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Marissa Cook
Professor von Wallmenich
ENG 320
10 April 2015
Insanity and Domesticity:
Renegotiating Power in The Yellow Wallpaper
The Yellow Wallpaper, a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the late
nineteenth century, tells the story of the wife of a physician, the first-person narrator, Jane.
Informed by Gilmans experiences with current medical treatments for female nervous disorders,
Jane undergoes the rest cure as prescribed by a contemporary doctor, S. Weir Mitchell. However,
under the constraints set upon her by the patriarchal society around her, a masculine and medical
discourse that offers Jane little room for putting forward a dissenting opinion, the text charts
Janes gradual degeneration into insanity. In a room with horrid yellow wallpaper, Jane begins to
dramatize her own experiences through the wallpaper, eventually determining that a woman
creeps behind the papers bars trying to escape their confines. From within patriarchal, medical
discourse, drawn from contemporary Victorian medical works, Jane transcends from
internalizing the discourse around her to finding avenues of resistance within it, through
appropriating discourses of madness and domestic life, and finally carving room for herself
within the discourse, inverting it so that she renegotiates the power relationship between herself
and John, or in fact women and men as a whole.
Janes physician husband, John, references multiple times his authority both as a husband
and a medical doctor, asserting a power relationship with his wife which Jane has internalized
and regularly parrots throughout her narration. He regularly makes such comments as, I am a
doctor, dear, and I know, when patiently explaining to Janerather than the other way around
that, you are gaining flesh and color, your appetite is better. I really feel much easier about

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you (Gilman 41). This manner of speaking seems to draw almost directly on the discourse
found in medical literature of Gilmans time, such as statements made by S. Weir Mitchell, the
very doctor who Gilman directly addresses in The Yellow Wallpaper (Quawas). In several
examples, Mitchell speaks in ways strikingly similar to John, phrases asserting that only the
doctor knows the real extent that a nervous illness can affect a woman and a household
(Mitchell 136). In other writings, such as those by Dr. William Acton on reproductive disorders,
the doctor asserts his authority in his description of the extent of ignorance on the subject of
female sexuality, of which there are so many false ideasand are so productive of mischief,
that he feels the need to give a statement that fits medical discourse, one which most medical
men will corroborate, drawing on their authority and his own to put forward knowledge that
will work to reinforce their authority (Acton 124). The text, especially in the speech of John,
reflects this pattern of discourse. Such statements imply that a physician, or in the case of the
text, John, possesses superior knowledge, even regarding the health of another individual. He
thus holds the power to declare Jane ill or well within the terms of his medical discourse. When
she suggests that her troubles may stem from a mental disorderoutside the realms of
appropriate medical discourse, the only word for which, within the discourse, might be
madnesshe immediately reproaches her and commands her to never for one instant let that
idea enter your mind! ... It is a false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician to tell
you so? (41). Again, he references his standing as a physician while diagnosing her feelings as
mere fancy. He continues to belittle her illness as a silly fancy and addresses Jane only with
pet names, little girl, blessed little goose (37), and my darling (41). Through such
gendered and medicalized discourse, he places Jane in an infantilized position, entirely under his

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authority, and renders any knowledge she might claim to possess as impotent within the realm of
masculine discourse.
Janes exclusion from this realm rests, according to masculine-dominated discourse of the
Victorian era, in Janes sex. Under the system of the nineteenth-century cult of domesticity, man
is defined against his counterpart, the weaker and irrational female (Quawas). This discourse of
gender, which Gilman appropriates in order to critique, appears also in medical documents,
particularly Mitchell, who discusses at length in his Wear and Tear, Or Hints for the Overworked
the many health dangers of even a very steady use of the female brain (138). He adds, there
comes a time when the matured man certainly surpasses the woman in persistent energy and
capacity for unbroken brain-work. If then she matches herself against him, it will be, with some
exceptions, at bitter cost (139). The official medical opinion that Gilman seeks to critique
clearly stands that women possess less faculties of rational thought and less strength to sustain
such endeavors than men, a discourse seen active in Johns opposition to Janes writing. In terms
of placing the womens sphere centrally in the house, works like The Ladies Guide to Health
and Disease claim that [m]any of the best mothers, wives, and managers of households, know
little of or are careless about sexual indulgences. Love of home, of children, and of domestic
duties are the only passions they feel (Kellogg 125-6). The womans home in Victorian
gendered discourse, dominated by men, presents women as belonging distinctly to the domestic
sphere. Meanwhile, Mitchell discusses motherhood and household duties in terms of a duty that
nature asks of a woman (Mitchell 141). In contrast to the regular discourse of female
characteristics, matched in Johns characterization of his wife as foolish, infantile, and given to
troubling fancies, John fits the expected masculine type: John is practical in the extreme. He has
no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things
not to be felt and seen and put down in figures (35). In complement with this rational austerity

