Literary Criticism Response writing

The Helpless Angel in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper [PP: 130-136]

Chalak Ghafoor Raouf

Helan Sherko Ali University of Human Development

Iraq

ABSTRACT The paper analyzes Charlotte Parkinson Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper from a feminist

perspective. It reveals the reasons behind the existence of this literary text in the late 19 th century. For

this purpose, the paper presents Gilman's life as the background of the study, and then, it tries to find a

link between her life as a woman and the life style of narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper. In this way, the

paper theorizes the arguments with reference to both Gilman's life, and the sequences of events in The

Yellow Wallpaper. During the lifetime of Gilman, majority of women suffered from being subject to

men and male dominance which confined them into homes. Thereby, they were forbidden from their

rights to work or to get knowledge or even to speak their minds. So, being affected by the miserable

condition of women around her, Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper in order to defend women in her

society. Thus, the paper tries to demonstrate that Gilman uses her text as a tool to encourage and

normalize women’s resistance to the patriarchal rules in their society that confined, oppressed, and

dehumanized women. Gilman uses her protagonist in the text as a role model for women in her society

who were oppressed, and left helpless. Throughout the text, Gilman tries to walk in the shoes of those

women who never got a chance to be what they are and got broken at the end. Thus, the paper exposes

the dystopian life style of the narrator so as to reach into a conclusion that the narrator's story is not

more than Gilman's story which is presented to stand for women’s story in the late 19 th century. The

phrase "Helpless Angel" in this paper, thus, is symbolically presented so as to symbolize the helpless

women in Gilman's time. The phrase is driven from one of the main patriarchal terms of the age which

was The Angel in the House. Keywords: Gilman, Helpless Angel, the Yellow Wallpaper, Feminist Perspective, Dystopian life style

ARTICLE

INFO

The paper received on Reviewed on Accepted after revisions on

14/06/2018 26/07/2018 30/09/2018

Suggested citation:

Chalak, G. R. & Helan, S. A. (2018). The Helpless Angel in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper.

International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies. 6(3). 130-136.

1. Introduction

As a writer, Charlotte Perkins

Gilman is well known for her fiction The

Yellow Wallpaper which is an output of her

tragic experience in life as a woman. In her

childhood, her parents got separated after

she was born, and this caused economic

problems for her, as later, she described her

childhood as “painful and lonely” (Gilman,

2001, p.1656). Gilman married Charles

Stetson who was an artist, and hoped to

spend a better life with him, but

unfortunately, instead of having a good

married life, she faced another type of life

similar to the miseries of her childhood. The

pains continued as she gave birth to her

daughter Katharine; and thereby, she entered

the difficulty of life that manifested itself in

being mother and wife. Day after day, her

marital tension increased till her husband

believed that she was in mental depression,

and thereby, a prescription was written for

her by a specialist in woman’s nervous

disorder, Dr. Mitchell. He proposed for her a

rest cure that manifests itself in being in bed

without any intellectual activities for several

weeks (Rit, 2010).

Gilman went by the rules of her

treatment. But it only made her more

depressed, and increased her tension till she

reached a state of madness. Moreover,

depending on the prescription written for her

by Dr. Mitchell, her husband isolated her in

a room with no human contact. She was not

allowed even to touch a pen. As a result,

Gilman refused to be treated that way, and

she translated her suffrage into words, and

started to write this story to encourage

women to gain their independence and resist

what the male society puts them under (Rit,

2010).

Gilman’s experience as a mother and a

wife was her biggest inspiration that made

her be more aware of women’s condition

The Helpless Angel in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow … Chalak Ghafoor Raouf & Helan Sherko Ali

International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies (www.eltsjournal.org) ISSN:2308-5460

Volume: 06 Issue: 03 July-September, 2018

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around her. In the time of her rest cure, she

dramatized her experience in The Yellow

Wallpaper. She showed and exposed how

women of her society should call for their

rights, and put a light on the limitations in

front of them. In this way, Gilman uses

literature to raise awareness in her society

and help those who have the same problems

like her. Therefore, literature became the

“only available effective tool of resistance

for Gilman that allowed her to focus on her

society in an imaginatively distance setting,

and provide fresh perspectives" (Booker,

1994, p.4).

