9/27- "The Yellow Wallpaper"

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper", the narrator is ill with a condition that is known to be nervous depression. Her husband who is also a doctor decides to lease a house for them where they spend the summer. Here at this house the narrator is told not to do anything but rest, and her husband forbids her from doing any type of work or writing, but she still manages to write in her journal behind his back. The narrator then begins describing the house's exterior as well as the vibe she fed off of it. "... but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad. So I will let it alone and talk about the house. The most beautiful place!...anyhow the place has been empty for years. That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don't care--there is something strange about the house--I can feel it.(266)" In the beginning of the story, the narrator has an uneasy feeling about the house they are leasing, and she also does not believe that sitting idle will do her any good. "Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.(266)" She is restricted by her husband from doing anything other than eat and sleep, she is trapped. Finally, once she comes to terms that her husbands advice that he could possibly be right, she decides to spend all of her time staring at the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom. She then becomes obsessed with it. The narrator begins to see things in the wallpaper, she believes that it changes all the time with light. At night she sees a trapped woman in the wallpaper attempting to break free, but during the day she sees the same woman creeping along the garden outside the house. "And I'll tell you why--privately--I've seen her! I can see her out of every one of my windows! It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight.(276)" Towards the end of the story the narrator begins to believe that the trapped woman in the wallpaper was herself. She attempts to set this women free by locking herself in her bedroom and tearing down the paper. "I don't like to look out of the windows even--there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did!(278)" Here, the narrator clearly feels trapped at that house when she begins to see herself as the woman trapped behind the yellow paper. Her husband was finally able to open the door and this shocking scene made him faint. The narrator then continues to creep even over his unconscious body.