The Yellow Wallpaper Character Analysis

Towards the end of the story is when the narrator’s name is disclosed and we are told it is Jane a wife to doctor John. Women have very strong instincts that can direct them towards the right direction and sensing danger but the position they are put by men does not allow them to exercise their potential in full. Instead, they are required to be submissive and obedient to male figures. Such traditional acts rendered women living in full fear of the punishment they could receive from men if they failed to follow instruction and went against any of their male counterparts’ suggestions and directives. Victorian Era practices in Psychology negatively affected Jane in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and worsened her mental state.

Despite having a luxury life, social life is of importance because it helps in sharing and exchanging of ideas. All rather, at times Jane could spend days and nights alone in the big house while John was attending to his duties that he put more attention to than family and society. “John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious. I am glad my case is not serious!” Jane could comfort herself whenever she needed help but could not find anyone around to lend a hand (Gilman). Jane played a ‘fool’ part in coping up with her husband who believed to be always right in every decision made. “I am, unfortunately, one of those much-berated New England women who have learned to think as well as feel; and to me, at least, marriage means more than a union of hearts and bodies--it must mean minds, too,” Jane laments after discovering that John put more value in his social class and work than the feelings of his wife (Gilman).

Other characters’ perspectives about Jane The medical practitioners working together with John had the idea that anything said by him was final and could not be revoked. Hence, due to lack of enough knowledge in medicine during the era Jane and John were living, more consultation and experience was the major factor towards a better healing and prescription of medicine. Since John was rigid and was a bully-type of man, all went wrong to Jane by being advised to take a “rest cure. ” However, the society thins that Jane lives a flamboyant life because she is a wife to a doctor but the hardships she goes through under “The Yellow Wallpaper” cannot enable her to enjoy anything since she is treated like a prisoner who only gets to the public upon John’s authority.

Were it not to be the manner John was so much carried by social responses on the manner he treated his wife, it could have been better to make her his queen and show the world that wives mater and deserve better. It has been well illustrated by Jane that women can be very obedient and give respect even in difficult times. Jane could spend days and nights alone giving John enough time to attend to calls of duty. It is high time that women should come out of the masking “Yellow Wallpaper” and face life with reality and stop pretending when situations ate unbearable. Also, men should learn to loosen their ego and allow corrections and accept collaborations. Print. John, Markus, et al.