Adrienne Rilenge

Lit Analysis
February 2016
Essay 1

The Art of Cowering

Scapegoating personal insecurities in The Yellow Wallpaper
Our family, or more so all of us but my mom, are a C&E family. Rarely will you
see my brother and me (definitely not my father) at church if its not Christmas, Easter,
or somebodys funeral. On those select days we are at church, it is easy to see how
distracted we are. Thomas fidgets with this fingers, the hymnal, the offertory envelope.
I categorize the other church goers into groups: sinner, prude, saint. My dad, however,
always finds his fixation in calculating. How much would it cost to redo the ceiling? How
strong is the infrastructure of this 200 year old building? How many men would I need to
renovate the pews? Growing up with a father who owns construction companies and a
mother who has the knack for interior design led me to become unbearably keen on
imperfections. Walking into a room is always a new disappointment. Chipped paint,
scuffed trim, and uneven corners all make my skin crawl. What kind of imbecile is
oblivious to these flaws? Is it that hard to make things perfect? One can dream.
Maybe thats my monster, my inner demon. Perhaps I was forcing myself to
read the narrator in The Yellow Wall-Paper as mental and insane because I wanted to
deflect from my own imperfections. I didnt want to believe that a woman fixated with
the flaws and imperfections of old yellow wallpaper could in turn be the reflection of my
own insanity. My need to point out flaws, abrasions, imperfections. Perhaps thats what
Charlotte Perkins Stetsons point was when writing The Yellow Wall-Paper, to have her
words be your inescapable mirror. The unavoidable truth that people shy away from
everyday. The narrator in The Yellow Wall-Paper was the only honest one in the story,

Adrienne Rilenge
Lit Analysis
February 2016
Essay 1
the only character who didnt mirage and scapegoat their inner demons onto others.
Her honesty brought out the truth that we as people try to suffocate and contain
everyday and that scared us because labeling a woman as insane is easier than facing
the fact that we might just be a little insane, too.
In The Yellow Wall-Paper, Charlotte Perkins Stetson creates a character
trapped in her own mind. Ruled by her egotistical doctor of a husband, and
suppressed by the stigma of mental illnesses and womens roles as domesticated
slaves to their husbands, the narrator of the story is painted into a corner a yellow one
at that. With the constant babying from her husband John and seeming exile from the
world around her, the narrator of the story is given no other option then to become
fixated on the only thing around her: yellow wallpaper. At first, the wallpaper comes off
as just an annoying and unsightly figure in her life, she describes it at as being, dull
enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and
provoke study(648). Much like the narrator is viewed through the eyes of her
husband, the wallpaper is at first viewed as a nuisance to the narrator. However, as the
story progresses and the narrators forced suppression of her feelings and thoughts
continues to heighten, the personification of the wallpaper begins to shift as well.
Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out.
The front pattern does move an not wonder! The woman behind shakes it!
Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and
she crawls around fast and her crawling makes it shake all over (654).
Its easy casting off seemingly weak people as crazy or unstable; the hard part is
piecing together the reasoning behind the instability. How did the narrator in The

Adrienne Rilenge
Lit Analysis
February 2016
Essay 1
Yellow Wall-Paper get to the point of seeing figures within the paper and to tying herself
to a rope to keep herself in the yellow room? It wasnt the fact that she was ill or insane,
or the fact that she was weak and dependent upon her husband, it was the fact that she
was stigmatized to her weakness. It was easy for John to stroke his masculinity with, in
his mind, such a frail little bird. How much easier it was for him to pity his insane wife
instead of listening to her thoughts and fears. It wasnt the narrator who let things spiral
out of control, it was the insecure husband who scapegoated his own imperfections onto
his wife, leading her to self-implode.
Like John, I fear my own imperfections. The comfort of scapegoating and
cowering away from my own insecurities makes it maddeningly easy for me to sit in
church, recite the Our Father, and label everyone else around me. Its hard to point the
finger at myself, admit to my faults, confront my own little insanities. Maybe when the
chipped paint and scuffed trim start to dance and walk amongst me Ill realize that
suppressing and scapegoating inevitably causes implosion.

Maybe.

Pledge: Adrienne Rilenge

Adrienne Rilenge
Lit Analysis
February 2016
Essay 1
Work Cited
Stetson, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wall-Paper" Www.nlm.nih.gov. Web. <https://
www.nlm.nih.gov/literatureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-WallPaper.pdf>.