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expected of a husband, the narration also gives a similarly brief, direct snapshot of Johns sister,
who forms perfectly to the domestic roles expected of a housewife: a perfect and enthusiastic
housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which
made me sick! (38). Janes additional reference to her own writing, her behavior in contrast to
Johns sister, intentionally sets her apart from the storys embodiment of Victorian womanhood.
Particularly in light of Janes illness, for which she must discipline herself to return to her proper
role (Quawas), Jane does not fit the mold required of her as a woman. However, placed outside
the strict binary of male and female and hence abnormal, no space exists for Jane to express her
discontent, apart from diagnosed hysteria. She is surrounded by patriarchal, often medical
discourse: the two male characters apparently most influential in her life, her husband and her
brother, and each a physician of high standing, repeat the same diagnosis of her condition.
They possess a superior knowledgein turn upholding their power, which in turn reinforces
their discourse and the knowledge they purport to haveand accordingly, infantilized, feminine
Jane is more like their ward than an independent individual. They both declare that there is
really nothing the matter with [Jane] but temporary nervous depressiona slight hysterical
tendency so, what is one to do to express disagreement (35)?
Janes condition has no mode of expression inside the discourse of Victorian medical
science and gender constructs, and so it must be spoken around and diagnosed with the
vocabulary available to them. John continually talks around the subject with confusing changes
in opinion, claiming that his wife shall be as sick as she pleases, that in fact she is not ill at all
and no one but [herself] can help [her] out of it (41, 40). Yet, he refuses her pleas to visit
friends and family and sternly reminds her to maintain control of herself and get better, and not
let any silly fancies run away with [her] (40). Janes state of hysteria, or perhaps her
discontentment with her role as a woman, which must be disciplined and corrected, exists in

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medical discourse as somewhere in between invalidism and a hypochondriac imagining, which
the woman could overcome if only she wanted (Quawas). As such, John never precisely defines
whether Jane is truly ill and, if not, what it is that he believes she must overcome. Jane remains
trapped without any means of communication within the discourse around her.
Meanwhile, surrounded by the discourse that never seems to offer a precise term or space
to describe her state, Jane internalizes the medical discourse that diagnoses and polices her. She
relays in various portions of the text claims of Johns care for her, such as, Dear John! He loves
me very dearly, and hates to have me sick (40). She provides further commentary with her
resigned conclusions, just this nervous weakness I suppose (41), and John laughs at me, of
course, but one expects that in marriage (35). In contemplating her euphemistically-named
nervous troubles, she also laments, It does so weigh on me not to do my duty in any way! I
meant to be such a help to John, a real rest and comfort, but here I am a comparative burden
already! (37). Jane accepts, at least on the surface, the patriarchal expectations of her behavior
as a woman, working to conform to the cult of domesticity that declares women the domestic
helpers of men. She has internalized this discourse and strives to follow its dictates.
However, she remains discontented, because her personal knowledge of herself and her
health contradicts that reinforced by masculine discourse. Multiple critics have commented on
the schism between self and society as illustrated in Jane. Rula Quawas, for instance, asserts that,
The narrator is torn asunder between her own personal feelings, which are indeed healthy and
positive, and the patriarchal societys view of what is proper and decent behavior for women.
Since she has internalized societys expectations of women, this conflict is felt as a schizoid
within herself. Indeed, Janes narration appears to cut back and forth between agreement and
quiet disagreement, as though in argument with herself. For example, she says that it is so hard
to talk to John about my case, to add quickly and more appropriately, because he is so wise,

