Metaphor and Imagery

                                             The Garden

                                                           (Garden Vines Wallpaper, 2013)

The garden is a significant metaphor to discuss. Usually overlooked the garden is traditionally a Biblical metaphor, relating to both the female body and the female sex organ (Gruber, 2007); which tie in with contemporary critiques interpretation that The Yellow Wallpaper focuses on women's sexual repression.

The possibilities for humanity are endless, and this is represented through the imagery of the garden. The protagonist initially describes the garden as well kept, beautiful and blooming 'Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deep shaded arbours, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees' (Perkins Gilman, C. 2013: p3) yet as the story unfolds the narrators perception  of the garden has changed from positive to negative imagery (subliminally noting the narrators decline into madness). She eventually fears the outside world and retreats to the wallpaper as a form of comfort. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wanted to represent the possibilities of the female sex, that they were restricted by a patriarchal society during the 19th and early 20th century.

                                            The Bed

Another overlooked metaphor within The Yellow Wallpaper is the bed. The bed can represent the 19th and early 20th century where culture and all its aspects are dominated by men; it can also be associated with the previous metaphor, the garden and its affiliation with female sexual repression. The story presents a very patriarchal society, every action is determined by men and their influence, it is the narrators husband (John)that is her doctor, her husband that addresses her with the rest cure and her husband refuses to changes his wife's room even though she is unhappy where she is placed.  The marital relationship proves to be very traditional, the role of the man is as head of the family the role of the woman was to be a dutiful wife and mother. The bed is nailed to the floor 'And there is nothing left but that great bedstead nailed down, with the canvas mattress we found on it' (Perkins Gilman, C. 2013: p10) it shows the bed as an antique and immovable which represents a fixed traditional dominance, while still fulfilling its purpose. The bed can also represent intimacy and is hence used as a repressive measure and further sexual dominance, here Gilman has used the bed as a form of control and John too uses this control to aid his wife to conform to an idealistic wife and mother.

                                   The Yellow Wallpaper

The yellow wallpaper is the main ambiguous metaphor of this short story. The wallpaper is seen as a text that needs to be decrypted and understood this is what the narrator eventually tries to do as it affects her directly. The wallpaper takes on many representation one being the narrators depressive illness 'The colour is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight' (Perkins Gilman, C, 2013: p2) a very unpleasant image. There is an association between the visual pattern of the wallpaper, the smell of the yellow and the feel of the paper (tracing the pattern) is affecting her senses (and her mind). The pattern of the wallpaper is formless and it fascinates the narrator as she attempts to figure out how it is organised; and within the pattern focuses on the desperate woman looking for an escape behind the patterned wallpaper imprisoned by the patterned bars of the wallpaper (insanity breaking free) just as the room imprisons the narrator. The wallpaper can also represent the structure of tradition and family which are areas the narrator finds herself trapped; it is further understood that the 'domestic' wallpaper is used as a symbol of domestic life, a life which 19th century centred their life on. Here the domestic symbol is a trap for the narrator. The restrictive pattern of the wallpaper is fed by the restrictions placed upon the narrators mind and body through a male dominated world in which she has to live, where her only escape is through her writing which ends up not satisfying her needs as she resides to her own imagination; and she tears at the wallpaper freeing her insanity, nothing is forced upon her, here she has her own opinions like she should have in the real world.