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Women in Western society have been expected to
do what men and their husbands ask of them with no
questioning of authority; popular twentieth-century
depictions of the “nuclear family” show the bread-winning
husband governing what his submissive wife does and does
not do. A conflict over marital authority is found in Charlotte
Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” where the narrator is
battles the pressures of several authorities which eventually
lead to her breakdown. If there is no balance in a marriage and
one partner has total authority, then that marriage becomes
nothing more than an institution within which the obedient
partner is a prisoner. An analysis of “The Yellow Wallpaper” in
the context of Phillip K. Zimbardo’s prison experiment shows
the tremendous power that ideologies of obedience and
authority have over people, specifically the authority that a
man has over his wife, who becomes his prisoner.
Many forces control the narrator in “ The Yellow
Wallpaper”—the most obvious being her husband, John. In
the beginning of the story, she goes along with everything
her husband tells her—even if she does not agree with
it. Because he is a physician, she does not go against his
authority. While she may, in fact, feel perfectly fine after
writing, she tells herself that she is weary because John has
forced the idea into her head. She says, “I sometimes fancy
that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society
and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is
to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes
me feel bad” (Gilman 577). She respects his authority and
complies with his demands.
These actions are similar to those of the students in
Zimbardo’s prison experiment who were given the roles of
prisoners and guards in order that scientists could more fully
examine obedience and authority in prisons. Zimbardo tells
the reader, “Act not, want not, feel not and you will not get
into trouble in prison-like situations” (371). The narrator’s
compliance with her husband’s demands illustrates how she
is similar to a prisoner. Zimbardo says, “The prisoners were
forced to obtain permission from the guard for routine and
simple activities such as writing letters, smoking a cigarette
or even going to the toilet; this elicited from them a childlike
dependency” (366). Like these prisoners, Gilman’s narrator
feels controlled by her husband and is frustrated by her
dependency. She says, “I get unreasonably angry with John
sometimes. I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive…But John
says if I feel so [angry], I shall neglect proper self-control; so
I take pains to control myself—before him, at least” (Gilman
578). Here we see that she begins occasionally to defy his rule
when he is not around, but she does not openly disobey him.
For example, she ends an enjoyable activity for herself, saying,
“There comes John, and I must put this away—he hates to
have me write a word” (578). Her actions are like those of
a prisoner who may go against the rules but is completely
obedient when the guards come around because they have
the power to punish, beat, or even kill the prisoners.
Similar to the defiant prisoner and despite John’s
continual objections to her writing, the narrator not only
continues her journal, but she also begins to observe the
wallpaper in her room more closely. She describes it as “dull
enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough
to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow
the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly
commit suicide—plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy
themselves in unheard of contradictions” (578). At first glance,
she finds the wallpaper repulsive and wants nothing to do
with it--just as she tries to avoid the demands of society and
her husband. She says, “At first he meant to repaper the room,
but afterward he said that I was letting it get the better of me,
and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give
way to such fancies” (579). Thus, she is forced to live with the
wallpaper no matter how repulsed by it she is. Similarly, she
is forced to live in a society and with a man who suppresses
her thoughts and ideas and from whom she is trying to break
free. She, like the prisoners, is forced to live in a secluded place
which she may not like but cannot change unless action is
taken, for “Everyone and everything in the prison was defined
by power” (Zimbardo 370). John, who acts as the defining
power in the narrator’s life, is the authority that is reflected
in her interpretation of the wallpaper.
Unexpectedly, the narrator gains an interest in the
wallpaper. She notices that its most stringent quality is the
pattern. This pattern, like the authority which governs her,
seems to be pointless, for she says, “I know a little of the
principle of design, and I know this thing was not arranged
on any laws of radiation, or alternation or repetition, or
symmetry, nor anything else that I ever heard of. It repeated,
of course, by the breadths, but not otherwise” (Gilman 581).
Soon after close examination of the wallpaper, she formulates
her own opinions and sees the difference between what
she wants and what her husband thinks is right for her.
She—even by simply writing—is acting by her own free will
and using her judgment to decide what she will and will not
do. Instead of behaving like the subservient woman and wife
often characterized as ideal in the late nineteenth century,
she thinks on her own, but she has not yet fully developed
the capacity to do all of the things she wants to do on her
own without the approval of John. She reveals this when she
says, “I don’t know why I should write this. I don’t want to. I
don’t feel able. And I know John would think it absurd. But I
must say what I feel and think in some way—it is such a relief!”
