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The New Woman in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”
First published in 1892 in the New England Magazine, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by
leading feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents the New Woman, a fictional feminist figure
cultivated during the fin de siècle, or the turn of the century. In contrast with Victorian norms,
the New Woman defied men’s expectation of women to function solely as a “mother, daughter,
sister, wife,” isolated within the domestic sphere (qtd. Welter 152). “It was believed that while
the world outside the home, with its highly competitive character, brutal environment and
fluctuating fortunes, was a man’s sphere, the home, the moral sanctuary of society was the
temple of woman” (Quawas 1). Women in the latter half of the nineteenth century not only
refused but raised complaints against the cult of true womanhood (1). While Quawas declares
Gilman’s narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” the New Woman, rebelling through insanity, I
argue that “The Yellow Wallpaper” serves as a warning cry for New Women, cautioning them
against losing their sanity to a society that is not yet ready for their existence.
Gilman’s narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is, at first, bound by the cult of true
womanhood. Composed of four attributes, including piety, purity, submissiveness and
domesticity, “only those women adhered to such qualities were believed to be happy, contented
and powerful in their home” (Quawas 1). During the Victorian era, women were expected to
serve as the child rearers and housekeepers, “maintain[ing] the domestic sphere as a cheerful,
pure haven for their husbands to return to each evening” (1). The narrator attempts to comply
with her husband’s demands, as he has
Absolutely forbidden [her] to “work” until [she] is well again … He says that with [her]
imaginative power and habit of story-making, a nervous weakness like [hers] is sure to
lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that [she] ought to use [her] will and good sense
to check the tendency. (1392-1394)
Taken care of by her husband, the narrator “feel[s] basely ungrateful not to value it more,” giving
in to the attributes defined by the cult of true womanhood (1392).
While bound by the cult of true womanhood, the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper”
finds the Victorian standards impossible to fulfill. Suffering from “nervous depression,” the
narrator is unable to care for her child, rejecting the expectations set by the cult of true
womanhood (Gilman 1394). She is compelled by her physician husband to rest in a small yellow
room described as an “atrocious nursery” (1392). With windows barred, the room becomes a jail
cell, and her husband, John, the jailer (1393, Quawas 7). Constructed by men, this “nursery” is
meant to nurture the perfect woman, in compliance with the cult of true womanhood. In defiance,
the narrator does not approve of the yellow wallpaper concealing the walls: “I never saw a worse
paper in my life. One of those sprawling, flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin”
(Gilman 1393). The narrator is hence defined as “sick” by John. She disagrees, believing “that
congenial work with excitement and change, would do [her] good” (1392).It is in this statement
that the narrator asserts that she is capable of more than her domestic livelihood allows (Quawas
7). In response, the narrator “write [s] in spite of them,” transitioning into the rebellious New
Woman.
Transitioning from the Victorian Woman, the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper”
undergoes a transformation to become the New Woman. The New Woman was a term first
utilized in Sarah Grand’s 1894 “The New Aspect of the Woman Question.” In it, Grand
describes women’s new role to man:
Men, having no conception of himself as imperfect from the woman’s point of view, will
find this difficult to understand, but we know his weakness, and will be patient with him,
and help him with his lesson. It is the woman’s place and pride and pleasure to teach the
child, and man morally is in his infancy. (Grand 90)
Like the New Woman, the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” prepares to teach her husband a
lesson and “astonish him,” as he, come the end of the short story, faints in response to the
narrator’s transformation (Gilman 1402).
Enslaved by Victorian social norms, Victorian women free themselves from the
wallpaper, transforming into the New Woman. The yellow wallpaper is suggestive of oppressive
Victorian standards, as Gilman writes that, in the moonlight, the woman behind the wallpaper
“takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard,” trying to escape the constraints of traditional
society (1400). Gilman offers readers a critique of Victorian norms, as she declares the design
“silly” (1395). While some women become victim to suicide by asphyxiation, as “the pattern
strangles them off and turns them upside down, and makes their eyes white,” others survive and
are freed from their physical and metaphorical prison by night to “skulk” around the garden,
assuming the position of the New Woman (1400, 1395).
The narrator removes the wallpaper from the walls so as to free herself from Victorian
standards and finally become the New Woman. She explains to her husband, “‘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!’”
(1403). In the previous quote, Gilman reveals that the narrator was one of the women confined
by the wallpaper, and, therefore, confined by Victorianism. Like the creeping women in her
garden, the narrator survives and proceeds to follow suit, but loses her sanity to neurosis, a
common diagnosis for Victorian women who have been oppressed by Victorian norms (Quawas
5). While insane, Women and Madness by psychologist Phyllis Chesler suggests that these
women are “failed but heroic rebels against the constraints of a narrow femininity, pilgrims ‘on a
doomed search for potency,’ whose insanity is nothing more than a label or a tag applying to
gender norms and violations, a penalty for ‘being female’” (9). Chesler asserts that women,
victim to the oppression of society, are doomed to fail. Regardless of the likeliness of failure,
though, Gilman’s narrator rebels, becoming the New Woman.
Gilman’s short essay “Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper?” describes the personal
experiences that inspired the short story. Being diagnosed with melancholia, her physician’s
advice was to “‘live as domestic a life as possible;’ to ‘have but two hours’ intellectual life a
day,’ and ‘never to touch a pen, brush, or pencil as long as I lived’” (Gilman 1403). For three
months she followed his instructions, at first complying with Victorian standards before finally
plunging into insanity, herself. She cautions others against losing their sanity to a society
unprepared for the New Woman (1404).
“The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman serves as a warning cry for
New Women, a fictional feminist figure created during the fin de siecle era. Inspired by personal
experiences, Gilman cautions women against losing their sanity to a society that is not yet ready
for their existence.
Works Cited
Gilbert, Sandra, and Susan Gubar. The Norton Anthology Of Literature By Women: The
Tradition In English. New York, W.W. Norton, 2007
Grand, Sarah. “from Sarah Grand, ‘The New Aspect of the Woman Question’ (1894).” The Fin
De Siécle: A Reader in Cultural History C.1880-1900, Edited by Sally Ledger and Roger
Luckhurst, Oxford University Press Inc., 2000, pp. 88-90.
Quawas, Rula. “A New Woman’s Journey into Insanity: Descent and Return in The Yellow
Wallpaper.” Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature
Association, vol. 228, 2006, pp. 35-53.