The Yellow Wallpaper (once you've read it)

My friend recommended "The Yellow Wallpaper" to me last year, during which I had my first encounter with the story. He had first described it to me as a horror tale, so the first time I read through it, I had an image of horror in my mind and pictured every aspect of the story as something horrific (which actually made the story more interesting). I hadn't originally realized that it took place so long ago, so when I read through it a 2nd time (last week), I had an entirely different view on it and was able to acquire a much more vivid image of each character, the setting, and so on. Personally, I really enjoyed the story and thought that reading it at 11:00 p.m. had a greater impact on me--every light out but mine...oh no...yellow wallpaper in my room--the patterns...tearing...smelling! Oh my gosh! I--nevermind. I'm most definitely getting carried away. Bottom line, fun little creepy story starring creepers.

At the beginning of the story, I thought the narrator was just being paranoid about the house. But after she described the bars in the room, the bed being nailed to the floor, it made me feel that the nursery room really was like a prison. After she became obssessed with the wallpaper, I though she must be really crazy. But after I carefully thought about her life, it's quite understandable. She was not allowed to go out, she cannot write in her journal, and the only thing she could do all day was sleep and rest. I would never be able to take it. I also did a little search on the author Perkins Gilman. She suffered an emotional disorder for sometimes, and the symptoms were fatigue and depression. Her doctor, like John in the story, adviced her to rest a lot. She soon stopped listening to her doctor because without daily activities, she was going "insane". Afterall, the story reflects her personal experience.

What caught my attention the most was that everything that lady did has been done before in this house. She bites the bed, its got other nawing bite marks, supposly from rats. She wants to jump out the window its got a bars preventing her from doing it, wonder if someone did it before. She treis to move the bed it nailed down, wonder why? She rips up the wallpaper, thats been done. And last, the one i found creepiest, was as she sneeks around room she rumbs against the wall, and before she notice that there is a ring of discoloration in a ring around the room, like if someone went in circle against the wall.

I honestly believe that the husband was the one who actually drove his wife to insanity. Why else would he deprive her, someone he supposedly loves, from the beauty she so desires to see in the other rooms? Why does he not attend to her if she really is just 'a little ill'? I think she has a mental breakdown, due to the fact that in the end she paces around the room and quite frankly, goes insane. I believe the breakdown was propelled by her realization that the man she so convinced herself loved her, was in some ways trying to destroy her, to torture her, as he continued on with the same life he would lead whether or not she was a part of it.

Tis lady was physco and needed help, and her husband didn't seem to be doing anything to help her. Well if locking her in a room all day and night alone was a way of helping her i guess he was doing something. The one thing that stuck out and was weird was the lady she saw outside of the window that hid behind the tree, and would hide whenever a car came by. Other than that it was a good story

I first read this story last year. It never came to mind that the husband tampered with her illness. I always thought that even though he is a doctor, he isn't a psychologist. He can't really help her as she faces her problems. However, I have this feeling that he doesn't want guests to see her so he locks her up in that room so his reputation isn't ruined. Especially for those times, if your labeled "insane", people wouldn't go near you, or wouldn’t want to be associated with you.

Feeling so isolated and locked in between walls, she has nothing else to do but stare at them. This enhances her mental state and she eventually loses it.

Someone said in 4th period that they thought everyone saw the special wallpaper like she did. I like that idea and I'll stick with it.

Even though we were warned about the creepy and strange characteristics of this story, I madethe mistake of reading it after the sun went down.

I agree with everyone who says that the oppression and suffocating control the woman's husband had on her caused her paranoia of being sick to evolve into the process of losing it. What I found interesting though, was that a sign of her craziness was personifying the house. Saying that the walls have blinking eyes and such. However she mentions that as a child she used to see different objects, such as furniture, with characteristics. She explains that her old bureau had knobs with "kind winks" and that she had a chair that was like a "strong friend." So does this say that she was also kina crazy when she was younger...perhaps from the control that people had on her then?

When I started reading the story I imagened the house out of the movie Red Rose. The lady seemed at first to be some what normal maybe a little flusterded, but as the story went on i fealt her losing her mind. The writing picked up pace and it started to get a little creepy. The ending was disturbing to say the least. One thing i was wondering about was when she talks about watching the "Lady" creep around out side in the garden is she looking at her reflection in the window?

After recollecting my thoughts and our discussion ideas from last week, I am finally getting to writing this response. When I started reading this story, I was totally confused with what was happening. Then we are introduced to a few more characters, which helped me understand the story and here are some ideas I had after reading this story.

I think the woman's husband is having an affair. He keeps saying that he is out delivering babies. I came to this conclusion when it was mentioned that he goes to deliver babies. Babies are being born all the time, then how come he only leaves on the weekends and especially during the nights. Another clue that supports what I am saying is that he keeps his wife constraint within the walls and keeps her away from the outside world. I was actually happy at the end when the woman freed herself from the constraints of her husband.

This is I think the basic theme of the story, woman should remain free from constraints, which they should demand and take action for by themselves.

I agree with Gargi regarding the theme that women should be free from restraints. The story kind of makes the room she is in feel like a prison. She feels restricted because she isn't allowed leave a room that makes her feel uncomfortable. When she talked about seeing the eyes in the wallpaper, it gave me the feeling that someone was watching her every move in that room, kind of like a surveillance camera. People would feel restricted and uncomfortable if they knew that someone was watching their every move.

A person can only be isolated for so long before going absolutely insane. And this is exactly what happened to the woman in the story The Yellow Wallpaper. There is no doubt in my mind that the woman she was watching in the wallpaper was a representation of her own self.

The most interesting part of our class discussion, in my opinion, was whether or not people felt that she was really sick or if her husband was the one making her sick. People had a lot of really different ideas and that was pretty cool.