In the late nineteenth century, in

which Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper,

women were confined at home by the

restricting rules of English society which

treated them as “second-class citizen”

(Crewe, 1995, p. 57). At the time, the only

appropriate job for woman was being a

mother and a wife, which were the last stage

of their developments in the society. They

were not given their individual needs and

rights, simply because the society was a

male-dominated one. Women were kept at

home and those who had jobs were less

worthy and not considered as the preferred

type of women. So, as a result, women were

unable to break the rules of their society, and

they were obliged to accept their duties as

wives and mothers. Barrett (2013) stated that

“due to the male-dominated organization of

society, women frequently did not have legal

rights; thereby, they were expected to obey

the male decisions by raising families and

perform the duties of diligent wives and

mothers” (p. 4).

2. The Angel of the House

In the Nineteenth Century, the most

known and popular term for describing

Victorian women was “The angel in the

house” which was used by Victorian poet

Coventry Patmore (1823-1896). This term

became popular as the Victorian society

used it to define and identify women’s roles

and duties in the society. According to this

term, women were given the name of angels,

and this name was allegorically used to

identify women’s duties which were serving

like angels, and sacrificing themselves for

their families. And the word “house” was

also used to limit the available place for

women’s activity which was their houses

(Kuhl, 2018, p.171). This way, women were

only titled as mothers and housewives, and

they were not allowed to participate in any

activities or have any other duties outside

their home. They were supposed to stay

innocent, utterly helpless, and calm. Their

only source of connection to the outside

world was through their husbands because

they were ruling everything, while women

were obliged to follow them without

question. Though women were educated,

they were not taught any skills that they may

get use of outside of their home. So,

basically their lives were revolving around

marriage, children, and taking care of the

family’s health.

The narrator in The Yellow

Wallpaper is one of these women, or one of

these helpless angels who were kept at home

and prevented from having any kind of

creativity that embraces their talents. As her

husband knows that she is different, and she

may make some changes in her society

through her writing, he will try everything to

find a way to make her an angel in the

house. He uses language to convince her that

she is made for the domestic life, and any

type of writing is going to be bad for her

condition.

3. Hysteria in The Yellow Wallpaper In The Yellow Wallpaper, the

narrator is prescribed a rest-cure for her

nervous exhaustion. The disease was called

neurasthenia in the eighteenth century and it

was one of the nervous diseases. Women

were mostly victims of this disease because

of their sensitive minds and delicate bodies.

These nervous diseases were associated with

a big number of symptoms, such as “visible

swelling of the stomach, headaches, fainting,

palpitations of the heart, long fainting, wind

in the stomach and intestines, frequent

sighing, giddiness, watching, convulsive

crying, convulsive laughing, despair, and

melancholy” (Wayne, 2008, p.8). In the

nineteenth century, the term changed into

hysteria, and among its many symptoms

child birth was one. The narrator claims that

she gave birth into a baby before the rest

cure, and this gives some hints about her

problem that her husband takes advantage

of.

Moreover, the effect of the yellow

wallpaper on the narrator shows that she

might has neurasthenia because of her

depression, and her conclusion for the

wallpaper is her constant melancholy.

Whether the narrator has one of these

diseases or not, she is obliged to have the

rest cure and her only way to escape that fact

was through writing, or else what can she

possibly do? Even if she is alright, her

isolation, the house and her husband are

reasons to get her depressed. Perhaps she is

not ill at all, but her sexist society and the

power of male order makes her go through

International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies (www.eltsjournal.org) ISSN:2308-5460

Volume: 06 Issue: 03 July-September, 2018

Cite this article as: Chalak, G. R. & Helan, S. A. (2018). The Helpless Angel in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The

Yellow Wallpaper. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies. 6(3). 130-136.

Page | 132

the cure in order not to be creative, and be a

proper wife for her husband. On the other

hand, maybe the narrator is really suffering

from hysteria, and the cure makes her worse.

At the end, this hysteria led her into a kind

of madness or abnormal imaginations about

the wallpaper.

4. The Helpless Narrator

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The

Yellow Wallpaper, one can see a journey of

struggle inside the narrator’s mind for three

months. This woman is an unnamed narrator

who supposedly suffers from a nervous

condition, and now the doctor prescribed her a

rest cure in a mansion far away from people in

order to get better. Since the beginning, one

can realize that she is secretly writing what is

in her mind on a paper, and this appears in her

speech as she says: “I would not say it to a

living soul, of course, but this is dead paper

and a great relief to my mind” (Gilman, 2001,

p.2). From this quotation, it becomes clear that

the narrator personally disagrees to go through

this rest cure, and she realizes that this cure

will make her worse, that is why she tries to

do anything to keep her sanity.

