Yellow Wallpaper The Nameless Narrator Essays -

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 na?ve 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