Sunday, March 13, 2011

R.D Laing/The Yellow Wallpaper

R.D Laing has an impeccable insight on the world of schizophrenia, after suffering from it during periods of his adult life. This primary knowledge of the mind of a schizophrenic and the mind without this illness makes his insight very valuable and unique. “He also had gained, from his own experience, a sense of the kind of situations in family, school, etc., that could drive a person crazy,” (R. D. Laing; Summary of Important Concepts) In the short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The main character, is driven to insanity due to the expectations stemming from her gender, and the powerful institution of marriage.

As a married woman there were expectations placed upon her. For example, she was not to be career oriented but simply accept her role as a wife and mother. This entailed entertaining guests, taking care of the house, her husband, her child and most importantly never question or go against her husband’s order. This institution of marriage placed sole control of her, in her husband’s hand. These expectations may not have coincided with the narrator’s true identity. Thus began her struggle between her true self and the self she created in order to please society.

Laing believed that when an individual is faced with making the decision of living his or her life through an identity given to him or her by a parental figure, or living his or her life through his or her own identity, this individual can go crazy;

This is analogous to being inside a tunnel which represents what are normally considered "sane" thoughts, actions, and feelings, finding that moving in either direction leads to painful experiences (giving up self, or giving up the other), and in response breaking through the ceiling of the tunnel into what is considered insanity,” (R. D. Laing; Summary of Important Concepts).

The individual finds no true peace in either of the alternatives; as a result the individual is locked in a constant struggle to pick an identity. The physical result is what society will call insanity. In the case of the main character of The Yellow Wallpaper she called it nervousness. It was obvious that she wanted nothing more than to please her husband and do her duty that the institution of marriage expected of her. She states;

“It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way! I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already! Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able,--to dress and entertain, and order things. It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous,”(The Yellow Wallpaper).

The narrator’s true self felt trapped. As a result she created a manifestation of her feelings in what she called the woman in the yellow wallpaper. The yellow wallpaper is significant because it has such a feminine look to it. From this it can be inferred that the yellow wallpaper symbolizes femininity. The institution of marriage traps her solely because she is a woman. In Laing writing about mapping he states that;

“A person "maps" some accepted social definition of reality onto his or her experience and then acts as if that map reflects his or her experience. Or else feels terribly oppressed and unseen, if the personal experience is very different from the "mapped" pseudo-experience,”(R. D. Laing; Summary of Important Concepts).

Powerful institutions of power maps out what is considered accepted behavior. It can be argued that while the narrator’s husband is controlling he is behaving the way that he is mapped to behave as a husband. In his reality he is supposed to be controlling because his wife is inferior and not able to make decisions without his help. The narrator herself is unable to completely accept societies mapping. Which leads to her feeling trapped and oppressed and eventually leads to her insanity.

Laing states in The situation has to be discovered that “We can never assume that the people in the situation know what the situation is. There is no a priori reason to believe or disbelieve a story anyone tells us. Different people usually have different stories about a situation,” (R. D. Laing; Summary of Important Concepts).

This was depicted in by Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story. The narrator did not truly believe anything was wrong with her. When she started to see a woman trapped in the wallpaper, she did not mentally understand the extent of her illness. By the end of the short story she “freed” the woman in the wallpaper thus falling completely to insanity. The narrator states,“I've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!" (The Yellow Wallpaper) The narrator is Jane. This quote depicts the insanity that the institution of marriage pushed the narrator to. She could not accept the identity that society wanted her to take and by accepting her true identity she would be hurting those she cares for. Her divided self eventually caused her to go crazy.