LEC052021. Gayathri M G. "Draft 2: Analysis of 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman".

 

Gayathri M G

Dr. Joseph Koyippally

Academic Writing

3 February, 2021.

                                                      Panopticism in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

            Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an American author, was a prominent feminist figure in the nineteenth century. She strongly voiced her opinion against the oppression of women in their domestic environment. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a semi-autobiographical short story published in The New England Magazine in January 1892. It narrates the story of a woman suffering from postpartum depression and the three months confinement in a room under the watchful eyes of the patriarchy which slowly leads her to insanity. The revolting yellow wallpaper in the room becomes the object of her obsession. This paper acts as a panoptic structure which affects the psyche of the narrator and results in the deterioration of her mental state.

            Panopticon was a type of architectural design proposed by Jeremy Bentham in the eighteenth century. This design created for prisons consisted of a central tower “…pierced with wide windows that open onto the inner side of the ring…” which places the inmates in a state of constant surveillance(Foucault 200). The unknowingness of whether they are being watched puts them in a state of unease.  The concept of panopticism introduced by Michel Foucault discusses how this fear can produce docile bodies controlled through the mind. As a result, like Foucault states in Discipline and Punish(1975), “visibility is a trap”(200). Panopticism can be seen throughout the society. In literature, this concept can be seen often. Some of the examples include 1984, The Great Gatsby and The Hunger Games. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman uses this element to delineate the oppression faced by women in the society.

            The narrator moves along with her husband, John to a country mansion for a period of three months. He states that the fresh air would help her nervous breakdown. The room where she stays at the top of the house has barred windows and rings in the walls. It turns out to be a type of confinement for her. It is the panopticon where she is constantly watched by her husband and his sister. The wall is covered with a yellow wallpaper. “The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow,…with a sickly sulphur tint.” She hates the wallpaper as it stares at her with “two bulbous eyes.” Slowly, she starts becoming obsessed with the wallpaper and closely observes its patterns to the extent that she hallucinates images in it. Thus, the wallpaper turns out to be a panoptic symbol which leads to the deterioration of her mind.

            The narrator is not allowed to write as her imagination would only worsen her nervous state. The tiredness, mood swings, fretfulness and dark thoughts all point to the struggles she faces with herself. John belittles her when she voices her worry about the disease and talks to her in a patronizing way. Left with no other way to express her emotions, she starts looking inside herself. Slowly, her mind drifts to wild fancies to provide a solution to the mystery of the wallpaper. At first, she sees bars in the paper. Then, she notices a vague figure which materializes into a woman. Entering into the stage of complete madness, she comes to the conclusion that the woman inside the bars in the wallpaper is herself. She peels off the wallpaper trying to rescue the woman. In a way, the woman in the wallpaper is a symbol of her position in a patriarchal society where she is in fetters. The panoptic symbol of the wallpaper which leads her into madness also becomes her source of enlightenment which helps her break off the chains of patriarchy.

          The short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is based on the personal experience of the author. It is a response to the widespread “rest cure” common in the nineteenth century. Gilman was suffering from depression which became worse after giving birth to her daughter. Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, the American physician and author who pioneered the “rest cure” for nervous prostration, treated her in the spring of 1887. The treatment, which involved total inactivity on the part of the patient, drove Gilman to the edge of insanity. It is to create an awareness of the harm caused by this treatment that she wrote the story. She also uses it as a tool to point out the way women are treated. The panoptic element in the short story declares how the constant surveillance and judgement from the society affects the women psychologically.

                                                               Works Cited

Borders, Shelby. “Foucauldian Panopticism: The Gaze in Selected 19^th Century Literature”.         

    2013. https://digitalcommons.winthrop.edu/honorstheses/14. Accessed 3 Feb. 2021.

Foucault, Michel. “Panopticism” from Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New            

    York: Pantheon Books,1977.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper”. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980.