Wednesday, February 24
While you’re always welcome to write about anything that interested you in today’s reading, here are some questions about “The Yellow Wallpaper” to get you started thinking:
- What’s interesting about the setting of the house that John and the narrator have rented for the summer? You might look at descriptions of the house and gardens themselves or of the various rooms that the narrator mentions.
- What are readers supposed to think of John? Is he a loving husband or does he strike you as more sinister? Both? Neither?
- How well does the story seem to fit into the gothic genre?
- What do you think the figure in the wallpaper represents? Why such an emphasis on wallpaper in the first place?
- Who do you think is “Jane” mentioned at the end of the story?
I think there is so much irony to this story. In the beginning, we are hearing about John, who at first listen sounds like a complete douche because the narrator is describing him through her own views. I assumed that John was controlling and insensitive for belittling her mental illness, I assumed John believed the main character was insane because she was depressed. But as the story plays out the main character starts displaying this obsessive behavior over the wallpaper. She is basically seeing herself in the paper, trapped and having to sneak her writing around John. But then she starts smelling the paper everywhere, seeing the woman in the paper move, and wants the paper to herself. Having an obsession with an inanimate object like that is bound to drive her crazy. She goes so far as to bite and tear the paper, and that’s when I had to go back and reevaluate John. Although I don’t necessarily agree with how he deals with her, I do think he had reasoning she to view her as insane and keep her from others.
I think the readers of The Yellow Wallpaper are supposed to see John as controlling and overbearing. While the young woman in the story is suffering from postpartum depression, she writes about how much she hates this room she’s been locked up in, and how she’d rather be anywhere else, but her husband insists on her staying in this room because he’s a physician and “knows what’s best.” The young woman begs to go to a different room, walk outside, visit her family, but her husband is set on the idea that what is best for her is to stay in this room with nothing else, which most of us now can understand how detrimental that is to someone’s well being. Of course at the time there was not much information on mental health, so a woman being depressed was seen as a bit more “hysterical” than a normal, but her husband refused to LISTEN to her and what she wanted/needed. Which I think is very cruel.
I read the yellow wallpaper over the summer and loved it, so I was happy to read it again. Re reading it this time I really focused on what the wallpaper represented in the story. After reading I believe that it represents the hold that family life had over “Jane”. Think that the wallpaper is meant to represent the hold that family or “domestic” life had over women at the time, and quite frankly still does. By ripping down the wallpaper, she showed herself rebelling against this. The color of the wall paper is also important, since yellow is almost always a symbol for madness and sickness across many stories and movies as well. I agree with many of my classmates as well that John was not a good person, although I don’t know if he was intentionally trying to harm “Jane” he did come across as very manipulative and full of himself and his own ideas.
I think readers of this short story are supposed to see John as sinister and over controlling. He uses his credit as a physician to convince the narrator’s family and friends that her illness must be cured by and only by being assigned to that rest break. Her brother who is also a physician says the same thing, but I really just think it’s that the men of this story want to have control over the women. The “treatment” for the narrator’s illness is so extreme for a spell of nervous depression (maybe not for the times, but looking at it from a 2021 perspective), and it almost seems like John wants to make the narrator feel mentally ill by subjecting her to such isolation. I believe the figure in the wallpaper represents the narrator’s own self, feeling trapped. I also think that the “Jane” mentioned at the end of the story is the narrator. The woman in the wallpaper becoming more and more prominent as the story continues is to show how the narrator’s mental state is. The more the woman in the wallpaper is present, the more mentaly ill the narrator has gotten from being locked in that room. Ripping the wallpaper is a representation of her freeing herself and getting out of the room.
John, although trying to cure the narrator, comes off as not necessarily sinister, but definitley a bad guy. He won’t let her do basic human things like socialize and work. Without this socialization she goes mad. He believes it is her illness making her worse, but it is the lack of normal healthy things she is allowed to do. The wallpaper is a representation of her mental state over the course of the story. It begins by slowly peeling away to reveal what’s underneath. As the story goes on the yellow wallpaper gets worse and worse and the narrator starts the realize what’s under it. The narrators health fluctuates until the end where the wallpaper is finally ripped enough to reveal the creeping woman. The wallpaper represents how the narrator felt, trapped by John and her mental health. She was not given any help to get better. Her mental health deteriorated as the wallpaper ripped releasing the possible Jane, and freeing the narrator from her husband. This was the moment the narrator finally snapped. She was not taken seriously by her husband, and it led to her breakdown.
I really loved her first person narration. When she mentioned putting her notebook away so that John wouldn’t see, it felt as if I was part of something more intimate than just reading a novel, because I wasn’t. I was reading a journal. Her point of view of John seems to be weary. She contradicts herself at times when describing his nature and the things that he would do for her. She blames this on her “nervous” condition (assumed this is depression). The yellow room that they stay in absentmindedly wears her down, her optimism towards John and his presence is like a grasping for something good, something that was there for her amidst all of the loneliness of walls in her mind. John thinks that this nervousness isn’t aided with her imagination, she expresses how this makes her feel discouraged and really draws the reader in. The way she was describing her symptoms made me feel so sad for her. She would go from being nitpicky about the gruesome pictures she would see on the wall one day to not being able to even move her head about the next. The more she focused on details in the wallpaper, the more insane I believe she was becoming. It can’t be helping that she is stuck in her own depression, and literally in a room, as well.
