FREE ESSAY ON YELLOW WALLPAPER: THE NAMELESS NARRATOR

YELLOW WALLPAPER: THE NAMELESS NARRATOR

Erin Kate Ryan
7 November 2000
Major Women Authors
Short Paper
The Unnamed Woman
Name, Identity and Self in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents in the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" a narrator of
dubious identity. If a reader infers that the reference at the end of the story to "Jane"
is indeed self-reflexive, a dichotomy between the Jane of which she speaks and the
character who creeps about the room becomes apparent. This division within the single
heroine can be best understood when viewed as such: within this nameless speaker are in
fact two women, and as the actions of one recede the other becomes dominant. Indeed, the
reader sees two separate identities, or selves, within the narrator's captive body: the
proper-Jane persona, the suitably-named, dutiful and lucid wife of Dr. John; and the
nameless, savage and hysterical woman, a reflection of whom the raconteur sees lurking
behind the wallpaper's exterior pattern. As proper-Jane's affectations dissipate, those
of her unsociable doppelganger fluidly fill in the gaps in the speaker's psyche.
The protagonist in "The Yellow Wallpaper" provides the reader with very few concrete
details of her person. She is a woman: mother, daughter, sister, cousin, sister-in-law
and physician's wife. She is an "ordinary" person. She is-if one were to attempt a
succinct moniker-Mrs. John. Yet, this Mrs. John-this mother, this wife, this
Jane-gradually discards the traits which adorn a decorous woman of society. 
The primal, villainous character Mrs. John becomes at the end of the story embodies
everything that is not acceptable in Victorian society. She neglects her child, abandons
her household "duties" , becomes increasingly paranoid and believes that she knows her
medical condition better than her doctors. In addition to her near-maniacal obsession
with the yellow wallpaper, the speaker begins staying awake all night and sleeping
through the day. She at times creeps about during the daytime, an action she admits is
hardly commonplace. The narrator also adopts a cynical and distrustful stance regarding
John and her sister-in-law Jennie ("It does not do to trust people too much" ), an
attitude that certainly does not befit a naive and delicate gentlewoman of the time. The
trademark of a gentlewoman, her good name-upon which relies her reputation-is the first
casualty of the speaker's progression into her second self.
Due to the customs of the narrator's 19th century patriarchal society, her surname
(which, of course, was her father's) was taken from her at marriage. Yet, although Mrs.
John's last name is important to her proper-Jane persona, she had no agency in its
replacement with that of her husband's. So while this partial loss of legal identity may
be a factor in the speaker's transition of self, it is not an injury exclusive to this
story's heroine. However, throughout the context of the story, the reader sees John
further attempt to steal from the narrator her given name as well. In endowing her with
the pet names "darling," "little girl" and "blessed little goose," he succeeds in
perpetuating the separation of his wife's sense of self from her name and its
corresponding identity. Indeed, humans, pets and even inanimate objects (e.g. cars, boats
and estates) are given proper names. To relinquish from the protagonist her name is to
effect a form of debasement, and to place her beneath even a favorite dog. It follows
that this defilement may be a cause in the narrator's creeping about, an act that is not
only animalistic, but which places her physical self as low as her emotional self has
been ordered.
In addition, John even goes so far as to address the speaker in the third person ("'Bless
her little heart!' said he with a big hug, 'she shall be as sick as she pleases!'" ),
effectively creating a split between his frail and proper wife, and the woman to whom he
is speaking. This is a step the narrator later takes herself, saying, "'I've got out at
last...in spite of you and Jane.'" 
Once her names are stripped from her, the protagonist is left with no concise description
of her personal identity. She attempts to give a name to her developing condition, her
emerging self, and is halted mid-sentence by John. "'I beg of you, for my sake and for
our child's sake, as well as your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea
enter your mind!'" he cries in protest. His reaction is not unfitting to a society
wherein the insane are vilified and locked away from the general population in
overcrowded institutions. Thus Mrs. John is condemned to a societal form of anonymity;
she has lost her former title and the person she is becoming is so aberrant to her class
that it simply cannot be given a name. 
The central character's propensity for creeping around in the daylight is symptomatic of
her crisis of identity, and not merely due to the act's visceral and base aspects. The
furtiveness suggested by the creeping echoes the mysterious quality of anonymity, and the
fact that the action is committed in full view of the sun reflects the narrator's
unchanging physical form. Explicitly, the contradiction between attempting to be
secretive in broad daylight parallels that of becoming a different person within the same
skin. The literal truth is undeniable in both cases: despite the surreptitiousness of the
Mrs. John's creeping, she is still visible; and despite her mental and emotional changes,
the character is still Mrs. John. Yet, the contrary is also validated within the text-the
heroine locks the door so as not to be seen as she creeps , just as the reader is certain
that the proper-Jane persona has been usurped by this nameless and hysterical spirit.
The character herself indicates the completion of the transformation at the conclusion of
"The Yellow Wallpaper." "I wonder if they all came out of the wallpaper as I did?" she
muses. "I suppose I'll have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that
is hard!" she continues. It is apparent to the reader that these reflections signify a
total transference of consciousness: Mrs. John has never been farther from her
proper-Jane persona than she is as she creeps about the bedroom, celebrating her
liberation from the wallpaper pattern.
Thus, the unnamed woman in "The Yellow Wallpaper" meets the challenge of her anonymity:
she progresses from a society woman without proper identity to an inverted version of a
Victorian lady, one so egregious as not to be acknowledged by appellation. Through the
loss of her name, the dismissal of her former affectations and the emergence of her
uncultured (yet not inhuman) alter ego, Mrs. John becomes the unnamed victim of the
nameless consequences of an unidentified disorder.