Essays

Yellow Wallpaper

Slavery, as stated in Merriam Webster, means brutal and immoral practice of forcing someone to do one's bidding without compensation. It also comes from the Latin word Sclava, meaning "Slavonic Captive". Back in the 1800's, slavery was starting to skyrocket due to the demand of men desiring slaves for their own use. Whether it was for work or possibly more. In today's society slavery has been abolished for quite some time thanks to the laws the world has created to help protect the people of the world from discrimination and decrease prejudice. Slavery was also in the story called "The Yellow Wallpaper"

"The Yellow Wallpaper", written by Gilman, tells a story of a woman who has a mental illness, however she is not able to heal due to her husband not believing in her when she speaks about the figure in the wallpaper. In the writing there are instances where it is hinted that the home they, the woman, he husband John, their child and Jennie, John's sister live in is a place where slaves used to work while also having a tremendous amount of torture that accrued in the residence.

The first instance of the idea of their current home being a place where slaves used to be is when the woman describes a room, specifically the bedroom she and her husband sleep in claiming "For the windows are barred for the little children...rings and things in the walls" (Gilman 648). Since the home was very tall there was never a reason to place bars on such high windows because of a child's height which brings up the question as to why the bars are placed on such a high window in the home? If the bars were in the lower part of the home then it could have been debunked simply since it could be a representation of safety for the children or people in the home; However since it was in the highest window where no one would dare to leave out of it or even try to enter it could first indicate a person possibly being inside the room wanting to escape and was never able to because of the bars in the windows; Secondly the rings on the walls is another indicator that a person could have been chained since there could never be a reason for them to be placed in a "playroom" where children are playing so brings up the idea of that room being a holding cell for slaves that were acting out of line.

The second reason is when the woman still continues to talk about the room after begging her husband to change into another room due to her not liking the wallpaper in their bedroom and her adoring the other room since it had a warmth feeling.When she was describing the unpleasant room, the woman was very interested on the floor of the room. "The floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, plaster itself out...bed looks as though it has been through wars"(Gilman 650). Because of the way she was describing the room it helps to finally understand that the room where she and her husband sleep was a cell. The reason as to why this way was the only conclusion is simply because in every home, regardless of the area they would never have a bed screwed in unless it was the psych ward or even in a cell at the police station. The room itself is beginning to come to the realization that when a slave was out of control their owner at the time would take them there, chained them to the rings or to the bed and that would be the time where their owner would do horrendous acts to the slaves until they would learn their lesson or until the owner was satisfied, scarring, physically and mentally abusing them until the slaves were broken, making them easier to use like puppets on strings.

The last reason as to suspect why The Yellow Wallpaper has slavery hidden in the writing is when she talks about the outside environment around her; Especially when the woman finds the garden "Lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and the people"(Gilman 648). Because of the uses of "the gardeners" and "the people" this was a major discovery that the whole home and even in that time it was all separated by color; Meaning this time period is when everything was separated, from toilets, restaurants, even neighborhoods in certain areas. Using the two separation of the gardeners and the people is the realization that the woman's home had slavery in it because of how many people were biased about those with different color of skin in that period. The author had no reason to write the gardeners and the people, she could have kept it as the people, which brings the question why add gardeners? The reason being is because of the amount of work slaves did to keep their owners happy. Another sign of separateness of houses is when the woman speaks of an area where boats can transport cargo to and from. In Louisiana there were areas where ships would transport slaves off from the boat and either go to their new homes for them to work or they would place them in a "holding area" (huts) to wait until the white men knew what to do with them.

The Yellow Wallpaper has many ideas in the story; Marriages, postpartum, freedom, symbolism, however many overlook the symbolism of slavery in the text. As much as the world claims that slavery, discrimination and racism are gone it is plainly still continuing. Over recent years it has been getting worse and worse to the point where people are passing away due to the bias,we,the people create about others.If this continues the world will lose generations of greatness and could go back to the time where everyone was divided only because of the color of skin.