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Susan LaBrie

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English 310 – Short Stories

December 8, 2019

Short Stories: Assignment 2

Complex Themes: The Yellow Wallpaper and Gorse is Not People

The two stories, The Yellow Wallpaper and Gorse is Not People, have similar themes of

mental instability, being controlled, and a desire to be free. Of course, each character’s story

reads a bit differently. There is the use of foreshadowing to que the reader to what might be

expected along the way. In addition, each ending leaves us wondering just what happened to our

characters. The use of imagery and personification bring the words to life in each story - adding

to the creation of the reader entering the mind of the disturbed. We often find ourselves

wondering if the characters are dreaming, imagining or is this really happening to them? The

reader is allowed, in both stories, to get lost in the story while following the characters in their

psychosis.

We are led to believe in The Yellow Wallpaper that the wife (as we never find out her

name because it is written in the first person) has ‘nervous depression’. In current day we may

call it postpartum depression, but nevertheless, her husband does not believe she is sick. He

thinks she just needs to rest. He doesn’t even want her to write - which is something she loves to

do. She feels that writing or social time would be good for her but her husband, John and her

sister-in-law do not. They rented a house for three months which she goes on to describe as
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abandoned but beautiful. There is a foreshadowing piece in the story that indicates the house may

be a bit creepy. As she describes the house, she indicates “there is something queer about it”.

Her husband is a doctor and therefore feels even more in control of directing her care for

her depression. He vehemently insists that they use the top room of the house instead of one of

the bottom rooms which she wanted. She describes the downstairs rooms are much prettier. The

upstairs room which was a nursery at one time “…it had been through the wars. But I don’t

mind it a bit – only the paper.” The yellow wallpaper. Her husband laughs at her quite a bit, and

speaks to her in a childlike way several times. This indicates control and dominance. One

instance of this is when she wanted a different room and John indicates “He took me in his arms

and called me a blessed little goose…”.

Likewise, in the story Gorse is Not People Naida is controlled by an institution in which

she was admitted as a ten-year-old child. She is a dwarf and grows up in the mental hospital.

When she was 15 she was moved into a different part of the hospital because of her infatuation

with boys. She is now 21 and ready to be released as most are at that age; however, as the

reader you begin to sense this is not going to happen for Naida. As she takes a car ride to see the

doctors she recalls a dream – she even questions the dream – is her fiancée the pig boy real?

Was she going to get married and go on the honeymoon? She has a ring, or does she? The

foreshadowing the author gives you reveals that this is not going to happen for her. She longs to

be free. You begin to see clerly that the institution is going to keep her, and continue to control

this young woman’s life. I believe as the reader you begin to question this until she returns to the

institution; and the doll, which she covets fiercely, s a bride. It brings it all together clear that

Naida probably does have a mental disability. It could lead to a valid reason for institutionalized

control.
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Both these characters long to be free. The woman in The Yellow Wallpaper longs to be

free to the point the wallpaper comes to life for her. It begins to be her. As she sees herself

trapped in the wallpaper and eventually rips it off the wall, so she can escape. There is fantastic

imagery of the woman in the wallpaper looking at her. She sees herself as a part of the

wallpaper. In fact, she “shakes the pattern”, the paper begins to have bars that she can see at

night and it all begins to come to life so much that the paper has a smell! As she looks out at the

window, she sees the harbor and the arbors, and she longs to be outside but is trapped inside –

inside that paper. She begins to think her husband and Jennie can see her in the paper as well at

one point. In the end we aren’t sure if she becomes free. We know the husband faints and she

has a rope. The reader can conclude that she finds her own freedom in suicide (or at least that’s

what I thought) but it really is unclear.

In Gorse is Not people, Naida longs to be free like gorse. Gorse is a seasonless yellow

weed full of thorns. There are two species that grow alternatively so it looks continuous. Oddly

enough one of the species is a dwarf species of gorse. It is said that it “struggles for existence”.

Somewhat like Naida she longs to be free from the mental hospital and struggles to be seen and

exist outside the hospital. She wants a life that includes marriage and a family. Whether she is

just living out her dream life in her mind due to mental illness or coping that way because she

has no other choice– we aren’t 100% sure. We are led to believe she is struggling mentally, but

longs for the life she sees in the serials and hears in songs. She even goes as far as to steal a ring

(we are led to believe). Naida is infatuated with love and men – the thing that songs and serials

are made of. She longs to be out in the world free to explore on her 21st birthday.

