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Harrison Stypula

Dr. Laura Patterson

SEL 150 01

Dec. 2, 2021

The “Well-Hidden Rope”: An Alternative Meaning Behind the End Scene of Charlotte Perkins

Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

There are varied interpretations of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”,

though most conclude that the visions of the women beneath the wallpaper witnessed by the

protagonist in her account provide “an allegory for the plight of women in Victorian America”

(Parrot 167). This allegory is provided more depth in the way that the protagonist is suffering

from postpartum depression, besides displaying the tragic and brutal treatment of the “rest cure”

as was so often prescribed to women at this time. I am completely in agreement with this

interpretation of the short story’s themes. Where I do take up a difference of opinion is the

ending, in which we are left with a questionable outcome for the fate of the protagonist. I find

that by taking a close look at the literal and symbolic connotations attached to the story’s words,

that the descriptions of Gilman’s protagonist by the climax suggest that she has ultimately

attempted or in fact succeeded in committing suicide.

This statement is not to say that the narrator of the story is by any means a weak or

fragile figure, quite the contrary in fact. I believe that the actions of the protagonist, Jane, in

taking her own life would have been as close to the best form of defiance towards the patriarchal

world that she could manage without incurring more wrath from her husband and others like

him. Much like the protagonist of the short novel, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin we see Jane
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take the same actions as Edna in taking her own life in order to be freed from this oppressive

society (Chopin).

This idea of defiance is not an uncommon one in scholarship. For Greg Johnson the final

scene of the short story should “be viewed not as a final catastrophe but as a terrifying, necessary

stage in her progress towards self-identity and personal achievement” (Johnson 532). Once

again, I agree. It is undoubtedly a step towards her processing her identity and is a form of

personal achievement as he says. However, I find this statement by Johnson does not go far

enough into depth on the matter. This idea simply carries forward with the previously stated

opinion that the story is an allegory for Gilman’s own experience with post-partum depression

and the “rest cure” without adding any new material onto it.

Looking to the text itself for answers to whether the ending has been misinterpreted, or at

the least overlooked, we can see in the very first sentence that Jane is looking for a form of

escape even at the most pleasant point of the story. When she describes her new home as, “A

colonial mansion, a hereditary estate. I would say a haunted house and reach the height of

romantic felicity – but that would be asking too much of fate!” she provides readers with a much

more intimate glimpse into her thoughts than one might think (Gilman 249). For Haney-Peritz

this statement is delving into her desire for “a place more promising [than] that which ‘fate’

normally assigns” to people like John and herself (115). For myself, I find this statement shows

that here we see her at the start of her “curing” already wishing for a fantasy about the house, for

it to be haunted. This is not because it provides more than what she imagines “fate” (Gilman

249) should give her, but instead because it provides reasoning for her ultimate exit from the

story besides solely the abuse she is suffering at the hands of her husband. It is as if by doing so

she is already devising this greater reason for her exit from life right from the start of the story.
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When reading the descriptions of the wallpaper itself, it leads the reader to the topic of

suicide. Quite literally in one sentence, she says that when looking on the wallpaper if “you

follow the lame, uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide”, (Gilman

250) which is one of the first indications that the thought has crossed her subconscious mind. We

see her describe the “flamboyant patterns” as committing suicide themselves in the unnatural

twists and turns they take (Gilman 250). I find this particularly useful as it was analyzed in detail

by Haney-Peritz through the lens that this description of the wallpaper is not a metaphor for the

social structures the protagonist is imprisoned by, but instead that the “oppressive structure” she

is trapped by is the “discourse” of her husband (116). This interpretation is exactly another

example of how these ideas, while very reasonable, are looking at the lines through a lens that is

accurate, but once more not looking at the whole possibility of the picture.

A further line in the short story continues in describing the morbid appearance of the

wallpaper with Jane’s words that, “There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken

neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside-down” (Gilman 252). The imagery here suggests

suicide by hanging based on the description of a broken neck and swollen eyes, giving the idea

that in her subconscious this is how Jane is viewing her life and presenting it in her writing.

