By Harmony Gibson
Formalist literary theory focuses on analyzing a text’s structure, emphasizing that the form of a work is often more important than the plot in conveying underlying themes and meaning. This approach is particularly effective when applied to The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The story follows a woman whose mental illness is dismissed by her husband and brother, both respected physicians, leading her to slowly lose her sanity in the isolation of a remote summer house. The narrative unfolds through diary entries, allowing for an unreliable narrator and an ambiguous progression, culminating in the revelation that the woman trapped inside the wallpaper is the narrator herself.
Had the story been told through a more traditional, linear structure—with rising and falling action—the reader would not experience the narrator's fragile mental state as intimately. The fragmented style mirrors the narrator’s growing instability, drawing the reader into her unsettling perceptions. Gilman’s use of vivid imagery and figurative language further emphasizes this descent into madness. Initially, the narrator expresses disdain for the wallpaper: “It is stripped off… I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.” As her obsession deepens, it transforms into a near-scientific fixation, with the wallpaper becoming both comforting and horrifying: “I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper… It dwells in my mind so!”
This obsession with understanding the wallpaper reflects the narrator’s struggle with mental illness, paralleling the frustration and isolation people often feel when their illness is dismissed or misunderstood by others. Gilman’s powerful use of imagery evokes the narrator’s increasing fixation: “the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside-down,” and “worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars!” The repetition of grotesque descriptions—heads, bars, yellowed patterns—symbolizes the narrator’s battle with her own sanity. When she finally “breaks free” from the wallpaper, it signifies her ultimate break from reality. Through formalist analysis, focusing on the story’s structure and language, the deeper themes of The Yellow Wallpaper—oppression, mental illness, and confinement—are more vividly brought to light. This approach reveals the story’s meaning as intricately tied to its form, making the narrative’s darker elements all the more impactful.
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