The two characters both long for freedoms they don’t obtain in positive endings. The

endings both feel tragic and sad and really without resolution.
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Both pieces are social commentary pieces about how society in those tie periods handle

mental illness or people who are “different”. The Yellow Wallpaper is a social commentary in

how women are kept in oppressed marriages during that time period. Men were in charge of

every aspect of their lives, and served as patriarch of the family. The bars on the wallpaper

represent the bars of the prison of a marriage she felt she was in. John wouldn’t allow her to

write as women were not supposed to do that and this piece was a catalyst for communicating

this to the world. The author is clearly questioning the domestic lifestyle of the time. In 1892,

women could not even vote yet. At one time, married women in the US could not make wills, be

the guardian of their children, receive wages earned, or own or inherit property. When married

a woman became chattel property of her husband, not even owning the clothes she wore. In

1894, the Married Women’s Property Act passed. It makes sense in the time period, that this

piece was written, that the main character was fighting for these rights in her own marriage and

fighting for her voice to be heard.

The social commentary in Gorse is Not People is one of people who are different must be

mentally disabled. Naida was placed in the institution as a young child. The only insight we

have is that the author indicates she didn’t live in “the world”. However, she indicates she lived

in the area in the hospital where the people were strange in “shape and ways”. We can assume

this could mean because she was a little person. Our society often casts out the different or

unusual. In 1954, when his story was written, the mental institutions were just developing

psychiatric drugs that could assist in rehabilitation. However, before that, common treatments for

mental illness were lobotomies which often left patients severely damaged. The history of

dwarfs is a history of subversion, stereotypes, expectation, and survival. It’s the history of how

people treat other people who are different. While much has changed, very little is different. The
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tension between curiosity and cure is still prevalent. The author is said to have spent some time

herself in a mental hospital. In accordance to this piece, in the journal of New Zealand Literature

the author is quoted as saying “desire to have my say”.

When we read this piece, it begins with a ten-year-old in her own world – lots of ten-

year old are in their own world. It goes on to say that the 15-year-old Naida is too focused on

men – sounds like a teenage girl to me! It’s only when we get to the doll that adds a twist of

mental instability to the story. However, does the doll create stability for Naida? Is the doll her

only friend? The symbolic use of lipstick suggests that she wants to appear older and mature –

her 21-year-old self. She creates an imaginary world to escape to – is it because she is mentally

unstable or is it because she needs a coping mechanism for the world she has been placed in.

Overall, society has become more accepting of mental illness’ as we have improved our

psychiatric medications and mental institutions. The US Court’s 1999 Olmstead fulling gave

institutionalized mental health patients more ammunition in seeking community-based care.

Among other things, the court ruled that institutionalization of a person with a disability limits a

person’s ability to interact with other people, to work and to make a life for him or herself….”

I imagine both these stories would be written differently if they were written today based

on the about 1999 Omstead ruling and the progress women have made with women’s rights.

Both stories are about two people struggling to assimilate in the world that they are

negotiating with their mental illness. They are both fighting to find a way out of the situation but

not really knowing that they are incapable of doing so. They clearly don’t understand the

magnitude of their health. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the writer’s husband and sister in law don’t

seem to understand how truly elevated her illness is. They just believe she isn’t sleeping and she

needs more rest. They aren’t acknowledging the clues before them. In Gorse is not People,
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Naida feels she is getting out based on her age of 21. She wants to be free! Subconsciously her

dreams are telling her otherwise, but she believes because it’s her right at 21, she will get out of

the institution and have the life she has dreamt of. She is disillusioned and deceived by the nun

and the doctors. She believes she went for a car ride to receive her key to freedom.

All in all, these are two tragic tales of two sad women who suffer from mental illness in a

time where there is no cure or help for their characters. The twists at the end leave the reader to

insert their own thoughts on how the stories may end. The writers have also given us an

autobiographical peek into their lives of suffering with their own demons, frustrations, personal

battles for rights and injustices. The stories lead us to recognize feelings of helplessness from

being controlled, mental illness, and the lack of freedom they both bring.
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Works Cited

1. “A History of Mental Illness in the United States”– www.tiki-toki.com, https://www.tiki-

toki.com/timeline/entry/37146/A-History-of-Mental-Institutions-in-the-United-States/

2. Blakemore, Erin, “The Yellow Wallpaper and Women’s Pain”, September 12, 2018

Daily.jstore.org, https://daily.jstor.org/the-yellow-wallpaper-and-womens-pain/

3. Whiteford, Peter. “Having Her Say?” Journal of New Zealand Literature: JNZL, no. 31,
2013, pp. 215–219. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41939316.

4. Gorse is Not People, Chapter 12, Study.com

5. “The Life of the Gorse Plant” - The English illustrated Magazine, Volume 31,

Books.google,

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=YK3SxMhSQFYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA283

&dq=gorse+not+people&ots=6kJe6csmyg&sig=pt_D2tBbfbX-

QKtV8ndT86_1oMg#v=snippet&q=284&f=false

6. Lenz, Lyz, “A Brief History of Dwarfism: Understanding the desire to cure Dwarfism

requires an understanding of its fraught”, June 14, 2017, Pacific Standard Magazine,

https://psmag.com/social-justice/a-brief-history-of-dwarfism-and-the-little-people-of-

america

7. The Yellow Wallpaper, Chapters, 6, 7, 8, Study.com