I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
After reading this story for the first time this past spring, I was convinced that the narrator killed herself. After reading this story a second time, I still hold that opinion.
Without a doubt, there are several different ways to look at this story. I however, want to look at the story in connection with the behavior typical of suicidal cases. (Makes sense doesn't it, because I do think she committed suicide, how else am I going to present my point?)
Suicide, as any expert will tell you, has warning signs. Such signs would not be possible if there isn't a similar connection between the behaviors of suicide cases. The warning signs for suicide, according to Befrienders.org, are as follows:
1.) Becoming depressed or withdrawn
2.) Behaving recklessly
3.) Getting affairs in order and giving away valued possessions
4.) Showing a marked change in behavior, attitudes or appearance
5.) Abusing drugs or alcohol
6.) Suffering a major loss or life change
Maybe I am alone in this, but I think that the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper shows the majority of these. The reason she is in the wallpapered room to begin with is because of her depression. Her reckless behavior comes in the form of the woman behind the wallpaper. As the story continues her attitudes towards John and his sister change. She doesn't want them to figure out the 'secret' of the wallpaper. Finally, her major life change is not being allowed to write, though she does in secret anyway. That leaves only two warning signs not accounted for.
I have heard various reasons both for and against her suicide. I am for it, because I think that even if she hasn't by the end of the story, she will because of the lack of resolution concerning the warning signs she exhibits.
YES, YOU ARE DEFINTELY ALONE! Go back and reread this semi-autobiographical short again. Just because some of the symptoms are parallel to suicidal tendencies doesn't exactly mean she commited suicide. In the end of the story she totally loses touch with reality and she is no longer an individual. She has become two people after she realizes that there have been people like her in this yellow wallpapered room. Her other alter-ego is known as Jane. At the end, when her husband breaks into the room he is taken by shock and practically passes out in front of her. She then creeps through the room as the other woman behind the wallpaper did and she walks in circles over her husband. If you actually took some time to read this story more carefully or read Gilman's biographies you would already known this. It is also made clear in some of Gilman's essays.
Posted by: poe at March 4, 2005 7:05 AMI also believe that the narrator commits suicide and feel that the text itself is instrumental in proving this.
"But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope--you don't get me out in the road there !"
'What is the matter?' he (John)cried. 'For God's sake, what are you doing!'
I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder.
'I've got out at last,' said I, 'in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!'
Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!
John, after finding the key to the door, comes into the room to find the body of his wife hanged by her hidden rope and faints. Because he faints beneath her path, she had to "creep over him every time!"
Whether you believe that the narrator actually did commit suicide or not is, for the most part, irrelevant. The real issue is that we know that Gilman, like her narrator, at least entertained thoughts of suicide because of her trapped role as a woman, expedited by her post-parted depresson.
Posted by: for suicide at April 9, 2005 8:55 AMI also believe that she did not commit suicide. Yes she had some of the warnings, but I think there was a different twist in the story than what you guys are thinking. I thought that she was already crazy. She led herself to believe that John was her husband but really wasn't. He was just her doctor. She was in a mental hospital. It says it plain as day with the barred windows, the bed being nailed down to the floor, and her "fake" husband never being there with her. You guys don't have to agree with me, but I'm just giving you all something to think about.
Posted by: AmBeR at September 22, 2005 6:29 PMI think she did commit suicide because if you read charollete perkins gilmans autobiography, she committed suicide. And if you change "creeping" with "swinging" it makes a lot more sense. why would a man whose wife has had to be kept in a room for depression faint if she was just walking around the room? And why would she need rope to walk around the room.
I think she commited suicide
"I also believe that the narrator commits suicide and feel that the text itself is instrumental in proving this.
"But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope--you don't get me out in the road there !"
'What is the matter?' he (John)cried. 'For God's sake, what are you doing!'
I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder.
'I've got out at last,' said I, 'in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!'
Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!
John, after finding the key to the door, comes into the room to find the body of his wife hanged by her hidden rope and faints. Because he faints beneath her path, she had to "creep over him every time!"