(582). We can see here that the narrator has begun to separate
from the actions typical of the prisoners. While Zimbardo’s
prisoners acted “like compliant sheep, carrying out mindless
orders with total obedience and even being cursed by fellow
prisoners” (369), Gilman’s narrator—although not completely
independent—begins to form her own opinions and act as
she wants.
As the story continues, the narrator observes the
wallpaper even more closely, especially at night. She notices
the figure of a woman in the wallpaper, and at night, it looks
like it is behind bars and is trying to escape. This woman is
like the narrator’s thoughts, ideas, and opinions—constantly
struggling to break away from the prison within which they
are entrapped: the prison of obedience. They are both locked
away under an authority—the narrator by her husband and
society and the woman by the confines of the wallpaper. Both
try to escape but are like Zimbardo’s prisoners who rioted
and rebelled but were reprimanded by the guards and forced
back into their cells and into their world of compliance.
Still, a part of the narrator’s confusion is the pattern in the
wallpaper: “You think you have mastered it, but just as you
get well underway in following, it turns a back-somersault
and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down,
and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream” (584). Similarly,
when the narrator tries to gain freedom from the controls, she
is reprimanded. When she expresses her opinions to John, he
replies, “There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a
temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy” (583).
By conforming to her husband’s and society’s demands, she
is aiding their suppression of her freedom and opinions.
Zimbardo tells us, “Slowly the prisoners became resigned
to their fate and even behaved in ways that actually helped
to justify their dehumanizing treatment at the hands of the
guards” (369).
However, the narrator soon begins to get healthier as
she continues to observe the wallpaper and lets it become
a constant part of her thoughts: “Life is much more exciting
now than it used to be. You see I have something more to
expect, to look forward to, to watch” (Gilman 585). She is
able, through her analysis of the wallpaper, to develop and
examine her own thoughts and opinions. This is beneficial
both to her physical and mental well-being. We see here that
the narrator’s outlook on her situation diverges from that
of the prisoners. For the prisoners, “[as] the guards became
more aggressive, prisoners became more passive; self -
aggrandizement
was met with self-depreciation, authority
with helplessness” (Zimbardo 368). The narrator’s renewed
sense of life caused by the purpose she has found lets her
discover the truth behind the pattern in the wallpaper, or
more specifically, the authorities which have been controlling
her. Throughout the story, her ideas, her opinions, and her
spirit have wanted to escape, but they were locked up by
John’s and society’s predetermined ideas of what she as a
woman should not do.
By tearing down the wallpaper, the narrator has liberated
herself and torn down the constraints placed on her by others’
intellectual and emotional controls. The narrator’s final act of
freedom in the story is her creeping around the room. She is
completely free in her room because it is her own separate
world with no authorities to govern her. Once she steps
outside of the room, she is no longer independent—she
must rely on her husband or other men to guide her along
the right path because that is what society tells her she must
do. Thus, she creeps around the room again and again. She
is no longer restricted by John or by society. Rather, she has
become her own authority, deciding what she wants to do.
As she is creeping around the room, John enters, and she
tells him, “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!”
(Gilman 588). She has, in an emotional sense, made a jailbreak
from the prison in which she was held. Being a woman, she
will always be labeled as a prisoner on the outside world, but
she will be free in spirit because she has realized and acted
on the power of her thoughts.
The imprisonment of Gilman’s narrator in “The Yellow
Wallpaper” and the imprisonment of the subjects in
Zimbardo’s prison experiment exhibit several similarities but
also some differences. While all the prisoners were trapped
in a world of obedience, they handled their situations
differently. The prisoners were let go only because many
were getting sick and the experimenters put a halt to the
experiment. Yet, real prisoners would not be let go if they
were unhappy or sick. The narrator, however, sets herself
free, both from the confines of her controlling husband and
from the ideas society has about her subservient role as a
wife. While times have certainly changed and people’s ideas
concerning the roles of women have become more liberal,
there is still room for improvement. For many still believe
that a woman’s place is only in the home and her primary
duty is to be obedient to her husband, performing his every
request. Zimbardo concludes his essay with the following
thought: “The physical institution of prison is but a concrete
and steel metaphor for the existence of more pervasive, albeit
less obvious, prisons of the mind that all of us daily create,
populate and perpetuate” (375). Until we achieve
a balance of power, there will be no equality among the
sexes in marriage, and women will continue to be prisoners
in their lives.
Works Cited
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The Story and
Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Ed. Ann Charters. Boston,
MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1999. 577-588.
Zimbardo, Phillip K. “The Stanford Prison Experiment.” Writing and
Reading Across the Curriculum. Ed. Laurence Behrens and Leonard
J. Rosen. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 2000. 363-375.
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