The Yellow Wallpaper

by

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Self-Expression, Miscommunication, and Misunderstanding Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Mental Illness and its Treatment Theme Icon
Gender Roles and Domestic Life Theme Icon
Outward Appearance vs. Inner Life Theme Icon
Self-Expression, Miscommunication, and Misunderstanding Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Yellow Wallpaper, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Self-Expression, Miscommunication, and Misunderstanding Theme Icon

Alongside questions of gender and mental illness in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is the simple story of a woman who is unable fully to express herself, or to find someone who will listen.

The narrator’s sense that the act of writing, which she has been forbidden to do, is exactly what she needs to feel better suggests this stifled self-expression. Since she is unable to communicate with her husband, this diary becomes a secret outlet for those thoughts that would cause him to worry or become upset. The conversations recorded in the diary reveal the extent to which her husband John misunderstands her inner life, and the reader’s ability to see this miscommunication creates dramatic irony, which arises when the reader knows more about what’s going on than the characters. The reader can see both how the narrator’s relationship to her husband changes dramatically over the course of her stay in the room with the yellow wallpaper, and how John is blind to this growing distance. Able to see this but, being a reader, able to do nothing about it, the reader comes to inhabit a similar position as the narrator in her isolation – of being able to perceive things but completely unable to then share them in a meaningful or impactful way.

There are also moments of misunderstanding within the diary itself, small clues that signal the house’s darker past. These markers create another kind of dramatic irony, since here it is the narrator herself whose knowledge is incomplete. The reader is kept in suspense as these small details, such as the gnawed bedposts or the barred windows, reveal new information about the rented house, which we know has stood empty for a long period, and was acquired inexpensively for the summer. There is an implication that the upper room has served before as a sanatorium (rather than as a nursery), and perhaps that the house is indeed haunted, as the narrator jokingly suggests in the opening diary entry. These details create an awareness of the author behind the character of the narrator, who has crafted this story to maximize its horror, and in so doing has linked the horror of a traditional gothic tale with what the author sees as the horror of the way her society treats women faced with mental illness.

Related Themes from Other Texts
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Self-Expression, Miscommunication, and Misunderstanding ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Self-Expression, Miscommunication, and Misunderstanding appears in each section of The Yellow Wallpaper. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Self-Expression, Miscommunication, and Misunderstanding Quotes in The Yellow Wallpaper

Below you will find the important quotes in The Yellow Wallpaper related to the theme of Self-Expression, Miscommunication, and Misunderstanding.
First Entry Quotes

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), John
Page Number: 166
Explanation and Analysis:

John is a physician, and PERHAPS—(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)—PERHAPS that is one reason I do not get well faster.
You see he does not believe I am sick!
And what can one do?

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), John
Related Symbols: The Diary
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 166
Explanation and Analysis:

He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.

I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more.
He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), John
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 167
Explanation and Analysis:

The paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it. It is stripped off—the paper—in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Wallpaper
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:
Third Entry Quotes

Of course I never mention it to them any more—I am too wise,—but I keep watch of it all the same.
There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will ...

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Wallpaper
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 174
Explanation and Analysis:
Fourth Entry Quotes

Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia.
But he said I wasn't able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), John
Page Number: 173
Explanation and Analysis:
Fifth Entry Quotes

Of course if you were in any danger, I could and would, but you really are better, dear, whether you can see it or not. I am a doctor, dear, and I know. You are gaining flesh and color, your appetite is better, I feel really much easier about you.

Related Characters: John (speaker), The Narrator
Page Number: 174
Explanation and Analysis:
Eighth Entry Quotes

There is a very funny mark on this wall, low down, near the mopboard. A streak that runs round the room. It goes behind every piece of furniture, except the bed, a long, straight, even SMOOCH, as if it had been rubbed over and over. I wonder how it was done and who did it, and what they did it for. Round and round and round—round and round and round—it makes me dizzy!

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Wallpaper, The Mysterious Figure
Page Number: 178
Explanation and Analysis:
Eleventh Entry Quotes

I have found out another funny thing, but I shan't tell it this time! It does not do to trust people too much.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Diary
Page Number: 179
Explanation and Analysis:

John knows I don't sleep very well at night, for all I'm so quiet!
He asked me all sorts of questions, too, and pretended to be very loving and kind. As if I couldn't see through him!

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), John
Page Number: 180
Explanation and Analysis:
Twelfth Entry Quotes

I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try.
Besides I wouldn't do it. Of course not. I know well enough that a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker)
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 181
Explanation and Analysis: