The Yellow Wallpaper

I chose to write my essay on the short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman because I found it to be very interesting. The way the story was presented in first person made it very appealing to me because it felt as if you were actually there in the mind of the narrator. I also found it interesting because of the many different ways you can perceive what was going on in the story. Many people argue that the narrator went crazy because she was confined to a room to be cured of her nervous depression. I actually believe that she was already crazy and instead of being in a summerhouse, she was actually in a mental institution. I also don't believe that John is her husband. I believe that he is a doctor at the mental institution and because of her illness she thinks that she's married to him.

I believe that the narrator is already crazy because although she was confined to this room, I don't believe that a pattern on wallpaper can drive a sane person to insanity. I believe she started out the story in a very unpleasant mental state. "I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal--having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition" (pg. 942). This quote shows how she is in an unpleasant mental state because she is not only resenting the treatment prescribed to her, but also resisting it by doing the exact opposite of what she's supposed to be doing in spite of her physician.

There are many things in the story that lead me to my conclusion that instead of a summerhouse, she's in a mental institution. "It was nursery first, and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge, for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls" (pg. 942). The fact that there are bars on the windows and rings and other things on the walls illustrates to the reader that this room is more like a room you would see in a mental institution, not a summerhouse. Also, you get the notion that the room is fairly empty; the only thing she speaks of is the bed being in there, which again, leads you to think of it more as a room in an institution. "I lie here in this immovable bed--it is nailed down, I believe..." (pg. 945). This is the final quote that sent my mind over the top and confirmed to me that the narrator is in a mental institution.

Because I think she is in a mental institution, and believe that she was crazy to begin with, I do not believe that John is her husband. At the beginning of the story she mentions that John is a physician