The Yellow Wallpaper Conflict Analysis

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story " The Yellow Wallpaper", the story follows john's wife as she confronts conflicts that begin to arise. the story contains many different conflicts that can vary from physical moral intellectual and emotional. The first conflict that is noticeable is that john's wife believes she is ill yet her husband, who is a physician, disagrees with her. Her husband believes in only physical illnesses that are visible or known and that may be treated. it is clear later in the story that the wife is indeed ill and might suffer from possible postpartum depression. I believe this conflict may be intellectual, just because something is unknown does not mean one should dismiss it as if it was nothing at all. It can also
be seen as a physical conflict because she constantly argues that something is wrong with her up to the point when she gives in and follows johns orders. John believes that his wife will get better with bed rest and little activate to no activity will help her "temporary nervous depression"(Gilman 434) and orders her to do so. when in fact she does not want that she wants to engage in her old job and visit her relatives. Her conflict here is moral wrong in that she wants and needs something to do to keep her grounded yet her physician husband of high standing is against this notion. They believe will get better doing nothing at all when in reality it drives her insane. Therefore, she is not heard when she continually asks her husband different options for herself and it gets to the point where no one will listen to her so she confines in herself only. In the end, this only helps her insanity spiral out of control. In the beginning, the young mother's conflict involves her not feeling well and is trying to find ways to distract herself ,by writing about her new room finding details in everything especially the wallpaper she dislikes. as the story progresses her environment and obsaion with the wallpaper help fuel her imagination with unusual images like woman and eyes that hide in the wallpaper. however in the end, of the story, she seems to convince herself that she does not mind that yellow wallpaper and is, in fact, getting better as well. yet as we read though she was not, in fact, better and has had a nervous breakdown. ripping the walls, creeping around the rooms and over her fainted husbands body we are left with the image of her in a fit of madness.