Behind the Pattern · Literature
The psychological architecture of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper".
The room has been lived in by someone in distress - more than one, she suspects; the plaster dug out, the floor splintered, the wallpaper torn as though whoever was here before had nothing left to do but make a mark.
This room is the diagnosis that has been placed upon her. Not somewhere she is inside, something that is inside of her.
“There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will.”
This wallpaper is her attempt to abstract her state of mind, the internal view of how she perceives her own capacity. She is aware of the differences in the pattern it shows during the day and night, a time she is outside her husband’s reach.
It dances and calls to her during the night, begging for release; begging for her release. Her husband sleeps alongside her every night, deaf to its calling - it is something that only she is receptive to.
She can recognise others studying the pattern too, inspecting it throughout the day, and the anger dispensed when their inspections are interrupted. During this time, the pattern remains silent; there is no chance of escape.
“I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did?”
Her other glimpse of herself is found through her writing - another item of contraband dictated by her husband. It gives her a window to gaze from, the only window in the room that is not barred. She notices the women outside of this window, catching shimmers of them as they creep along, never wanting to be in sight for too long.
This is the only other place she is allowed to live outside the wallpaper - her only method of escape during the day, but still needing concealment when others are present. These are the same parts of her that call at night from the wallpaper. When the writing ceases, they are sent back inside the pattern to creep in the moonlight and plead for release.
“'I’ve got out at last. In spite of you and Jane”
“And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!”
Answering the call during a night alone, she breaks out of the prison of this room, destroying the very thing that was put in place to hold her and ensuring it can never be used against her again.
This is not a woman sinking into madness; this is a woman who fought back, took control, resisted, and liberated herself despite every attempt to suppress her.
She is free now to join the women outside the window; no longer imprisoned.