Recognising (With) the Narrator
The Yellow Wallpaper
On reading The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman- a short story written in a diary / journal form- it not only widened my scope of literary interpretation, but also touched something recognisable within me. The narrator, though unreliable, is someone who feels deeply and possesses an imagination so pervasive that ends up blurring the line between the outer and the inner world- between the real and the imaginary.
The narrator is a writer prohibited from writing due to what her husband calls her “hysterical tendencies”, as if the bird of imagination could be caged. She dwells in her own limitless sky, and when forced to submit, the longing for freedom slips her into fancies.
Reading from a personal perspective, I recall my younger self: in trying to deconstruct a complex world, my overwhelmed mind created a more comprehensible and decodable “reality” than the one outside, as the thought-form began to take on a life of its own.
The narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper, a woman in the late nineteenth century- when mental illnesses were not openly addressed- struggles to feel understood by her husband. She trusts his wisdom and decisions, yet there’s a mixed sense of love and fear when she speaks of him.
The Yellow Wallpaper speaks softly and wildly- to the narrator as a wallpaper, and to me as a story of breaking free and reclamation. The shaking, creeping, and tearing realities of the narrator’s mind are reflected through her changing connection with the wallpaper; as a reader, and someone of a sensitivity akin to hers, I could retrospect and reflect on how a mind so unique and colourful becomes the object of scrutiny for much of the world- how it becomes a source of shame for loved ones, and a recipient of profound misunderstanding, or sometimes worse, cruelty.
The world looks different to everyone, especially to a mind imbued with imaginative prowess. The difference comes with its own risks: there is fright alongside fascination in slipping into something more wonderful- a place where struggles of the world do not exist, where one feels free to feel deeply, where one can rejoice and weep without restraint, and be themselves, or be anyone at all.
The yellow wallpaper becomes the narrator’s itch, moving from disgust to fear; from curiosity to imagination; from obsession to reclamation; and finally into an all-consuming living entity. As she writes,
There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will.
You can read the original short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Picture Credits - Ruben Gregori on Unsplash