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and he loves me so (41). When she attempts to speak with him about the prospect of visiting
friends, she prefaces the disagreement, with little apparent cohesion, with Dear John! He loves
me very dearly (40). She further expresses directlyor rather, as afterthoughtsher doubts of
the treatment prescribed her by her husband. After her explanation of the rest cure as dictated by
John, she comments, Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I think that congenial
workwould do me good. But what can one do? (35). In the last, resigned, and repeated
question, she returns to the internalized discourse that she maintains in most of her narration, but
the tension between what she thinks and what she says has already become apparent. In the midst
of the masculine and medical discourse used by her husband, her concerns must remain silent. As
she writes of such concerns, I would not say it to a living soul, of course (35).
As more signs of this tension, or schizoid, as Quawas calls it, appear, Jane begins to
identify further with the pattern in the rooms wallpaper and lapses further into what seems
irrationality with each increasingly fragmented passage. On the surface, it may seem that she has
merely succumbed to the pressures of the opposition that she feels between self and social
expectations, and numerous readings of the text have presented it as a degeneration of the
character under the weight of patriarchy, or even a fictional case-study of madness that could fit
neatly into the scientific discourse of the period (Seitler 70). In fact, Gilman often situated her
arguments in other works within dominant discourses of her time period, eugenics among others.
However, she also worked from within the discourse she used to turn the logic of patriarchy on
its head (64). Suggesting that The Yellow Wallpaper appropriates a scientific discourse of
hysteria and female madness and then uses it to paradoxically free the narrator requires little
stretch. As feminist critics often note, although externally she is clinically insaneinternally
she is, for the first time, devoid of that identity that her husband (and his patriarchal society) has
inscribed upon her (Bak). Others contest that Gilman presents insanity as a form of rebellion

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against the medical practices and the political policies that have kept women out of the
professions, denied them their political rights, and kept them under male control in the family
and the state (Quawas). Without any space for Janes personal knowledge within the discourse,
she resorts to rebelling against the patriarchal and medical discourse that has jailed and
diagnosed her. Janes madness, or perhaps the hysteria diagnosed in many contemporary women,
is used as a form of rebellion through the only means left to her.
Apart from her descent into madness, Jane requires some mode of conceptualizing and
communicating that personal knowledge which is denied her in male medical discourse. Thus,
she finds one other avenue: the domestic. At the beginning of the text, Jane discusses briefly her
illness and Johns treatment of it, then changes the subject with a chipper, I will let it alone and
talk about the house (35). She then almost immediately invests her attention in the hideous
pattern on the wallpaper in her room, which receives a lengthy description imbued with as many
conflicts as she feels trapped within the masculine discourse that surrounds her: dull enough to
confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and
when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide
plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions (36). Critics
have often suggested that the pattern of the wallpaper reflects the double-binds and suffocation
of a womans required role within patriarchal society (Quawas). The woman who later begins to
emerge, also, is invariably the narrator herself, since, In objectifying herself through this
imaginary woman, the narrator can free herself, if only in mind, from the external prison her
husband places her in (Bak). One can easily draw connections between Jane and her perceptions
of the woman in the wallpaper. After John reprimands her sternly for suggesting mental illness,
for instance, she watches the wallpaper for hours trying to decide whether that front pattern and
the back pattern really did move together or separately, as though attempting to determine