Just a page later we see her return to the idea of the “pointless pattern” in the wallpaper,

hoping that she can find “some sort of conclusion” in its end (Gilman 253). This search for the

conclusion is no doubt a result of her deep desire to find some purpose in the monotonous days

of being forced into “relaxation” in the form of doing nothing. Still adding to the idea as stated

by Haney-Peritz and Parrott that the oppression forced on her by her husband suggests from this

line we can see how it also depicts her search for escape has come in the form of the self-
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described graphic imagery of the wallpaper. This way in which she writes and reflects on life no

doubt continues to influence her subconscious need for escape from the oppression.

Another description of the wallpaper reflects less on the idea of suicide but more so on

the aftereffects in Jane’s description of the wallpaper as looking like fungus (Gilman 256-257).

Her description of it in this way is less prominent than the previous two examples, but both

mentions of fungus or toadstools promote the idea of decay, something that mushrooms are

commonly associated with. Interestingly enough they are later associated with the “strangled

heads and bulbous eyes” (Gilman 259) of the wallpaper, indicating the decay of the fallen people

she sees beneath it.

The first physical indication of her ultimate attempt at escape through suicide is the

mention of a rope which she suggests could be used to tie up the woman in the walls if she “tries

to get away” (Gilman 259). This also seems highly suggestive of thoughts of hanging herself,

especially with the previous foreshadowing of the snapped necks and “bulbous eyes” of the

figures in the paper. She speaks too of considering leaping from the window if it were not barred

but decides she would not. Not because she says she wants to live, but instead because, she

“know[s] well enough that a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued” (Gilman 259).

By this point in the story, it is clear she has come to terms with how she will escape, and the

previously mentioned rope is evidently the vessel that would bring her freedom. In her final

mention of the rope, “But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope” (Gilman 260) it

seems to state outright that she has tied a noose and fastened it on herself to keep her from being

taken away from the walls.

The point which demonstrates this final action of defiance from Jane best is quite simply

the fainting of her husband upon entering the room (Gilman 260). There are no doubt aspects of
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role reversal and turning the tables on the man who treated her as such a fragile thing, who faints

in return showing he himself is truly the weaker figure, but the key issue at hand here is why he

fainted. If we are to think about it logically in this lens, above all what reason would he have to

faint more than seeing his wife hanging? This idea is furthered by the way in which all the

protagonist’s dialogue is ignored after the point at which she, “fastens” herself with the rope. No

one responds to her about the key she directs them to find, and when the door is finally opened

John only stares back in horror, even when she answers (Gilman 260).

All of these pieces drawn from the text culminate in one idea, that whether successful or

not, the protagonist of Gilman’s short story has at the very least attempted to end her life through

hanging with the “well-hidden rope” (Gilman 260). Additionally, based on the shift from the real

to the surreal in the final paragraph with her “creeping” over John, we can expect that the

perspective has shifted from her diary to an inner monologue, one that has continued even after

her death.
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Works Cited

Chopin, Kate. The Awakening, Open Road Integrated Media, Inc., 2006. ProQuest Ebook

Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/setonhill-ebooks/detail.action?

docID=1806436.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." 1892. Making Literature Matter, by John

Schlib and John Clifford, 7th ed., Macmillan Learning, 2018, pp. 247-260.

Haney-Peritz, Janice. “Monumental Feminism and Literature’s Ancestral House: Another Look

at ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’” Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 12, no.

2, 1986, pp. 113–128. EBSCOhost, MLA International Bibliography,

doi:10.1080/00497878.1986.9978632.

Johnson, Greg. “Gilman’s Gothic Allegory: Rage and Redemption in ‘The Yellow

Wallpaper.’” Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 26, no. 4, 1989, pp. 521–530. EBSCOhost,

MLA International Bibliography, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=mzh&AN=1991061293&site=ehost-live.

Parrott, Charles. “Calling Conventions on the Carpet: Travis Brisini’s ‘The Conference Room

Carpet’ as Poetic Response.” Text and Performance Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 2–3, Apr.

2016, pp. 166–168. EBSCOhost, MLA International Bibliography,

doi:10.1080/10462937.2016.1191663.