Summary:
The causes of the narrator's descent into madness in the gothic short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", are linked to the actions of her husband. Everyone has limits; and most stay within the bounds of sanity. However there are always a few who have been pushed just a little too far.
The Driving Force of Insanity
The environment, and the people who inhabit it, are constantly having a profound effect on the character of others. The way a child is treated by a parent will have a direct influence on who and what they become as adults. Human interaction can ultimately lead to a person's downfall or a person's success. In "The Yellow Wallpaper", the narrator's relationship with her husband is very strained, and predominantly determined by the narrator's husband. Her husband consistently treats her like a small child, forbids her to express herself, and determinedly keeps her bound to an extremely restricted room. In "The Yellow Wallpaper", the sole reason for the narrator's decadence to insanity is due to the limitations and restrictions inflicted upon her by her husband's actions.
The narrator's descent to madness is caused by a number of contributing factors, all being linked to her husband's actions. In the story, her husband treats the narrator as if she is merely a small child, and not a grown woman capable of making choices, which decisively causes the woman to exhaust into delirium. When speaking with her, the narrator's husband talks to her like a person would talk with their young child. This is depicted when the narrator speaks of John, her husband, saying, "Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and said he would go down to the cellar, if I wished.? ("The Yellow Wallpaper? pg. 131) The phrase spoken by John to his wife sounds more reasonable being spoken to a baby. These words are inhibiting, and embarrassing to his wife. When he speaks to her in this childlike manner, he is making her feel less superior to him by using this childish form of guilt. This makes the narrator feel smaller than him, and in effect does not want him to go out of the way for her, as she clearly states when she says, "It is as airy and comfortable a room as anyone need wish, and, of course, I would not be so silly as to make him uncomfortable just for a whim.? ("The Yellow Wallpaper? pg. 131) It is talking to her like an infant, which causes her to feel the guilt at having wanted a different room, which ultimately leads to her imprisonment within the room with the yellow wallpaper. John also talks to her using small, and comforting, gentle words. This is again reminiscent of an older person talking to a newborn child. This is shown through the words he uses when addressing her, which are darling, his comfort, and little girl. He refers to visiting their relatives and close friends as a "nice little trip? ("The Yellow Wallpaper? pg.136). The constant use of small words, and causing his wife to feel guilt through talking to her in a childish manner, are what essentially lead her into craziness at the end of the story, in which she can be seen acting the results of being treated like a baby; crawling around the room she was confined to, crawling like a baby.
In addition to treating her like small child, John also forbids the narrator to express herself in any way, shape or form. John's overbearing strict guidelines, which permit his wife from self-expression, and divulging in relations with her relatives and friends, causes the narrator to become so alone, exhausted and cut off from human contact, that she becomes delusional. John allows his wife very little liberties, and freedoms. He clearly states to his wife that she is not to be writing, for it will only impede her recovery. However when the narrator tried to continue writing in secret, it results in feelings of great exasperation which is shown when the narrator speaks, "I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal ? having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.? ("The Yellow Wallpaper? pg.129) His wife is clearly growing more tiresome, by these repressions made by her husband. She is then soon forced to express her feelings by writing in secrecy, as is shown when John's wife states "There comes John, and I must put this away ? he hates to have me write a word.? ("The Yellow Wallpaper? pg. 130) The woman has to use what little energy she has, due to her nervous condition, on making sure she can write in privacy. Resulting from John's domineering attitude toward letting the woman do as she wishes, and trying to take all care of her into his own hands, the woman finds herself not having feelings of gratitude toward her husband at all. This can be clearly seen in her statement of "I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more.? ("The Yellow Wallpaper? pg.130) The woman is struggling with why she has no feelings of gratitude toward her husband's enthusiastic attempts to take all care of her into his own hands. The narrator does not feel grateful for this because it is unhealthy to try and repress the woman's need to care for her own self, and to express her inner feelings as a sense of relief. As the story progresses, and the woman continuously, struggles against her husband's strict orders, she becomes more and more flustered, evident when she