This is a first-person account of a woman who is stripped completely of her autonomy and is driven mad in part/because of it. She is forbidden by her husband/doctor to write, socialize, or work. She only does what she is allowed to do by her husband. Only eats what he allows her to eat, takes the medicines and tonics that he prescribes her. Every aspect of her life is controlled by him. She lives an incredibly restrictive life all while being belittled by said husband, “John laughs at me of course but that is to be expected in marriage.” This quote from the story reminded me of another by Bonnie Burstow, “Often father and daughter look down on mother (woman) together. They share meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not as bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother’s fate.” The dynamics in their marriage is so skewed in favor of John, and she just chalks it up to something that’s “to be expected in marriage.” I think this short story does a great job of exposing the inequality of gender dynamics that may otherwise seem normal because of years of social conditioning in a patriarchal society. John is able to strip her of her autonomy and isolate her from the rest of the world. John has complete control over her. These kinds of conditions are something that still exists today. This short story is, in many ways, a feminist call to action by its author Charlotte Gilman. It’s an exposé on otherwise accepted or ignored issues.
The yellow wallpaper is a metaphor for the way that John has a hold on our narrator’s mind. From the very beginning of the short and throughout, John has a suspicious energy about him. He represses, objectifies and over medicates our narrator all while belittling each and every one of her feelings. John negates what the narrator thinks is best by diminishing her concerns too only hysterics. As our narrator analyzes the wallpaper, she notices differing patterns between daylight and nightlight, saying its wallpaper only reveals itself in certain lighting. Her understanding of such variations suggests a sense of perspective and how John is seemingly hiding something about her that we, as readers, don’t understand yet. When she tries to make sense of the “pointless pattern,” she has trouble and becomes exhausted, alluding to the drugs (drowsy drugs) our narrator takes hourly. When our narrator invisions the figure in the wallpaper, I immediately understood it to be a reflection of herself. The illusion to “creeping around” and the feeling of torture and strangle while being stuck in the wall, all mirror live emotions the narrator experiences. She is so captivated, so fixated on the composition of the wallpaper, the way the wallpaper makes her feel, that she gains a heightened sense of her surroundings; she gains back the senses previously silenced by John. Once she captures back the control she once had over herself, she takes on an almost demonic form, speaking to John in ways we, as readers, haven’t seen before. The “Jane” that our narrator refers to is only herself while she lived on every drug and John’s manipulation. When she says, “Now why should that man have fainted?” our narrator does not use John’s name, suggesting she has no relation to him. Whatever thing or being entranced our narrator seems to reclaim her form once the narrator’s mind was properly opened.——I am rather intrigued by how this short played out. I’ll save what else I have to say for class 🙂
Throughout The Yellow Wallpaper, what continuously caught my attention was John’s behavior towards his wife, the narrator. I find him to be very manipulative in my opinion due to his controlling actions. What seemed extremely manipulative was the way he would tell his wife not to do basic things she clearly wanted and could do even with her illness; but she automatically did what he told her to do due to the fact that he was a Doctor. With all that being said, I do have to keep in mind the time frame and how women were treated. Therefore, her treatment and how she was perceived weak automatically, could simply be normal for all women of that time frame. I believe this story fits into the gothic genre due to the supernatural being mentioned, the continous detail of the setting and nature, and finally the treatment the narrator received because she is a woman.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a favorite of mine from high school and I am happy to get the chance to read it again. I recall learning that this story is based on the author’s real life experiences with depression. Gilman also suffered from postpartum depression, and her husband and doctors treated her illness in the same manner that John treats the narrator’s in the story. Gilman wanted to address the oppression women faced in healthcare and mental illnesses in her time. The story also shows how inferior women were to men in this century, treated like they were ignorant and silly even by their husbands. It would seem like John is trying to be a caring husband to the narrator, but really he is just treating her like a child. He speaks to her in a sympathetic yet patronizing manner, as if responding to a four year old. She is even forced to sleep in the yellow wallpapered room that used to be a nursery. It is through this infantilization that he disregards her illness as make-believe, a childish delusion. John takes away her ability to think and act for herself, not even allowing her to perform activities she like writing or seeing her child. With no control and nothing to do but try to sleep and obsess over her depression and the wallpaper, her condition of course worsens severely.
The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” was a fascinating read. The woman in the wallpaper is a reflection of the narrator herself. She is being isolated and trapped in the nursery room after she suffers what seems like postpartum depression. This isolation and her husband John telling her she will be cured with rest and fresh air drives her to go crazy. I feel that this ties into the gothic genre with the setting of the story of this estate that is beautiful except for the room the narrator is trapped in. Also with the idea of supernatural events like a woman trapped underneath the bedroom wallpaper. As well as the author Charlotte Perkins Gilman reflecting on the way women were treated by men in the 19th century. It reminded me a lot of Charlotte Bronte’s book Jane Eyre when we find out about Mr. Rochester’s wife that is trapped in the attic, Bertha Mason , and how he made her out to be insane when really it was partly because of her being isolated in that room.
