Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman writes “The Yellow Wallpaper” in such a way that she is nearly begging the readers to see things from her side of thoughts but continuously persuades us that she is wrong in her concerns and that she is slowly becoming senile. We as an audience we are faced with the challenge of deciphering who the lady really is that is trapped inside that yellow wallpaper. Gilman also challenges the audience to determine whether she really is crazy or if her disillusions are simply harmless and are her healthy way of dealing with her troubled marriage. I will explain and support why she is both sane and insane In the same and different lights, which make this piece of fiction so telling. Who is truly trapped? Is it the lady in the wallpaper or is it the narrator trapped within a disease and diseased marriage? Gilman makes it evident very early on in the story that she is not necessarily pleased with her relationship with her husband John. The audience is hit with a sense that John is much more of a realist than a dreamer in the opening page of the story.” John laughs at me , but one expects that. John is practical in the extreme, he has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstitions, and he scoffs openly at any thought of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.”(Gilman. 597.) She continues to say that her husband doesn't believe that she has unnatural health conditions. “ You see, he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do?”(Gilman 597.) John goes about telling anyone who will listen including her friends and relatives that it is nothing really but “Temporary nervous depression”. As we slowly learn more about her it becomes clear that not only are her and John polar opposites but he is also so against anything that she finds enjoyable such as imaginary things, writing, dreaming, and evidently a vacation to clear their mind from their troubles. An interesting part of the story is that she is “forbidden to work”