Also, I found it really quite odd that she had a child, yet the child was barley ever mentioned because she was not even allowed to take care of it. Every sane mother with a child cares for them and even if they are sick, would do everything they can to love them and to be with them.. This lady did not do so at all.

I agree that it was her confinement that drove her insane and it is absolutely ridiculous that she had to stay away from her family because of her mental instability. What exactly were people of that time thinking when they locked up all the sick people to get better by themselves? Really, that just made the situation worse. She really needed exactly the opposite of what she got which would be to stay active and have her family there for support. Its just amazing how stupid and ignorant people back then were

Well this was an interesting read, the story kind of reminded me of the movie "the grudge." I mean what if the lady isn't crazy (fat chance) anyways there could've been a small possibility that what she saw was "the grudge." I mean the mansion was already pecular to start off with, I mean with the green houses, the fact that they were even able to rent this mansion was strange. The nursery could've been a torture chamber for children, and maybe the lady shaking the wall paper was part of the torturing. This story seem straight forward, but there are so many complexities to it, the house itself could have a story as well.

I agree with Trace. I think the crazy lady was seeing her own reflection in the wallpaper. In her diary she mentioned that all the wallpaper was torn off within reach from her bed. This made me think that she was the one who was tearing at it. Also, she said that the crazy lady from the wallpaper only came out at night. She could have been seeing her own reflection on the many windows in that so-called nursery when the moon was out. I believe she said that the lady didn't come out as often when the weather was poor or cloudy so it's just another idea. And I still don't know why her husband fainted...

the woman in this story is definitly a trapped soul. What really caught my attention was the woman she saw imprisoned in the barlike pattern of the yellow wallpaper. I think this symbolized the way women were treated during these times, the way they were intellectually isolated and imprisoned within this domestic sphere.

This story was really odd. For some reason, it seems like all the characters in our stories have the same obsessive nature. She lays in bed and tells us how much she doesn't like the wallpaper and how it's driven her to the point where she can't even stand to be in the room. Suddenly, she starts seeing things and she's possesive of it. She doesn't want anyone near it and thinks everyone's trying to take it away from her.

Does the author ever say what exactly the illness is?

I didn't get the ending, but when I read it to my sister, she and I came up with the same conclusion: the woman kills herself. It made sense because of the rope she said she had that everyone would want to take from her. It also tied in with why the husband would have fainted when he entered the room.

The thing that stuck with me after I read "The Yellow Wallpaper" is how in the end she climbs over his body over and over again. What also caught my attention is how she kept "seeing things" in the wall and how she was all prepared to rip off the wall paper. This doesn't remind me of any other literature that I have read.

I loved the Yellow Wallpaper's use of fantastic imagery. The description of the woman creeping outside and then of Jane creeping over her fainted husband really stuck with me. I was able to clearly and unnervingly picture the mysterious women.

In class, we discussed how the husband may be Jane's doctor. I don't believe this is so because he fainted. The husband was shocked upon seeing his wife's final transformation. A transformation into insanity.

First the woman must start off insane before she has to occupy the room. Why else would she be separated from her little baby during the story? However her isolation in the nursury with nothing to do all day, except writing, causes her condition to worsen. John must have some hand in her illness because he spends too much time away from home for someone whose wife is sick.
Story reminds me of The Shining because of what the house manages to do to its occupants.

So I think that the husband is seriously trying to keep his wife sick. It seems like he is just making her stay up there in the nursery and not let her out which would drive anyone insane. She wanted to go downstairs and live in one of the beautiful rooms but he wouldn't let her. However, I now notice wallpaper in my own house from time to time and just stare at it for a while then laugh.

Now that I have read some more crazy tales from the Kelso arsenal it really puts The Yellow Wallpaper (TYW) in perspective. In comparison to The Rocking Horse Winner and Notes from The Underground, TYW has a truely unique character with a strange brand of insanity. Unlike the other two stories, the girl of TYW is classified as sick throughout the story where in the others the characters are seen as strange, but not under any kind of care for their mental state. The care that the girl in TYW receives changes the readers perception of the girl and makes the ending all the more shocking. All three main characters of the three stories are definitely worthy of medical care, but the interesting style that the girl of TYW receives makes it a unique story.

When I first read this story, I took everything literally. I saw her as a sick person in the 19th century where medicine has not yet been mastered. Since medicine was so juvenile, I thought she was taken to this place as sort of a special treatment since she was a physician’s husband. As the book progressed, her mental state slowly degraded. I believed that her seclusion from the world was the reason for her insanity later in the story. It seemed the treatment merely exacerbated the situation rather than help it.
After discussing about the story, it seemed that her mental imbalance was possibly caused by the husband. The room really reflected her mental state. The torn walls, and the gnawed on bedpost could have implied she was the culprit of mayhem in the room. This story can definitely be seen through several different views.

I found this story somewhat entertaining due to it's ambiguities. Personally, I feel almost as if the woman was in some sort of insane asylum, by the description of her room and the drugs she was taking. Her husband plays almost a doctor figure to her because he is responsible for her medication. His sister and the housekeeper are strange characters in the story as well. She mentions having a baby that she wants to spend more time with but that it's best if she doesn't. Overall, I got the impression that this woman is psycho and in the end something bad happens to her husband due to her actions.

The Yellow Wallpaper, was a very vivid short story. After discussing the story in class, I was assured that the main characters mental imbalance was definitely caused by her husband, the physician. Although there was a sense of entrapment in, The Yellow Wallpaper, I am still confused as to why our main character did not escape earlier, if she had the key. Towards the end of the story I believed the main character was going to end her own life, then the nurses, then hers again. However, in the end I think she decided against it. I think her husbands reaction came from seeing his wife's crazed state.