In the Yellow Wallpaper, John, the husband of Mary, is portrayed as a villain. At the beginning of the short story, we learn that John is a physician. Due to his medical experience, he believes he knows the best treatment for his wife Mary, who suffers from an unknown illness which we later learn is depression. His treatment and disbelief of the disease only make her condition worsen. Therefore John can be viewed as both a loving husband for his care and concern for Mary and sinister for ignoring her opinions and needs. I would label him as being both good and bad but primarily a villain as he can’t admit his ignorance for the illness that she is experiencing. He even takes away the one thing that makes her feel better, her writing, as he believes it only drains her more. Furthermore, I can’t get past his patronizing manner towards Mary as he talks and treats her like a child.
The Yellow Wallpaper is one of my favorite short stories and definitely my favorite to discuss. The figure in the wall is a reflection of our main character herself. Our main character, Jane, who isn’t specifically named in the story, has gone crazy. She has recently lost a child and is suffering post-partum depression and psychosis. She has been prescribed a rest cure, meaning she is gonna be locked in a room and not allowed outside. She isn’t allowed to do the things she loves like write, because that isn’t seen as rest for women. She slowly goes mad from the isolation and her mental illness. She sees herself reflected in the wallpaper as an animalistic woman and is frightened by her. I think the husband John is a horrible person but maybe not on purpose. He believes that the treatment she is receiving is what she truly needs because that was the general consensus from doctors. He is ignorant and stupid, but I do not think he is being purposely malicious.
The setting of the Yellow Wallpaper is an older country home where the wife lives with her husband John, their child, and some servants. In the story John is a physician who often is gone, never paying attention to the narrator’s needs and wants. Based upon what is written, I do not think John is a loving sweet husband he tries to come off as, but I think there is more sinister work at play. He undermines her issues, claiming she is delusional and not believing her when she is upset. I think he tries to medicate her and make her stop for his own benefit – a wife that is to his disposal and will follow his every command. He tries to be loving but definitely has undertones that are not morally correct. I do believe that this short story follows the gothic genre, it takes place in a domestic environment and also includes a female who is very isolated. The supernatural factor of the wallpaper as well.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a chilling account of a woman’s rapidly decreasing mental health, and I admittedly still don’t know what to make of it upon finishing it. Firstly, I’m not sure what is causing the narrator so much duress, but judging by the hints that the couple just had a child, I’m guessing that she is suffering from postpartum depression, perhaps made worse by potential underlying mental illness that was already afflicting her. I also believe that the wallpaper is emphasized in the story so much because it is a real-time reflection of the narrator herself. The color yellow can signify a warning, and psychologically it can stimulate mental and muscle activity in people, both of which are true descriptions of what happens in the story. The woman trapped in the wallpaper is a depiction of how the narrator views herself, helpless and unheard by anyone else in the house, subdued by day and awake and rattling the “bars” at night. I find the motif of the moon and night interesting as well, because the moon is a very feminine symbol, and emphasizes duality, intrinsic light and dark sides, and emotional needs. All of these things seem to plague the narrator, but tend to be ignored by John, as he sleeps through the night and thus takes no notice of the “moon.” I feel like the story is saying something principle about the views society has on women and mental health–the diction used by the characters in the story, such as “hysterical” and “sensitive” (words often used to invalidate women and their feelings), highlighting this often unfairly negative portrayal, and invokes pity from the reader by narrating it from the perspective of the individual that is descending into madness rather than those around her.
The Yellow Wallpaper was a fascinating short story about a woman’s slowly deteriorating mental health. While reading I noticed mentions of a baby being taken care of, but not by the narrator, and I thought perhaps she was experiencing postpartum depression, among some sort of paranoia and general anxiety. The husband, John, didn’t seem particularly devious and sinister, nor did I think that he was completely loving either—I think we see him dismiss the narrator’s concerns in a way that women were often disregarded in the 19th century when it came to mental health. The element of the Gothic genre comes into play with the concept of the supernatural: the supposed “woman” in the wallpaper, and with the entrapment of the narrator in her room at the house. Charlotte Perkins Gilman gives us a glimpse into mental health, gender politics, and the fears of being a new mother, all wrapped into a gothic-setting story.
I do not know the lady’s name, but I know the lady is sick and is married to John, who is trying to help her stay healthy and alive and is trying to take care of her. For the lady to start to feel better, her brother and john have said she needs some air and that is why she is living at the estate this summer. She has talked to John, and he decided the best place for her to get air in is in the old nursery on the top floor not anywhere on the first floor near the entrance where he can take her outside to get real fresh air. It seems her illness is nervousness or something along those lines and they might have a baby or did have at the start of the story. Halfway through the lady is getting better and her husband John who is a doctor is seeing her color come back and her appetite. John then clarifies they do have a child together. Near the end the Lady and Jennie are ripping off the wallpaper at night and they are enjoying it. The ending is confusing in how she says she is free from Jane and John. I am assuming Jane is the female she has been seeing at night in the room but, I still do not understand the last paragraph.