The Protagonist’s Physical and Social Conditioning in Charlotte Perkins :: English Literature

The Protagonists Physical and Social Conditioning in Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The chickenhearted Wallpaper.The wife, protagonist, in The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte PerkinsGilman, is trapped. Suffering from a slight hysterical tendency (p676), an affliction no one really understands, her husband, aphysician, prescribes a treatment, which offers her little birth tobe well again. Her condition is further aggravated by limitations ofher social role as his wife. She is confined, controlled and devaluedby her husband. She is powerless to renegotiate her situation. She istrapped by her treatment, her environment and her social role as awife, with no hope of change. Given the hopelessness of her situation,she chooses to overpower what she can defeat, a figment of herimagination.The setting is a colonial mansion, which the husband, ass, has rentedas a place of respite for her recovery. It is run down and neglected,like his wife run down from her illness and emotionally neglected,as h er desires atomic number 18 overruled by his practicality. The mansion has sufferd children in the past. The nursery serves as the couplesbedroom, where the windows are barred (p 677), to prevent the children from injuring themselves from a fall. Like the children, she is protected and imprisoned. This atrocious nursery (p 677) is covered with a smouldering unclean yellow (p 677) wallpaper, which becomes her obsession. Surrounding the mansion is plenty of fresh air, an aspect of hertreatment. But the wife suspects an air about the house -- an air ofan unwanted presence. Being isolated, the mansion is a perfect placefor her confinement, another aspect of her treatment. Her husband hasprescribed a version of the rest bring back1. His rest cure amountsto being idle. The wife is a writer with artistic sensibility. She isdeeply offended by the yellow wallpaper and its sprawling flamboyantpatterns committing each artistic sin (p 677). She needs an outletto express herself, through writ ing, but is prevented from doing so,as part of her rest. However, she still writes, covertly. John is aphysician, an expert on physical illness. Being practical, he is notpredisposed to be an expert on the artistic temperament. She disagreeswith her treatment, but remains silent on that issue, displayingappropriate wifelike behaviours.To be appropriate, to exhibit proper self-control (p 676) isrequired as his wife in the nineteenth century. She is the propertyof her husband and must appear to submit to his will. John is, bymodern standards, a control freak -- a well intentioned control freak.He controls her environment by choosing the mansion and the choice of