Whether you believe that the narrator actually did commit suicide or not is, for the most part, irrelevant. The real issue is that we know that Gilman, like her narrator, at least entertained thoughts of suicide because of her trapped role as a woman, expedited by her post-parted depresson."
You proved yourself why she did *not* commit suicide.
She "securely" fastened the rope. Now I don't know about you, but I don't consider a rope around my neck to "securely" fasten me anywhere. (she's the one securely fastened, not the rope). It's more likely the rope is around her waiste.
When John first comes in he says "What is the matter?" That's not the first thing you expect someone to say when they're hanging from the ceiling by their neck...nor do you expect them to say "For God's sake, what are you doing!"
Two more things: She actually talks after he comes in the room (which is actually what causes him to faint because he IS her husband). You can't talk when you're being hung by the neck with a rope, you're laryngitus is sealed shut. And even if she could really talk, why wouldn't he or her sister stop her from finishing the job?
Posted by: Humbug at March 7, 2006 1:13 PMWow,read her biography and then the story once more it will become clear this story is about the oppresion of society upon a woman.
Posted by: Tara at September 15, 2006 8:34 AMLike several things found in literature, this story could be interpreted many different ways. At first, I thought she'd merely "given into fancies" as her husband would call it and gone mad in thinking she was the woman she thought trapped behind the wallpaper. In class, we brought up that the woman she saw creeping around the grounds might be her own reflection in the windows. The fact she might have killed herself was also brought up. There are allusions to that in the story. Basically, it's one of those things that is matter of opinion. As for her talking as she was hanging, perhaps she spoke as a ghost rather than as she was dying. No need to put down people's ideas...
Posted by: Lexie at September 24, 2006 12:41 AMIn her autobiography I don't see what is mentioned of suicide. (though all of you do make a clear thesis to back that up).
But I do see the opression to women in that time and age.
The husband fainting was supposed to be a pun. Irony of a man acting in a feministic way. For back in that time, women fainted a lot! they carried smelling salts in their pockets in case that happened (mainly because of corsets). While men did not faint.
Creeping could be mentioned as swinging, yes. Or it can be mentioned as a way of her not being seen by society. For the women opressed by the decor of the wallpaper creeped about in the shadows, while in the light she stood still. (if you re-read the story, you see lighting has a huge impact of the story).
Another thing is, the rope was meant for Jennie. For she did not want anybody to tear down the wallpaper (or examine it) alive. The rope had no intention for the author itself.
But I do commend everyone on the thought of suicide, that is very good insight on that part. I didn't even process the thought in my mind ever!
Good Job.
hi the last time i tried to post it did not let me write i pushed enter fast
The Yellow Wallpaper was said to be written as an autobiography of charlotte Perkins Gilman's life. Many scholars have written on The Yellow Wallpaper and all point you to the direction of The wallpaper being a autobiography. Through my reading of a literature database the site says that charlotte perkins gilman had a baby in real life and also the woman in the story had a baby. In fiction and reality both women suffered nervous prostration now known as Post Partum Depression
Actually, The Yellow Wallpaper is not directly an autobiography. Yes, while it may bear some similarities to Charlotte Perkins Gilman's life, it was written to demonstrate the effects of the rest cure so often perscribed by S. Weir Mitchell. When Gilman went to Mitchell to cure her, as she called it, continuous nervous breakdown with a tendancy towards melencholia, he perscribed her with rest and to "live a domestic life as far as possible" and "never touch pen, brush, or pencil again" as long as she lived. After a few months of the "rest cure," Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper "with its embellishments and additions to carry out the ideal." She, herself, never suffered from hallucinations. She sent a copy of The Yellow Wallpaper to Mitchell, who later admitted to friends that the story had altered his treatment of neurasthenia. The story in Gilman's own words "was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven csrazy, and it worked."
And while Charlotte Perkins Gilman did die from suicide in 1934, 40 years after the publication of The Yellow Wallpaper, it was due to her advanced state of breast cancer, not from depression (and she was only depressed when she was near her ex-husband).
Posted by: Bethany at October 9, 2007 3:18 PM