Gilman: "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Summary
This story is about a woman and her husband who have rented an "ancestral hall" for the summer. The woman, who is telling the story, is ill and required to do nothing. She clearly states that she is not to write, however she continues to write because she feels that it is assiting in her recovery. John, the woman's husband, is a doctor and is away most of the day therefore his sister Jennie also stays at the estate to care for his wife. While at the mansion, the woman is confined to a top-floor room which used to be "a nursery first, and then playroom and gymnasium" (Gwynn 88). The room is covered in yellow wallpaper that is ripped and torn from the walls in places. As the story progresses, the woman becomes more and more infatuated with the wallpaper. At first she loaths the wallpaper but towards the end of the story she becomes obsessed with it and the patterns that are embeded within it. She starts to see faces and eventually a woman stuck behind the wallpaper. Her final quest is to capture the woman behind the wallpaper and to do so she locks herself in the room and begins to peal the paper of the walls. Meanwhile, her huband is on a trip to their home and when he returns, he unlocks the door to the room to find his wife crawling behind the wallpaper.
yellow paper = old books
insanity
obsession
feminine restraint
Comments
As I reread the story, I started thinking of feminine restraint and education. I started to see the wallpaper as an old book; its aged, yellowed pages and the familiar scent that they contain. I started to see the story as female education and the restraints placed upon it. the obsession that the narrator eventually had with the wallpaper, or book, encompassed her so that she was removed from reality which was probably mocking the feelings of female education and what would result. I also say the story as an interpretation of a person's inner self. The woman began to see the wallpaper as who she was and it took on the qualities of her inner self. The story is very much an internal struggle as well as a struggle with the thoughts of the time.
This story is about a woman and her husband who have rented an "ancestral hall" for the summer. The woman, who is telling the story, is ill and required to do nothing. She clearly states that she is not to write, however she continues to write because she feels that it is assiting in her recovery. John, the woman's husband, is a doctor and is away most of the day therefore his sister Jennie also stays at the estate to care for his wife. While at the mansion, the woman is confined to a top-floor room which used to be "a nursery first, and then playroom and gymnasium" (Gwynn 88). The room is covered in yellow wallpaper that is ripped and torn from the walls in places. As the story progresses, the woman becomes more and more infatuated with the wallpaper. At first she loaths the wallpaper but towards the end of the story she becomes obsessed with it and the patterns that are embeded within it. She starts to see faces and eventually a woman stuck behind the wallpaper. Her final quest is to capture the woman behind the wallpaper and to do so she locks herself in the room and begins to peal the paper of the walls. Meanwhile, her huband is on a trip to their home and when he returns, he unlocks the door to the room to find his wife crawling behind the wallpaper.
yellow paper = old books
insanity
obsession
feminine restraint
Comments
As I reread the story, I started thinking of feminine restraint and education. I started to see the wallpaper as an old book; its aged, yellowed pages and the familiar scent that they contain. I started to see the story as female education and the restraints placed upon it. the obsession that the narrator eventually had with the wallpaper, or book, encompassed her so that she was removed from reality which was probably mocking the feelings of female education and what would result. I also say the story as an interpretation of a person's inner self. The woman began to see the wallpaper as who she was and it took on the qualities of her inner self. The story is very much an internal struggle as well as a struggle with the thoughts of the time.
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posted by Adam Bruns at
4:10 PM
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