I always start out by reading the author introductions at the beginning of every story, and I found the introduction about Charlotte Perkins Gilman to be one of the most insightful introductions - at least in terms of the story that followed. It said, "After the birth of her one daughter, she experienced a severe depression. The rest cure her doctor prescribed became the basis of her most famous story, "The Yellow Wallpaper (265)."
What is significant about this is that those very elements are present in the story - the protagonist's bed confinement, her baby whom she is not allowed to see, and the severe mental disease she is inflicted with - and the story became so much clearer to me. It was immediately obvious from the very beginning that the protagonist is an unreliable narrator. The reader is informed that "...there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency- what is one to do? (266)"
In the story, the protagonist is confined to a room and is highly disturbed by the yellow wallpaper on the walls, seeming to find strange shapes and forms everywhere she looks. She feels that her husband, John, a physician, does not think that she is as sick as she says she is. She went on to say, "John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him. (267)" I wonder if this symbolism pertains not only to the protagonist but also to the author. It is written to sound as if depression is a minor disease and something that should not be taken seriously. Gilman was inflicted with depression and had to rest; it seems as if she is frustrated about this "unnecessary" cure and is channeling her frustration through the protagonist in the story.
The wallpaper becomes a point of obsession for the protagonist and she starts to think that it may be alive. She talked about the wallpaper in this quote, "Behind the outside pattern, the dim shapes get clearer every day ...I wish John would take me away from here! (272)" Although she is talking about the wallpaper, I think the author may be hinting at how stifling rest cure is, and how it could drive someone to commit suicide. There are numerous other words about the wallpaper, such as "The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing. (273)" The wallpaper is like a symbol of the aggravation of the rest cure. "I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs. (275)" This could hint at the measures taken by other people to make sure that the protagonist (and perhaps the author) stays confined in her bed.
The last part of the story is quite disturbing as the protagonist starts to go out of her mind (although she does not know this). She defiantly gets out of bed and starts to peel off all the wallpaper she could reach, making "All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision! (278)" The bed where she is regularly ordered to stay in becomes the last standing obstacle to her freedom when it refused to move. "I tried to lift and push it until I was lame, and then I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner - but it hurt my teeth. (277)" At this point, the protagonist is starting to hurt herself to tear off the wallpaper. She finally succeeds and said, "It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please. (278)" Free from the rest cure, the protagonist feels liberated and probably better than she felt for a while, although she is at the most serious stage of her disease.
"I've got out at last in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back! (278)" This sentence has the most meaning in the story because the wallpaper is the symbol of aggravation. By tearing down this barrier, the protagonist is finally free from the rest cure. "I've got out at last... you can't put me back!" could also express the author's hopeless dream to be free from rest cure.
It is almost melodramatic that in the end, the author committed suicide. Her battle with depression has evidently been lost. The story ended with John fainting and the protagonist unaware of her dangerous mental state, and it is not unlikely to imagine the protagonist eventually committing suicide, like the author who penned the story. "The Yellow Wallpaper", with its symbolism and dark tone, serves as an unintentional reminder that depression is a disease not to be taken lightly.
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