РефератыИностранный языкYeYellow Wallpaper Essay Research Paper The importance

Yellow Wallpaper Essay Research Paper The importance

Yellow Wallpaper Essay, Research Paper


The importance of the wallpaper in "The Yellow Wallpaper", and the


‘three’ sides of Jane The ‘trio’ in Jane In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s "The


Yellow Wallpaper", Gilman makes direct or indirect reference to objects


which play a symbolic role within the context of the story and elucidate its


thematic fibre, a fibre which revolves around the main character and whose


essence is integrated in her inner constitution. Thus, in order to come to terms


with the story and draw certain conclusions based on this fibre, it is crucial


to examine these objects and what they symbolise within this thematic fibre and


obtain a better understanding of the main character. The main object which forms


the backdrop to this fibre and generates the thread of action is the wallpaper


itself, a mirror image of the heroine Jane and her cohesive selves, an opaque


medium into the subdivisions of her own mind. Jane, who is also the narrator of


the story and its centre of consciousness, is recounting her domesticated and


repressed way of life, as well as her husband’s treatment of her as a result of


her postpartum depression. What emerges, however, from Jane’s exposition,


becomes a sinister paradox open to diverse interpretation, for what comes to the


surface as a result of Jane’s constant obsession with the wallpaper is an


unnerving sense that she is suffering not only from postpartum depression, but


also from multiple schizophrenia. Her own narration in effect becomes an


egocentric psychoanalysis where the fibre of her identities can be divested and


detached little by little by the reader, and constant references to the


wallpaper allow for this process since it is the wallpaper itself which forms


the fibre of Jane’s selves. One such instance is when Jane claims that the


wallpaper changes color by night: "By moonlight- the moon shines in all


night when there is a moon- I wouldn’t know it was the same paper." Here,


very clearly, we have a juxtaposition of two dissociated identities, with the


change in the color of the wallpaper stressing the shift in both identity and


role. Jane’s delirium is set off by her constant shifting or playing off of self


from one ego to the other. At night a different self emerges and, since the


wallpaper is nothing other than a projection of Jane’s selves, it becomes


feasible that the wallpaper should also change aspect as one Jane is played off


against the other. Furthermore, in several cases of the disease which Jane seems


to show signs of, the patient loses sight of one personality as the other sets


in. Hence it would be logical for Jane not to recognise the paper since it is a


side of her which becomes disconnected from her conscious mind as soon as the


transformation has taken place. One of Freud’s theories in psychoanalysis is


very explicit about

this dissociation. Freud, for instance, claims that systems


of thought can be split off from each other and congeal into a secondary


personality that is unconscious: "We have come upon something in the ego


itself which is also unconscious, which behaves exactly like the repressed- that


is, which produces powerful effects without itself being conscious and which


requires special work before it can be made conscious." (Sigmund Freud’s


The Ego and the Id, 1923, pgs. 8-9) In simple terms, repression in Freudian


psychoanalysis is visualized as the split between the conscious and unconscious


minds. Separate and dissociated aspects of consciousness may exist, but they are


in constant conflict. The subliminal tries to emerge on the surface. The


wallpaper in The Yellow Wallpaper is ‘repression’; it incorporates two planes of


consciousness within Jane’s own mind, two planes in battle. The repressed and


unconscious self behind that wallpaper is struggling to come out, but it


‘requires special work before it can be made conscious, and this can be seen in


the violent struggle which occurs at the transition phase: "I pulled and


she shook. I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of


that paper." Here the narrator’s words reveals more than an intensity of


the obsessed mind. The use of words such as "shook" and


"pulled" suggest the battle between the conscious and the unconscious,


the power which thrusts the unconscious into being. The wallpaper again reflects


two planes of consciousness, but as it is divested by the conscious side of


Jane, the repressed and unconscious side can take the role of the conscious.


Also, the fact that" pulled" and "shook" switch roles in the


struggle, with "I pulled" turning into "I shook" and the


same evident shift with "she"- the secondary personality- shows the


submergence of the selves, with the wallpaper as medium. ET Aul, who suffers


from this disease commonly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, has written


in her autobiography As You Desire Me: The Psychology of a Multiple Personality:


"Those with dissociated identities, with "split" personalities,


are locked into one or more roles, and their changes from role to role are


dictated by their circumstances rather than their own choice. The change may be


completely out of their control and they may, or may not, be aware of it."


Hence, Jane’s struggle, or transition, is beyond her control and she cannot be


aware of it. "I wouldn’t know it was the same paper" proves this- she


is not aware of the two planes of consciousness within her own mind anymore than<br...


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