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whether or not she moved independently of the masculine discourse presented by John (42). She
further reflects of the wallpapers pattern, or constraining patriarchal discourse, You think you
have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back-somersault and
there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad
dream (42). All the while, the woman who slowly develops from the wallpaperJane herself,
trapped within the confines of patriarchal societyis all the time trying to climb through. But
nobody could climb through that patternit strangles so (44). Jane uses the wallpaper as a form
of communication, a discourse of her mental health outside the masculine realm of medical
science, and so in the only sphere left to her, that of the domestic. She resists the masculine
discourse that defines her from within the discourse itself, through the domestic realm outlined
as the sphere of women.
In spite of her resistance, Jane still remains within the discourse of patriarchy. Then,
however, she takes the masculine discourse as her own, beginning to invert it and consequently
renegotiate the power relationships between herself and John. This first begins prior to her direct
breakdown, when she lapses into secrecy in saying, I have found out another funny thing, but I
shant tell it this time! She takes the power of knowledge back from John and, this time, from
the reader. She has her own source of knowledge and will not share that power with anyone else.
Nearing the end of the text and at the height of Janes mental breakdown, she not only locks John
outside of the space which he locked her inside, but speaks to him using a similar language he
once used to address her, terming him a young man and speaking of him, or at least thinking of
him, as a hapless boy unable to open the door (46). She further addresses him as John dear, and
in the gentlest voice, as he had earlier addressed and soothed her in his patriarchal position of
power (46). Jane has taken her own knowledge and formulated a discourse that fits within that of
Johns, but nonetheless resists. In the midst of her inverted use of proper, male-dominated

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discourse, even an apparently rational statement such as, Besides, I wouldnt do it. Of course
not. I know well enough that a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued takes on an
almost satirical edge in light of her behavior, creeping, and little concern for propriety (46). The
final inversion comes when Jane narrates, Now, why should the man have fainted? (47) The
direct statement of the man rather than simply he or John points directly at the gendered
discourse that defines men as strong and women as weak. That John, a man, faints like a woman,
and that the woman in the room cannot fathom his irrationality, overthrows the power of the man
as put forward by masculine discourse and renegotiates the power relationships between them.
Jane, through areas of resistance found in the discourse itself, has managed to carve out a space
for her own knowledge, that which was allowed no room in the masculine and medical discourse
that surrounds her. In the end, she renegotiates the power relationship between herself and John
through the very discourse that once placed her under Johns authority.
Drawing on the discourses of Victorian medical and otherwise male-dominated society,
Gilman gives the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper a dissenting voice from within the
discourse, eventually coming to invert the power relationship between husband and wife, male
and female. Janes descent into madness and contemplation of the yellow wallpaper becomes her
rebellion and ultimate freedom. Ive got out at last, she declares to John in her moment of
triumph, freed from the constraints of society and now vocal within the discourse she has
subverted to her own ends. Andyou cant put me back!(47).

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Works Cited
Acton, William. The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs in Childhood Youth,
Adult Age, and Advanced Life. London: Churchhill, 1875. Print.
Bak, John S. "Escaping the Jaundiced Eye: Foucauldian Panopticism in Charlotte Perkins
Gilman's "the Yellow Wallpaper"." Studies in Short Fiction 31.1 (1994):
39. ProQuest. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. The Sandbox: Prose to Play with. Handout.
Critical Theory: ENG 320. (Prof. Laura von Wallmenich.) Alma College. Jan. 2015.
Mitchell, S. Weir. Wear and Tear, or Hints for the Overworked. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1887.
Print.

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Mitchell, S. Weir. Nervousness and Its Influence on Character. Doctor and Patient.
Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1904. Print.
Mitchell, S. Weir. The Evolution of the Rest Cure. The Journal of Nervous and Mental
Disease. 31.6 (June 1904): 368-73. Print.
Quawas, Rula. "A New Womans Journey into Insanity: Descent and Return in the Yellow
Wallpaper." AUMLA : Journal of the Australasian Universities Modern Language
Association.105 (2006): 35,53,147-148. ProQuest. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
Seitler, Dana. Unnatural Selection: Mothers, Eugenic Feminism, and Charlotte Perkins
Gilmans Regeneration Narratives. American Quarterly. 55.1 (Mar. 2003): 61-88.
Project Muse. Web. 7 Apr. 2015.