The Yellow Wallpaper- Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Abstract: In the story the narrator and her husband John live in a colonial mansion for the summer. The narrator is sent there because of her nervous depression. She goes kind of crazy looking at the wallpaper all the time. She writes about it even though her husband does not want her to, and she sees a woman being constrained beneath the top layer. She sees this woman outside of her windows too. She also notes how the room is kind of destroyed by children she assumes who lived in the room which must have been a nursery. The narrator also feels that her husband John and his sister Jennie are effected by the wallpaper. One night, she decides to try to 'free' the woman. She begins to tear the wallpaper off to try to free the woman behind the bars that she is kept. On the last day they are there, the woman locks herself in the empty room. She goes around the room rubbing her shoulder on the 'smooch' that is in the wall which she noted earlier in the story. Her husband John then comes to the door, but she won't let him in and insists that he get the key from downstairs. When he comes in the room, he sees her going around the room and asks her what she is doing. He then fainted, and she continued to go around the room stepping over his body.

Response: The narrator has some mental issues. She says how there is a child, so it may have been hers. She could have postpartum depression which could explain her odd behavior and why her husband has them move away for the summer. She says how the room is a mess and the bed-stand has bites out of it, but then she also bites it. She could have been the one that ruined the room and not even realized it. She sees a woman in the wallpaper and outside which I believe are figments of her imagination, and she has gone crazy. Her husband also seems kind of controlling of her though. He won't let her leave the house and sends her away for the summer. He won't let her visit her friends, and he won't let her work or write which could make her feel better. He may think he knows what is best for her because he is a doctor, but she wants to work and write, so maybe he should let her. The woman she sees behind the wallpaper may also be her. She feels like she is trapped in and is unable to get out. By her wanting to free the woman behind the wallpaper, she wanted to free herself from all of the control that her husband and his sister have over her.I think that when she finally did tear the wall paper off she freed and thus lost her sanity and became more psychotic. By stepping over her unconscious husband, she is finally rising over the control he has had on her all summer. The wall paper may symbolize the image her husband and her portray to society. Others may view them as fine, but in reality they are not. She is crazy and has issues, and he sort of tries to avoid these issues by making her stay inside with hopes that she will get better.