1. Casey Thomas ENGL491 Buena Vista University
The Yellow Wallpaper: An Analysis in New Historicism, Psychoanalytic, and Feminism
Casey Thomas
ENGL491
Buena Vista University

2. Brief Synopsis Written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Short story (6,000 words) written as a journal
Unnamed woman forced to take a short vacation by her husband as an attempt to rid herself of her mental illness
Source:

3. Brief Synopsis
Her husband, John, picks their room and the narrator has an unease at the house.
Increasingly uncomfortable with the room they are in, mostly with the yellow wallpaper in the room.
John, a doctor, forbids the narrator to do what she loves (writing and visiting with friends and family).
She becomes obsessed with the paper and believes that there is a woman trapped in the paper.
Near the end of their stay, the narrator decides to free the woman.
The narrator declares her freedom while creeping around the room. John faints as the narrator continues in a state of psychosis.

4. New Historicism Gilman’s life during her mental breakdown
After the birth of her daughter Katharine in 1885, Gilman suffered deep depression.
It has been thought that it was serious postpartum depression.
April 1887 Gilman went to Silas Weir Mitchell in an attempt to feel better.
Mitchell put Gilman on a treatment plan, deemed her cured after some time, and sent her home with instructions to follow.
Gilman hated it, moved to California, and continued writing.
During this time she wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” to show Mitchell that his treatment plan was wrong.

5. New Historicism “The Yellow Wallpaper”
John has created a “wellness” plan where the narrator cannot work or see her baby.
The narrator, like Gilman, hated this.
The narrator starts secretly writing in her journal.
After a Fourth of July celebration, John threatens to send the narrator away.
She would be sent away to Gilman’s real life doctor, Weir Mitchell.
The narrator has the same feelings for Mitchell that Gilman did.

6. Psychoanalytic The narrator is much like the wallpaper in her room.
Dull at first but when you follow the curves for a distance they commit suicide and plunge off at outrageous angles while destroying themselves.
The narrator seems sane but the way she writes in her journal (short sentences, moving from topic to topic) is like the pattern on the wallpaper.
The wallpaper is stripped off in two parts of the room suggesting an internal struggle or conflict; perhaps something was/is trying to break free.

7. Psychoanalytic
The narrator contemplates what the room might have been used for.
She states it was a nursery, then a playroom and gymnasium due to the bars on the windows and rings and “things” on the walls.
Later learn that the floor is scratched, gouged, and splintered, and the bed looked as if it had been through wars.
Room seems to have held the mentally ill at one point.
The narrator has bitten the bed, thought about jumping out of the window, and notes that the wallpaper is worn at the bottom completely around the room.
The narrator starts to see shapes and movement in the wallpaper.
As the narrator descends further into madness, the women in the wallpaper wants to leave it more and more.
The narrator also sees the woman creeping about.

8. Psychoanalytic
There are times when readers see a brief glimpse of the narrator’s true mental state.
Narrator gets angry with husband, her nervous troubles make her depressed, it takes effort to do small things, and she cries most of the time, usually at nothing.
At the end of the story, the narrator decides to free all of the woman in the paper, including herself.
Gilman, after learning she was dying cancer, chloroformed herself to death.
The narrator is in a deep state of psychosis, John fainted on the floor, and readers do not know their future.

9. Feminism
Gilman
Had issues with her mother. Her mother showed her no expressions of love which taught Gilman to deny her emotions and sexuality.
Even though she swore to never marry and felt that she needed to be single to achieve the life she wanted, married Charles Walter Stetson in 1884.
After writing “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman was still unhappy so she left Stetson and continued her life involved with social reform and feminist groups.
1898 wrote the best seller Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Relations.
She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca, New York in 1994.

10. Feminism “The Yellow Wallpaper” Power Imbalance
Power imbalance as the husband has a name while the narrator remains nameless.
John patronizes the narrator with her sickness while he thinks he is helping her.
The narrator asks John to repaper the room but he laughs at her and says that he will not indulge his patient.
She asks to move to a different room and he mocks her.
John has serious control over his wife.
Makes the narrator feel bad about her illness and feel like she cannot be a good wife and mother.
She feels ungrateful for complaining about the room’s wallpaper.
She feels like she even has to control her own thoughts.

11. Feminism “The Yellow Wallpaper” Self-expression
Narrator partly driven to insanity because she had to hide everything.
She’s begging for mental stimulation and needs an emotional and intellectual outlet to truly get better, but John will not let her.
She becomes fixated on the wallpaper because of this.
The narrator gets the upper hand in the story. John faints at the sight of his wife, a typical feminine show of weakness.
Narrator is finally free of everything and steps over her husband as she creeps around the room
Walking over him again and again could have been a way for the narrator to prove Johns inadequacy.

12. Source: http://www. quotessays

13. Wrap Up
New Historicism – Gilman’s own mental illness and disgust at how it was treated led to the creation of this story.
Psychoanalytic – both the author and narrator were deeply troubled.
Feminism – household ran by the patriarch, narrator never able to get better; women ignorant, docile creatures.
Source:

14. References
"Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Biography and Works.” Online Literature Network. Web. 22 Apr < "Charlotte Perkins Gilman." Women’s Intellectual Contributions to the Study of Mind and Society. Web. 21 Apr < www2.webster.edu>. Gilman, Charlotte. Ed. Unknown The Yellow Wallpaper (Annotated): Annotated Version with In-depth Literary Analysis Kindle eBook. “Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism.” Purdue OWL. Web. 22 Apr < “The Yellow Wallpaper.” SparkNotes. Web. 21 Apr < Veeser, H. Aram. The New Historicism. New York: Routledge, Print.