Different Interpretations Of The Yellow Wallpaper

All these critics, Rula Quawas, William Veeder, Paula Treichler, KarenFord, Loralee MacPike, and Schöpp-Schilling, have different interpretations of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and its true meaning and while I can see where they are coming from I, myself, have some different opinions. For one, I absolutely disagree with William Veeder that the narrator is not blameless and that John is not completely responsible. The narrator tried many times to assert her feelings to John and he didn’t listen or made her feel awful about it. For instance, she tries to have a “real earnest reasonable talk” with him about her going to visit her Cousin Henry and Julia, but he wouldn’t let her go and even made her feel bad about crying. Knowing her emotional state
“I’ve got out in spite of you and Jane! And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” The narrator now believes she is the woman behind the wallpaper and that she is no longer Jane. I think this signifies that she is no longer John’s wife and is leaving her marriage behind. Her relationship with John was suffocating and she could not get out. I think the wallpaper is a symbol of her marriage with John and the tearing it down was the narrator’s way of leaving. The narrator describes the wallpaper as a broken neck and two eyes staring back at her upside down. She also calls the wallpaper dull, confusing, and irritating. These are all descriptor words that could define her marriage. She further talks about the wallpaper saying, “You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well under way in following, it turns a back somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream.” All these descriptions are the narrator’s way of describing her marriage. Just as she figures out how to be John’s wife or how to navigate their marriage, he does a 180, puts her down, and leaves her confused and hurt. The narrator says she only wants John to come in to astonish him with the dissolution of their marriage by having torn down the suffocating
He was going to repaper the room but decided not to because then she will want other changes too. John won’t change the wallpaper because then he will have to change the bed, then the bars on the windows, and then the gate at the stop of the stairs. John won’t change the wallpaper just like he won’t change how his marriage functions. He likes it how it is, even if his wife is extremely unhappy with it. John won’t change the bed, because he wants the subservient wife and mother. If he changed the bed, then it would be okay for his wife to be anything she wants, and he knows she doesn’t want to be a submissive wife and doting mother. John won’t change the bars on the windows, because he doesn’t want a wife who works and can think for herself. John won’t change the gate at the top of the stairs because he wants complete control over his wife’s mind and body and doesn’t want her to roam. To the narrator, everything outside the window looks beautiful. This symbolizes her viewpoint that a life outside of her marriage to John will be happy and