it shows her alienation from her material reality and from being human, as it is also an alienation from herself. ‘I’ve got out at last,’ said I, ‘in spite of you…And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!’ (Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”). The narrator is confined in the room with the yellow Wallpaper. She states to her doctor that she finally got out of the wallpaper. She states that she is now free from her confinement and the bars behind the wall. She pulled most part of the paper, she ripped the paper off the wall, therefore, she cannot be dragged back into the wallpaper of her former constraints.
Gilman in her “The Yellow Wallpaper” is referring to the fact that women in 19th century were oppressed and imprisoned by men in their houses, viewed them as fragile, weak beings. May women wanted to find a way to freed themselves from their social constraints and engage with the society to feel and find their real identity as human beings. She as the author and narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, she used the narrator as type of representation of herself. she used her novella “The Yellow Wallpaper” to fight back against the physician and society. She wanted to break the norms of her society and achieve what she looked forward to, to be a woman of her own and to be with her own opinions and thoughts.
Alienation is the process that is applied when someone becomes alienated from him/herself, family, friends, society and from the reality of being human. In his theory of alienation, Karl Marx focused on the self-estrangement. He explains that self- estrangement is the alienation of a person from him/herself, feelings and loss of purpose. “Human beings cannot be free if they are subject to forces that determine their thoughts, their ideas, their very nature as human beings”. (Marx: AVSI, p46). Alienation from society is another aspect of alienation, it can be indicated when someone feels disconnected from his/her society, alienated from the values, practices and social relations of his/her society.
