a short critique of

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 

"The Yellow Wallpaper" 

        This short story has a dull setting and it's content has little variety. In effect, the story itself is analogous to the yellow wallpaper; it's strange, ugly, has gaps, and is the sole focus of the reader's attention. Like the main character of the story who struggles to find meaning in the bizarre wallpaper, the reader of the story struggles to find meaning in this unusual text. And, amazingly, what at first seems like a boring plot device - a woman confined to rest therapy in an upstairs room with sagging wall paper - develops into a fascinating page turner with deep psychological, feminist and symbolic content.

        However, given the unreliability of the narrator, it's surprising that the reader makes any sense of the story at all, and yet it's clever ambiguity lends itself to multiple interpretations; the story poignantly describes a woman's descent into madness, or a woman's radical liberation over male domination, or an ironic commentary on the unreliability of a text (or wallpaper) in manifesting definite meaning to those who examine it. In effect, the reader imposes his or her own meaning onto Gilman's text.

        Humans have a natural inclination to make sense of their environment, especially if it's strange, and in the world of literature this includes finding meaning in a text. But, as Stanley Fish pointed out, there is no objective meaning in a text; any meaning discovered by the reader is subjectively created by the reader himself or herself (see Fish's "How to Recognize a Poem When You See One.")

        The main character in Gilman's short story is psychotic, so naturally she discovers, or rather imposes, meaning in the wallpaper which happens to be illogical and crazy; she sees creeping women trapped in the paper. And, again quite naturally, the reader of the story imposes meaning on the text; it could mean almost anything the reader wants it to mean.

        My personal interpretation, for example, is that the old wall paper represents the old canon of literature that was once rigidly defined and held in high esteem by English professors of the past. But this old wall paper must be torn away to facilitate the release of strange new texts that challenge the rigid definitions of "good literature;" new texts that challenge the very existence of a literary canon (see David Richter's "Theory of the Canon" in his book Falling Into Theory, pp. 123-124).

        What can we make of the main character's interrogation of the wallpaper and her studious obsession with its strange markings? Perhaps this is symbolic of modern scholars reconsidering old texts they had previously disregarded, digging deep in the musty old texts to find fresh meaning that is seemingly relevant to modern life. But if Fish is right, and distinct meaning is not embedded in any text, then perhaps scholars are creeping on all fours on a fool's errand.