When she gets into the house, her

description of it indicates nothing more than a

prison that is called a house. This appears in

her speech as she says: “The most beautiful

place! It is quite alone, standing well back

from the road, quite three miles from the

village. It makes me think about English

places that you read about, for there are

hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots

of separate little houses for the gardeners and

people” (Gilman, 2001, p.6). The house is big,

isolated, and far away from people. So, it is

basically her husband who brought her to lose

contact with other humans. Sadan stated that,

“separation is a more complex kind of lack of

knowledge. It expresses itself in lack of

information about others who share the same

fate, with whom it’s possible to create an

alliance in order to resist power” (1997, p.47).

The narrator asks her husband to

change the room, but he refuses and asserts his

control over her. Elaine Hedge, concerning

these limitations, states that “Without such

choices, women would be emotionally and

intellectually violated” (Hedges, 1992, p.120).

In this case, the narrator is not allowed to

make the smallest choice; just like a child, she

is told that she doesn't know what’s best for

her, and this affects her belief in herself and

feels less like a person. John takes the big airy

room which is used to be a nursery room that

had rings and things in the wall, and the

windows are barred. The narrator’s attraction

for the wallpaper starts right away, as she

says, “I never saw a worse paper in my life.

One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns

committing every artistic sin” (Gilman, 2001,

p.10)

She takes a look out of the window and

starts seeing the garden from her own

fascinating perspective: “Out of the window I

can see the garden, those mysterious deep

shaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned

flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees”

(Gilman,2001, p.16). She calls the garden as

amazing as if it’s a wonderful place to escape

from her bitter reality and be free with her

imagination. However, even the garden has

gates and walls, and it’s imprisoning her.

Schweninger (1996) comments on the

condition of the garden by stating that, “What

promises does that garden hold? What are its

ambiguities? And how is that garden—

bounded by hedges, walls, and locked gates—

different from the prison room at the top of the

house?” (p.26). In this case, the garden

symbolizes a world full of possibilities, and it

is parallel to the wallpaper; both of them

represent the imprisoned narrator and her

isolated world. However, the gates and walls

represent the narrator’s society in the way they

circle around her to give her the feeling of

being kept at home. Schweninger (1996)

comments on this idea by stating that; “In the context of Gilman's story, the

garden typifies one particular way of

validating power over nature, much as a

male doctor's prescribed rest cure constitutes

a way of maintaining power over a patient,

wife, or woman. Therefore, the garden

becomes the site of limits, of control, of the

artificial, of denial, of the male's triumph

over the wildness of nature” (p.27).

In this trapped condition, the

narrator’s thoughts get interrupted from time

to time because John (her husband) must not

see her writing. John believes that the place is

good for her, and he refuses to change the

wallpaper because he thinks it will give him

more control over her. So, he tries to calm her

down by using his sweet deceiving language.

He sets a daily schedule for her in order to

make her know what to do and what to eat,

and then, he tries to prevent her from any

activity that refreshes her mind. In this way,

John wants her to be his own puppet, and

through the patriarchal rest cure, he ensures

that the narrator thinks he is doing everything

to help her get better.

Later on, the narrator becomes confused,

she does not understand her husband, and this

appears clearly in her speech as she says,

“John is practical in the extreme. He has no

patience with faith, an intense horror of

The Helpless Angel in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow … Chalak Ghafoor Raouf & Helan Sherko Ali

International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies (www.eltsjournal.org) ISSN:2308-5460

Volume: 06 Issue: 03 July-September, 2018

Page | 133

superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk

of things not to be felt and seen and put down

in figures” (Gilman, 2001, p.3). It seems that

John does not understand the narrator or he

does not want to understand her, and her wide

imaginations and thoughts are refused by him.

He laughs at her whenever she feels

uncomfortable about something. The narrator

complains about the wallpaper that had a

vicious influence on her, it changes her mood

while looking at it, but John does not take her

concerns seriously.

