In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the main character is believed to be insane and depressed by her husband, John, who is a doctor. John places her in a room by herself, locked away from the world in an effort to heal her. She made many attempts to find hobbies and leave the house, but her husband insisted she must stay in one room isolated from the world. “The Yellow Wallpaper” displays how the environment someone is in can affect everything from the mind to the body. Humans are not made to be completely alone with no social interaction. The strict gender rules that placed pressure on what is expected of her made the speaker feel out of control. The narrator is not insane or depressed, but rather suffers from feeling like her husband’s patient, and
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The narrator is forced to suppress her love for writing around her husband and his sister, so she has no other hobby she can call her own. Often focusing on a small detail, such as a scratch on the floor or the pattern in the wallpaper, brings a deeper issue to the surface. The narrator feels incredibly out of control of her life, thus causing the feelings of sadness and insanity. When the narrator begins to study the wallpaper, she mentions, “Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see, I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch” (Gilman 480). This very evidence leads to the belief that she is suffering from loneliness and boredom rather than insanity. She spends all day in the same room, staring at the same walls which would drive anyone insane. She begins seeing a woman in the paper move and giving human characteristics to certain details of the yellow wallpaper. John Bak suggests, “In objectifying herself through this imaginary woman, the narrator can free herself, if only in mind, from the external prison her husband places her in.” By focusing all of her attention and energy on this imaginary woman inside of the wallpaper, she finds an escape from her harsh reality. Her husband has locked here away in this room which represents her prison. The small amount of peace she finds just by obsessing over the paper gives her an opportunity to not think about how alone she is for a moment. She did not see any problem with this behavior, because it is the only way she is able to make it through the
The narrator is forced to suppress her love for writing around her husband and his sister, so she has no other hobby she can call her own. Often focusing on a small detail, such as a scratch on the floor or the pattern in the wallpaper, brings a deeper issue to the surface. The narrator feels incredibly out of control of her life, thus causing the feelings of sadness and insanity. When the narrator begins to study the wallpaper, she mentions, “Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see, I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch” (Gilman 480). This very evidence leads to the belief that she is suffering from loneliness and boredom rather than insanity. She spends all day in the same room, staring at the same walls which would drive anyone insane. She begins seeing a woman in the paper move and giving human characteristics to certain details of the yellow wallpaper. John Bak suggests, “In objectifying herself through this imaginary woman, the narrator can free herself, if only in mind, from the external prison her husband places her in.” By focusing all of her attention and energy on this imaginary woman inside of the wallpaper, she finds an escape from her harsh reality. Her husband has locked here away in this room which represents her prison. The small amount of peace she finds just by obsessing over the paper gives her an opportunity to not think about how alone she is for a moment. She did not see any problem with this behavior, because it is the only way she is able to make it through the