Personally, I Disagree- Revised

“Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do? I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal- having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.” (648)

Early on in TheYellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, I can sense how hard it is for the narrator to have to conform to societal norms. In the passage above, she tells us that she disagrees with the rest cure prescribed by her husband John, but she is unable to do anything about it. She is not free to make choices and opine about her person. This being the 1800s, a majority of women had internalized the patriarchal culture of carrying men's wishes without questioning their decisions. Yet here is a female character, who dares to wield her own differing ideas.

Even though we don’t really know what brought the family to the estate, we are led to believe that it has something to do with the narrator's state of mind. We can’t tell how long she has been ill, but this passage is written on the first day of their stay at the estate. Using the word “sly”, she has gotten sly about hiding her notebook, instead of smart or clever tells us she has had to deal with opposition to her person for a while now, and has become adept at hiding her objections. She has to hide her notebook because her husband doesn’t want her having ideas, one of the worst forms of oppression. If we can’t have our thoughts, what do we have?

In this passage, she asks herself “But what is one to do?” The question in itself sounds defeatist, but back then, questioning was a form of protest. In fact, she keeps protesting throughout the text. As she speaks her mind her husband contradicts her at almost every turn. She wants a room change, a change in wallpaper, to be allowed to go out to walk the grounds, to write, to visit friends, to leave the house altogether. All of which is received with emotional threats, she is told to just get better for the sake of everyone in the household. Authoritative threats, she is told to just do what the men are asking or she will be sent with someone worse than her husband in the fall. And John’s patronization, he laughs about her for everything and minimizes her feelings.

The word “personally” also resonates a lot with me. She uses the word twice in a very bellicose and isolated manner, “personally, I disagree”, "personally, I believe”. She is fighting her current stance alone. We know that her brother agrees with her husband and neither her sister-in-law Jane nor the babysitter Mary ever do anything in her favor, they too follow the men’s demands without question. The implication of that particular word as viewed through a woman’s restricted patriarchal society of the 1800’s is enormous. The narrator, a woman, dares to have a questioning, non-conforming nature, she creates her own ideas.

The wallpaper itself seems to be echoing her life. As she gets to the house she just hates it. Its ugliness is incomparable- perhaps akin to the actual state of her life. The pattern doesn’t make any sense- possibly mirroring the rules imposed on her. Its color is all types of depressing- which is what a life full of impositions would do on a person’s state of mind. Then, as she suffers all the patriarchal hostilities throughout the 90 days she is confined, the wallpaper changes. It starts becoming interesting and she imagines things going on behind it. As we examine her life it is easy to see why she starts visualizing; out of boredom at first as she has no other distractions. There is also the smell she starts sensing permeating her and everything around her. This is the point where we know she has lost it, after she detects the odor “the woman” comes out of the paper and starts going about outside. When she rips the paper off the wall, her mind has finally had enough. As the paper is destroyed so goes her life. She destroys it and can’t be pull back into the repressing world she is letting go of.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman and women like her gifted me the freedom to have my own insight, freedom to question, freedom of autonomy. I don’t know if she was only protesting the resting cure or the machinations of a patriarchal society, but this story is an amazing legacy!