The whole furniture of the room is torn

and old, especially the yellow wallpaper that

disturbs the narrator. Here, the color

represents the corrupt society of the time

which she lives in; that is why she does not

want to deal with it. John’s sister (Jennie),

who is the housekeeper, watches her from

time to time. She is a young woman who

represents exactly what a woman has to be in

the society (the angel in the house). She is

more like John, and the opposite of the

narrator. Therefore, John is trying and wishing

for his wife to be more like his sister, under

his control. As a result, the narrator keeps her

writing tools away from Jennie too because

she is not the one who understands her, but

rather, she is more like a spy.

The narrator’s condition is not getting

any better though she had rest cure for a week.

Till now she cannot do anything or act

normally, and this appears in her speech as she

says: “I cry at nothing, and cry most of the

time. Of course I don’t when John is here, or

anybody else, but when I am alone”

(Gilman,2001, p.25). John tells the narrator

that if she does not get better fast, he shall

send her to Weir Mitchell in fall, which is far

worse than being with John. The narrator

believes that the physicians of her society

have the same patriarchal qualities of John;

they will never give her a proper treatment for

her ill health. So, she has learned not to let her

emotions out, and she prefers to be alone most

of the time. In this way, there would be less

pressures on her.

The narrator used to hate the

wallpaper, but now she is getting into it, and

she keeps looking at it most of the time, line

by line, all the patterns with details. it moves

her imagination, as she says, “I’m getting

really fond of the room in spite of the wall-

paper. Perhaps BECAUSE of the wall-paper”

(Gilman,2001, p.26). Watching the wallpaper

interests the narrator, and at the same time

exhausts her, but these things are all done

without John’s knowing.

John usually uses his courageous and

sweet words in order to convince her that

whatever he says is best for her. His language

is one of his tricky tools that makes her feel

guilty as if he’s so good, and she is the one

who does not worth it. In this way, John

chooses her food for her, and makes a sleeping

schedule for her. Whenever she asks for

something out of the plan, he refuses it,

especially if she asks for meeting with other

people.

The narrator claims that the only thing

that makes her happy is her baby. But at the

same time, she believes that being here is

better than being with her baby, perhaps

because her condition got worse after she gave

birth to her baby. So, according to her,

maternity is another element that enables her

husband to confine her at home for a long

period of time. Therefore, she does not want to

be with her baby although the baby is her

source of happiness. What we have here is the

misuse of power in the male dominated

society. Men are redefining the natural role of

women according to their preferences so as to

have absolute control over them. In the text,

these ideas are presented symbolically through

the wallpaper and the narrator’s condition

during the rest cure.

The narrator keeps on watching the

wallpaper with detail day and night. Her

conclusion about the shapes she sees in the

paper is that there is a shape which is like a

woman creeping behind the paper. Maybe

more than just a shape. This appears in her

speech as she says, “Of course I never

mention it to them anymore--- 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” (Gilman,2001, p.33). The

narrator begins to see the reflection on her

own situation in the paper as if there is a

woman like her who is stuck behind a barred

window, and the whole paper is not letting her

to go out. In this case, the yellow wallpaper

symbolizes her husband and the patriarchal

society of her time. Thus, the women in the

wallpaper are not more than the reflection of

the narrator’s own imagination that appears to

the reader to portrait a clear picture of

women’s condition indirectly.

Later on, the narrator seems to go out

of her way to express the symbolic

relationship between herself and the woman in

the wallpaper. She feels so realistic about her

conclusion for the paper that she tries to feel

it, but this time John notices. She always

believed that John loves her so much, and she

is the one to be blamed for being such a

burden on him, but one of the nights, she

realizes that it might be just an act by John.

What is going on is not out of John’s love for

International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies (www.eltsjournal.org) ISSN:2308-5460

Volume: 06 Issue: 03 July-September, 2018

Cite this article as: Chalak, G. R. & Helan, S. A. (2018). The Helpless Angel in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The

Yellow Wallpaper. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies. 6(3). 130-136.

Page | 134

her, but it is out of his love to his control over

her.

In this way, the narrator tries to test her

husband whether her opinion about him is

right or not. She starts to open her heart to

John, and tells him how much she’s gone

worse since she got there, but before she even

finishes, John interrupts her speech, and tries

to convince her that there is no reason to leave

here, and she is actually getting better and

better. This way, the narrator realizes that it is

better to survive on her own, and keep

everything hidden from John. Now, she is

completely aware that the sweet language of

John is a tool to make her do anything he

wants.