says, "It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work.? ("The Yellow Wallpaper? pg. 132) His aims to try and make his wife better, only discourage her, and lead her slowly, and steadily into the inescapable, mad confines of her mind. The woman's writing is one of the only things that causes her a great sense of relief from her dreadful feelings, but because of John's persistent rules not to write, it begins to weigh her down, as she expresses, "And I know John would think it absurd. But I must say what I feel and think in some way ? it is such a relief! But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief.? ("The Yellow Wallpaper? pg.134) Not only do John's rules about not writing become a great effort for her to overcome, but he also insists that she does not visit the people whom she most direly wishes to see. The narrator tries desperately to have a talk with John to persuade him that she would be best off to have a visit with Cousin Henry and Julia, however he tells her he will not allow this to occur. She describes this event and the turmoil it causes her when she says, "But he said I wasn"t able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished. It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight.? ("The Yellow Wallpaper? pg. 135) John's ever increasing limitations on what he allows his wife to do is penetrating her mind, causing her to cry and become frustrated very easily, even causing her mind difficulties in thinking clearly. These restrictions that John has placed upon his wife, such as allowing her no freedom to express her thoughts, and no human interaction have caused the narrator to a great deal of anguish, and were a large contributing force in causing her definitive mental instability.
However, as little to no human contact has been a factor leading to the woman's insanity, it has also been profoundly affected by John's confinement of her physically. The narrator's husband has decided upon a room that is surrounded with physical restrictions, which cause the woman to go mad. The room the woman resides in, has foul yellow wallpaper on the walls that the woman dreads. Being locked in the room day in and day out, with nothing to entertain her but the wallpaper, the woman begins to use the shadows, to see women, and eventually herself in the wallpaper. It is because her husband has locked her in this room engrossed by the yellow wallpaper, and chose to keep her there as opposed to another room which she would have preferred that drove her to insanity. Along with the rancid wallpaper, the windows in the room were all barred up, which drive the woman to feel as if she, or the mysterious woman within the wallpaper is imprisoned. She states this clearly when she says, "At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside patterns, I mean, and the woman behind it as plain as can be.? ("The Yellow Wallpaper? pg.137) Because of the bars on the windows confining her to this room, she begins to see the shadows created by them in the moonlight, as a real prison for the woman in the wallpaper. The room is also equipped with a bed that has been nailed down. As the woman is persistently drawing nearer and nearer to insanity, the nailed down bed, brings out her ever increasing desperation, visible when she says, ? 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"I am getting angry enough to do something desperate.? ("The Yellow Wallpaper? pg.142) The mere fact that the bed has been nailed down, and cannot be moved at her own discord, has driven the narrator to an act of extreme desperation. She then begins to fervently continue ripping off the yellow wallpaper. John's attempts at confining her for her own good, have led his wife to acts of insanity and madness.
In "The Yellow Wallpaper", the woman was driven into insanity due to her husband's efforts to try and repress, confine, and treat her like a child. These acts have all proven to be a leading cause in the woman's sufferings, as opposed to her successful recovery. In the end of the story the woman has been reduced to all that John has treated her like. In his attempts to stop her from writing, she ends up muttering insanely to herself in the end of the story, not able to freely write her thoughts down in the days and weeks leading up to her breakdown. In John's treating her like a baby, she is therefore reduced to acting like nothing less than an infant, crawling, and crawling around, and around her crib, and his attempts at keeping her in a room confined with barred windows and a nailed down bed as if she were an animal, results in her pacing around mindlessly at the end, pacing the confinements of her cage, as an animal would do upon being locked in an unfamiliar cage. It was only in her insanity that the woman from the yellow wallpaper was able to conquer her conqueror. She triumphed over John in the end, continuing to creep over him despite his limp body laying right in her way. It was not until he had driven her to the brink of sanity, that she was able to overcome John. Madness comes creeping from the depths of within, and can overpower not just its occupant but those who have been behind the wheel. Everyone has their limits, and most stay in bounds, however there are those few who have been pushed just a little too far.
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