Loss of Innocence

Hey! Number Six here with a new blog and a new take on loss of innocence with “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This short story is not only an interesting read, but it’s a riveting tale of a woman who slowly loses her sanity.

Interestingly enough, as the readers, we see the story through Jane’s (the protagonist) eyes and experience her interaction with a yellow wallpaper throughout the story. As her conflict with this wallpaper grows, we begin to see the process of her loss of innocence as insanity slowly starts to touch her previously innocent mind. Personally, as I read the story, my thoughts progressed from considering Jane as an ordinary person who suffers through life’s obstacles to thinking that she is one crazy woman. Although her switch from sanity to insanity was more gradual than instantaneous, it was extremely clear that her mind was long gone by the end of the story.

I attributed her loss of innocence to the end of the story, where Jane also completely loses her marbles. If you think about it, a loss of sanity is most definitely a loss of innocence. You go from rationalization to an utterly new way of thinking while simultaneously shedding your previous identity. In Jane’s case, she completely disregards her earlier self so severely to the point that she no longer refers to herself as Jane or associates the name to her new personality.

"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!"

Despite my very strong suspicion that Jane was becoming insane, this one line validated everything. Here, she no longer refers to herself as Jane, but has manifested into “the woman behind the wall”, a completely new person. Embodied in this is Jane’s complete and irreversible loss of innocence.

There’s a slight loss of innocence with the readers accompanying this line as well. We go through the story on a sympathetic level where we connect with Jane and her tale while also believing it to be true. However, this line opens our eyes to the fact that she has ultimately lost her sanity, making us doubt everything we’ve already read and making us question how we felt about the protagonist. In a sense, the story betrayed me. It betrayed my trust in Jane and her story while ripping away my innocent assumption that she was a normal woman experiencing a light form of depression.

One thing I couldn't pinpoint was the one reason why Jane actually went insane. Yes, there is an inner conflict that she struggles through, but in my eyes, there is no clear or explicit reason as to why she loses that sanity.  Jane struggles through her depression which eventually progresses to insanity, but what pushed this progression?  Perhaps it was a combination of stress, her newborn child, the expectations of loved ones.  Even though it’s in our nature to want to find a clear answer or explanation to everything, sometimes there is no explicit answer. Sometimes, there is no specific reason that people turn insane or lose their innocence. It’s just a combination of hardships and it's just a part of life.

-Number Six