As days pass, she looks into the

wallpaper more and she feels some changes in

the pattern of the wallpaper. Later, she smells

a smell that comes out of the paper. Now, she

sees her own world in the paper as if she is

living inside it. The pattern and the smell go

away in the morning and come back in the

evening. This suggest that at night the power

of the male-dominated society (John) is

absent; that is why she can see everything, but

in the morning as John come back, she cannot

do anything because she is under his control.

This way, the narrator learns to hide her daily

activity, and tries to resist John’s language

with her silence. She no longer does what he

orders, and never goes by his schedule, but

rather, she tries to fight back because she has

an aim now, which is discovering more about

the wallpaper.

In this way, the narrator specifies most

of her time for the wallpaper, especially at

night; therefore, at daytime she sleeps, and at

night she watches over the woman creeping

behind the paper, as she says, “I don’t want to

leave now until I have found it out. There is a

week more and I think that will be enough”

(Gilman, 2001, p.45). Besides the patterns and

the shape of the wallpaper, she realizes that

even the color and the smell are unique. She

claims that she sits for hours trying to find out

what it smells like. At first, she used to hate it

so much, but now she is getting used to it. It is

like the wallpaper which is the place and the

world she has being put in. The narrator

finally shows a perfect image of her society

through the wallpaper: “I really have discovered something at

last…. The front patterns DOES move and no

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 shakes it all over.”

(Gilman,2001, pp.49-50.)

Through this speech, the narrator

wants to say that many women are like her

suffering from the restriction of the male

dominated societies. They are stuck inside

their homes just like those women behind the

wallpaper. She feels that the woman who

shakes the paper is trying to get out, and she

crawls around the paper trying to find

somewhere to get rid of it. This situation is

similar to the situation of women in her time,

especially herself; many creative women are

prevented from working or speaking their

minds. No matter how much they try to find

ways, there will always be barriers that

dehumanize them and turn them into child

producing machines.

John gradually notices that his way of

controlling the narrator is starting to fail. He

realizes that she is strangely quiet, not saying

everything like before, and she is not sleeping

at night. He asks Jennie many questions, and

Jennie also asks the narrator many questions

in sweet words, but it does not work anymore

because now she starts to resist, as appears in

her speech, “He asked me all sorts of

questions, too, and pretended to be very loving

and kind. As if I couldn’t see through him!”

(Gilman, 2001, pp.54-55). This way, the

narrator became smarter, and gained the

power of her mind to resist John. Instead of

John deceiving and tricking her, she starts to

deceive him by pretending that she is like the

one he wants; but in fact the wallpaper gives

her strange strength as if she is trying to solve

the problem within the wallpaper which is her

own problem as well. So, she spends nights

trying to figure something out for the woman

in order to help her escape, and finally she

decides to tear the paper apart and set her free.

On the last day, when John is away,

dramatically the narrator tries to help the get

out, but she fails; the sunlight comes and the

shape of the woman goes away. She does not

give up, she wants to do more, and she is not

ready to go home without setting this woman

free. Her last attempt succeeds while John is

away. She locked the door and threw the key

into the garden. When John came back and

asked her to open the door, she told him that

he can find the key in the garden, as she

writes: “John dear! Said I in the gentlest

voice, the key is down by the front: steps,

under a plantain leaf! / Then he said -very

quietly indeed/ I can't, said I, The key is down

by the front door under a plantain leaf”

(Gilman,2001,pp. 63-64). Through her speech,

it becomes clear that the narrator uses the

locked door as a form of resistance against her

patriarchal society. She throws the key into the

garden in order to say that John has corrupted

the nature against women’s role in the society,

and therefore, to save her, John has to go and

The Helpless Angel in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow … Chalak Ghafoor Raouf & Helan Sherko Ali

International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies (www.eltsjournal.org) ISSN:2308-5460

Volume: 06 Issue: 03 July-September, 2018

Page | 135

find the key in the garden. This way, she gives

herself one last chance with John, and thinks

that this key could solve the problem if John

listens to her. Finally, the narrator becomes

more disappointed when she sees John

carrying an axe to break the door, as it appears

in her speech, “now he is carrying an axe. It

would be a shame to breakdown that beautiful

door” (Gilman,2001, p.53). It seems that John

is not ready to listen to her; that is why he

follows his male solution to deal with the

locked door. Thus, John breaks the door, and

enters the room. When the narrator sees John

in this harsh way, she goes mad because she

loses hope for survival. Schweninger (1996)

says that: The narrator’s madness comes as a

result of “the anxieties of the domestic world

of the wife, patient, and mother. The garden

does become the site of exploitation and

domination of laborers and gardeners, just as

the Victorian household is the site of

patriarchal control of wives and mothers, and

narrator’s madness can be seen to mark the

end of hope” (p.35).

