Journal 18: Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Michelle Romero
Eng 48b
Dr. Scott Lankford

"The Yellow Wallpaper"

"One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curved for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide--plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions."

This quote is a description of the pattern of the wallpaper.
I think it is important to notice that the author uses the word "pattern" often throughout the story. We say, "The fabric of society." I think Gilman is describing the pattern in the fabric of American society when she describes the wallpaper. Also, because it is a pattern, it repeats itself, like history is said to repeat itself.

In this case, Gilman is suggesting that American society commits suicide through its contradictions. I like to compare this idea with one from Stephen Crane's "The Blue Hotel" when he ends with his characters realizing how each played a role in the death (or persecution) of the Swede. In Crane's story, the Swede was the marginalized, lesser person who was inevitably put to death by those around him. Gilman takes it one step further by saying that society commits suicide. She does not say that society is successful at destroying the people it sets out to destroy (though other passages suggest this), she instead illustrates a loss for society as a whole. For this to be possible, women would have to play an important role in society. This is what she is implying in this quote. The oppression of women is not only damaging to women, but is damaging to the greater good of the whole society, for they will too lose what she could have contributed and those consequences can not always be measured.

Later she reveals the “sub-pattern” behind the wallpaper, the figure of a woman which can only be seen in certain lights and even then, not very distinctly. This again contributes to the idea that the wallpaper would represent the mainstream society. Women are behind this dominant image, (even trapped behind) somewhere in the “sub-pattern” where they are only sometimes seen. Again, it all contributes to the feelings of women at the time and their role in relation to society.