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Am I going crazy, or is everyone around me losing it? Perspective is a vital element in any story; a reliable or unreliable narrator can change a story's meaning. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator is obviously driving herself into an endless hole of insanity, yet her honesty can at times make the reader sympathetic to her condition and possibly even wanting to believe her. I felt that the narrator's husband, John, seems manipulative as he takes advantage of her submission. He leaves no room for anything but complete acceptance of his medical "knowledge." Yet, as I continued reading Gilman's electrifying story, I could not help but feel that the narrators insanity was not partially induced by her husband's treatment. She is constantly reaffirming her submission to his advice: "John says it is good for me." Yet, just as I felt weary of John's regiment of sleep and extreme relaxation, the narrator also expresses her conflicting feeling of "getting a little afraid of John." Is John driving his wife into insanity or is this an inevitable outcome due to a mental illness? As I continued reading the short story I wanted to understand why John acted the way he did.
While reading the short story I could not help but find the narrator's descriptions intriguing rather than irrational. Although she was obviously having vivid hallucinations, is it impossible that a woman with a vivid imagination cooped up in a room with strange wallpaper can record a wild account in some sort of journal? I believe Gilman's story is unique because unlike a description of a mentally disturbed individual, at times this narrator seems believable and relatable. To see the inner workings of her mind, both seemingly insane but at times also quite normal, offers us the ability to connect with a clinically insane woman.
I could not help but feeling frustrated by John's blindness to his wife's condition and, often, his role as a catalyst for the insanity. At many points in the story I could not decipher whether John was purposefully manipulating his wife, or if he truly intended to better his wife's mental health. At one point in the story, I actually thought John was cheating on his wife when she noted that "John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious." My opinion on what exactly his motives were, swayed between both possibilities throughout the story. I have finally concluded that John did want to help his wife, but was also somewhat afraid of her condition and therefore ignored it. At this time in history so little was known about mental illness, its causes, and its treatment that it is possible a husband's love for his wife could lead to a reclusive apathy. John may not have known how to "fix" his wife and therefore he was too afraid to become too attached to his ailing companion who now seems foreign. The narrator's blind obedience to her husband's mandates may simply be an excuse for the distance that has come between them. Even a crazy woman can recognize her husband's love for her. Although Gilman may have been trying to promote a more feminist message, I interpreted John’s involvement or lack thereof to be a lost husband in need of an answer for himself.
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Jess--I'll give John credit for thinking he was doing the right thing, but his conviction of the correctness of his medical treatment of his wife only underscores for me one of the central ironies of the story, how little men at that time knew about women. The story seems to me to point out how his conviction that he knows better than she does what is wrong with her and how she needs to be treated is itself one of the central problems, both of the story and of the nineteenth century itself. In some ways, it's kind of hard for us, looking back, to appreciate just how wide the gap was between men and women for so long.
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