Mills (2005) as quoted from Foucault,

commented on the phenomenon of madness

among women in the nineteenth century by

stating that: “Madness is constructed by society

and its institutions. Mental illness should

rather be seen as the result of social

contradictions in which humans are

historically alienated, Foucault describes the

way that the institutionalization of those

considered to be insane developed from the

practice in the twelfth century of confining

those who were suffering from the highly

infectious disease leprosy” (p.89).

Mills (2005) also states that "those

women who have rebelled against the social

conventions and restrictions on women’s

behavior have sometimes been labeled as

mentally ill” (p.103). In this text, the narrator

became one of those women that have been

considered as mentally ill, but behind this

madness, a form of resistance appears. When

the narrator loses her sanity, she no longer

follows the patriarchal rules of her society. So,

the narrator’s madness "can be considered as a

form of sanity for her because now she is not

obliged to accept what John says. In this way,

the madness empowers her as appears in her

creeping in daylight and with the existence of

John" (Suess, 2003, p.90). When John sees his

wife in this condition, he faints. He faints

because he knows that he has lost his control

over the narrator; no one can bring her back to

him. So, he becomes disappointed, and faints.

When the narrator sees John fainted, she asks,

“Now why should that man have fainted? But

he did, and right across my path by the wall,

so that I had to creep over him every time!”

(Gilman,2001, p.65). Through this speech, it

becomes clear that the narrator could

overcome the patriarchal rules of her society,

and her creeping around the fainted John

indicates her triumph over John. Finally, the

helpless angel finds the site of power in her

madness, and frees the woman in the

wallpaper through tearing it up. In this way,

she frees herself as well.

5. Sum Up

This paper studied The Yellow

Wallpaper from a feminist perspective. It

decoded the given symbols in the text so as

to reveal the hidden messages behind the

lines. The arguments within the paper were

analyzed with reference to the life of the

author, the sequences of events, and the

Angel in the House. The paper showed that

Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote The Yellow

Wallpaper so as to defend women around

her. She reflected her life experience as a

mother and wife in her protagonist so as to

draw readers’ attention to unspoken issues

concerning the miserable life women. In this

way, The Yellow Wallpaper can considered

as one of the masterpieces that introduces

the postmodern readers to the condition of

women in the in the late 19 th

century. It is an

allegorical text that uses symbols to portrait

a clear picture of women’s miserable life at

that time. Through her work, Gilman wants

to say that the patriarchal societies do

everything in order to maintain their control

over women, and sometimes these societies

produce patriarchal literary works in order to

encourage women to stay at home. The

Angel in the House can be one of these

works that belong that appeared in the

society to fix those patriarchal beliefs in the

minds of women. This literary work

identifies the preferred position for women

in the society which is their houses, and the

word “angel” was used to give a reference to

their holly duties. In this way, women were

deceived by their patriarchal societies.

However, in the text, Gilman presents this

angel as a helpless angel who’s confined,

dehumanized, and deprived from her rights.

Her husband notices some rebellious

qualities in her that is why he tries his best

to keep her under control. The problem with

the narrator is that she is not ready to be a

traditional woman of her society, so she

starts to write in order to spread awareness

among women around her. Her awareness

appears in the shape of a story that is called

The Yellow Wallpaper. Thus, this paper

theorized Gilman’s intention behind The

International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies (www.eltsjournal.org) ISSN:2308-5460

Volume: 06 Issue: 03 July-September, 2018

Cite this article as: Chalak, G. R. & Helan, S. A. (2018). The Helpless Angel in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The

Yellow Wallpaper. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies. 6(3). 130-136.

Page | 136

Yellow Wallpaper through analyzing the

lines, characters, and the sequences of

events within her text.

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