Maddi's Exploration Report

In one of my classes we read "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It has so many underlying themes as we have been analyzing it through psychoanalytical theory, and it's something I want to dive into a little deeper!

One of the sources I went to was Goodreads, and I looked at what people online were saying about their experience with the book. One particular review quoted Oscar Wilde in comparison to the theme of the story, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death." These are Oscar Wilde's last words (though the commenter left off the rest of the quote, "Either it goes, or I do.") I love this frame of comparing the two authors, and it makes me want to explore more similarities between their work, especially Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray". I can see how in both pieces one seems to go mad by looking at a piece of art, one a portrait, the other ugly wallpaper. However, I think the comparison focuses mostly on the themes of a slow decent into madness, and I would like to apply a psychoanalytical reading to both texts to see what deeper ideas the authors could have been presenting. Possible interpretations from the theme of a slow-developing madness could also be related to how one seems to slip into an addiction-- as both characters seemed to be obsessed with the art in front of them, until it does drive them mad.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/286957.The_Yellow_Wall_Paper

Also on Goodreads, someone posed the question to see how others thought the husband should have treated his ill wife, and it reminded me of a picture I had seen on Pinterest. It was a picture of what must be the wife, and instead of tearing at the wallpaper, she seems to be falling, or drowning in it as she would water. Though these two depictions aren't necessarily related, it led me to a thought of drowning. That perhaps a possible interpretation of the story could be seeing mental illness/postpartum depression as one drowning in front of plenty of bystanders, all of them oblivious that they could save us. I want to got back to the text and see perhaps what in her writing signified themes of drowning or being overwhelmed (in a physical sense rather than emotional.)

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/176625616628160202/