Summary Of Charlotte Perkins Stetson's The Yellow Wallpaper

In Charlotte Perkins Stetson’s short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, we see a narrator who struggles to free herself from the physical and mental forces that constrain her. Not only is the narrator dominated by her husband, but also by her mental perspective of the wallpaper. As this story unfolds we see the narrator begin to objectify herself as part of the wallpaper. The synopsis of this story revolves around a woman (narrator), who is deemed mentally ill by her husband. He coerces the narrator into taking all sorts of medicine and remedies for her health, while being confined to a room. We see the narrator describe her room: “The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow- turning sunlight” (649). So we see that in the beginning, that the narrator is absolutely disgusted by the ambiance of the room. The narrator later on notes, “The floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed…looks as if it had been through the wars. But I don’t mind it a bit- only the paper” (650).
As the story continues, we begin to see the mind of the narrator dwindle.
Being held up in her room gives her time to observe the details around her. Throughout her time in the room, she begins to see changes in the wallpaper “This wallpaper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then” (650). She describes herself as getting “dreadfully fretful and querulous” (650). The story continues and the narrator ends up enjoying her room: “I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper” (650). The narrator convinces herself that she will figure out the pattern to the
wallpaper. Day by day the narrator observes the yellow wall-paper. She believes that she is the only one who can see things in the paper. After observing for a while she describes the wallpaper as “a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern” (652). She more intently describes the figure as, “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out” (652). The important thing about this scenario, is that the narrator sees all of this at night. During the day the wallpaper is “subdued quiet” (653). Only at night does the narrator see the wallpaper come to life. The smell of the wallpaper begins to follow her wherever she goes. Even the color of the wallpaper begins to rub off on their clothes. She eventually sees that the wallpaper does move, “the woman behind shakes it” (654). The narrator is determined that no one but she is going to free the woman behind the paper. Determined to free the woman underneath, the narrator spends her time destroying the wallpaper. We see the narrator’s enthusiasm to free the woman: “I got up and ran to help her… I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper” (655). She begins to see the woman every time she looks out the window “I can see her out of every one of my windows!” ( 654).