The Yellow Wallpaper Insanity
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story of a woman who finds she is slowly slipping into insanity. The woman knows she is unwell, but her husband John who is a doctor, describes her illness as a temporary depressive nervousness. Because John is a doctor, he believes that he knows best, and has confined her to a room within a home they rented. In order to help his wife, John has set limits to what his wife will and will not participate in. John orders her to rest and to relieve herself from writing or any type of work. In doing so, the woman slowly begins to disassociate herself from reality. She has become so obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in the room, that the figure trapped behind the wallpaper is becoming more
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The narrator describes her illness and her husband’s take on her treatment. Her thoughts give detailed insight into her mind as the narrator enters the state of a psychotic breakdown. The narrator’s thoughts describe her reasoning for not getting well faster. “John is a physician, and perhaps-(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) –perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.”(224) The narrator expresses her concerns on paper and wonders if this has any effect on her wellbeing. John has confined her to a room in which she initially dislikes the yellow wallpaper. “I’m really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper.”(226) The narrator’s initial thoughts on the yellow wallpaper are that it is horrid. She is confined in a room, picked by her husband, and for some reason she is unable to figure out the pattern to the yellow wallpaper. “It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw-not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things”.(226) She continues to look into the pattern, without actually figuring it out. The narrator is becoming used to the yellow wallpaper and its qualities. She smells the wallpaper everywhere in the house and even so, when she is out of the house. Unbeknownst to her, the smell of the wallpaper begins to creep around her the more
The narrator describes her illness and her husband’s take on her treatment. Her thoughts give detailed insight into her mind as the narrator enters the state of a psychotic breakdown. The narrator’s thoughts describe her reasoning for not getting well faster. “John is a physician, and perhaps-(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) –perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.”(224) The narrator expresses her concerns on paper and wonders if this has any effect on her wellbeing. John has confined her to a room in which she initially dislikes the yellow wallpaper. “I’m really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper.”(226) The narrator’s initial thoughts on the yellow wallpaper are that it is horrid. She is confined in a room, picked by her husband, and for some reason she is unable to figure out the pattern to the yellow wallpaper. “It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw-not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things”.(226) She continues to look into the pattern, without actually figuring it out. The narrator is becoming used to the yellow wallpaper and its qualities. She smells the wallpaper everywhere in the house and even so, when she is out of the house. Unbeknownst to her, the smell of the wallpaper begins to creep around her the more