FREE ESSAY ON SUPER WALLPAPER LADY

SUPER WALLPAPER LADY

Super Yellow Wallpaper Women
A hero is defined as a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed
with great strength or ability (MW). Throughout literature a male character is usually
blessed with the heroic role. The Yellow Wallpaper appears to contradict that statement.
The narrator in this story tries to overcome and destroy women's oppression. She appears
to be mentally unstable and so it is hard to distinguish her as a heroic figure. Although
the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper appears to be loosing her mind she is in actuality a
magnificent hero in disguise.
A hero must have an evil villain. A villain's main objective is to find the hero's weak
spot and cause a lot of chaos in their life. The hero must stop this villain and make him
cease his evil ways. In the story, John, the narrator's husband, a physician, appears to
take the roll of the villain. He is not actually out to harm his wife but he will not use
all of his resources to help her like a normal husband should. The husband just will not
listen to his wife. She claimed that she was very sick but he thought otherwise. The
narrator says: 
If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives
that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression-a
slight hysterical tendency-what is one to do(1213)? 
The narrator believed that the house they were living in was a major contribution to her
illness but her plea, was ignored. The narrator says I really was not gaining here and I
wish he would take me away (1218). John's not listening to the narrator is an ideal
characteristic of an evil villain. The real reason why she was sick was because something
inside her wanted to get out. The evil villain husband appears to be holding our hero
hostage, not letting her trapped soul escape. In the end the narrator rips down her
wallpaper to offset her villain. The narrator says Now why should that man have fainted?
But he did, and right across my path by the wall so that I had to creep over him every
time (1222). In most cases a villain dies but this villain was shown who the boss is.
A hero usually has a sidekick. A sidekick is the hero's friend that usually is taken
hostage by the villain. The women in the wallpaper tends to fit this description. The
narrator treats her as a friend that she watches every night. The narrator says I don't
want anyone to get that women out at night but myself (1219). A sidekick's courage never
surpasses that of the hero. The narrator seems to have a lot of courage when she is
constantly speaking with her villainous husband without the slightest fear. But the
sidekick appears to be afraid of John because she does not make her presence known unless
he is asleep. So the villan holds her hostage in the wallpaper during the day. There is a
good possibility that the woman is the narrator's sidekick.
A hero must have an obstacle to overcome that hinders them and others. The narrator seems
to be very sick but her husband John will not help her get better. He treats her with
outdated medical treatments and he will not try newer ones. The narrator says I take
phosphates or phosphites-whichever it is-and tonics, and air exercise and journeys, and I
am absolutely forbidden to work until I am well again. Personally, I believe that
congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good (1213). If she could only
have treated herself then she probably would have become more mentally stable. Though it
seems the narrator is sick, her sickness is actually symbolic of her old fashioned ways
of living as a women. To overcome this obstacle she becomes a new more modern woman. 
Another obstacle that the narrator had to overcome was her sidekick's confinement. She
appeared to be trapped in the wallpaper as if it were a jail cell. The narrator says As
soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got
up and ran to help her (1221). To leap over this obstacle the narrator tries to free her
sidekick from the wallpaper. The narrator says I pulled and she shook. I shook and she
pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that wallpaper (1221). To overcome
the obstacle of freeing the women in the wallpaper she destroyed her captive structure.
The most important trait a hero must have is the ability to give up their life for what
they believe in. At the end of the story, the narrator releases her sidekick. Right then
it appears that our mentally ill narrator losses her life. The narrator says 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 (1222). The narrator, whose name is finally hinted as being Jane,
does a good deed by releasing her partner. She gives up her life of old womanhood to be
replaced with new womenhood like a hero.
It is strange to say someone is a hero when there chatting with and ripping down
wallpaper, but it symbolizes something far more than that. Here, insanity was the ancient
style women, one that wears big dresses, does all the cleaning and takes care of the
kids. The narrator was tired of this man-oppressed life and she became a women who wanted
to share the chores of life with her husband. The narrator was going to change regardless
and she even stepped over her husband to finish her transition. Not only is she a hero in
the story she is heroic to all women.
COMIC RELIEF
Look, who is that, an escaped mental patient, a women's lib activist, no its Super
Wallpaper Lady. She rips off wallpaper faster than an interior decorator, stronger than
an oppressed women, able to leap villainous husbands in a single bound.
MS- Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary at Webster.com, (July 19, 2000)
Western Literature in a World Context by, Paul Davis, Gary Harrison, David M. Johnson, 
Patricia Clark Smith, John F. Crawford.