The Yellow Wallpaper

“John laughs at me, of course, but expects that in marriage.”

Although the narrator’s tone is superficially light, she reveals in this short line of text that she has cynically low expectations of marriage and that she is fully aware of the gender roles that accompany marriage in her day and age. John might be devoted to his wife and genuinely concerned for her health and happiness, yet their roles place him firmly in the superior position, from which he can treat her dismissively. 

“I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always made me feel bad.” 

In this passage, the narrator reveals that she knows what will help her to feel better: acceptance, respect, conversation, and social stimulation. John’s rejection of the narrator’s needs reflects his patronizing attitude towards the narrator as an individual with preferences. As a result of John’s insistence that he knows the narrator better than she knows herself, she remains isolated, circumstances that expedite her mental breakdown.

“He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.”

In this description of John, the narrator’s words are ambiguous. She suggests that her husband’s concern for her is loving, but another interpretation suggests that his care just might verge on oppression. She does not state outright that John is a controlling husband, but the subtext of this quote reveals that John might be able to disguise his controlling tendencies as concern and tenderness. The ambiguity of this description may be intentional, as the unreliability of the narrator when discussing her relationship with her husband adds to the tension that characterizes this short story as a whole.

“It was nursery first and then playground and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.”

The narrator juxtaposes words that conjure the innocence of childhood with ominous details, and this combination produces a heightened sense of danger. Unbeknownst to the narrator, the rings attached to the walls have no purpose in a room for children, but they would be useful if an adult were imprisoned in the room and chained to the wall. The narrator’s naivete and her misunderstanding of the presence of the bars and rings can be interpreted as childish; perhaps Gilman is suggesting that this side of the narrator’s personality gives John reason to feel justified in taking control of his wife’s life, or perhaps Gilman believes that being treated as a child can inspire child-like behavior in a person.

“It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate, and provoke study, and when you follow the lame, uncertain curves for a little distance, they suddenly commit suicide—plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard-of contradictions.” 

In this description of the wallpaper pattern, the narrator makes a worrying mention of the curves committing “suicide” (133). This strong language may be indicative of suicidal ideation that reflects poor mental health in the narrator; a well person’s imagination is less likely to use such morbid language when other, less violent words will suffice. As well, the narrator says that the pattern is something that “provoke[s] study” (133), revealing her need to do something engaging with her mind and her intellect. The narrator’s description of the pattern is detailed and dramatic, and she savors writing about the pattern, using creative language without reserve.

“And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous.”

In this line, the narrator makes a brief mention of her infant son. Her anxiety suggests that she is unable to bond with her new baby nor mother him with confidence. The narrator’s nervousness and reluctance to spend time with her baby may be a sign of a postpartum psychological problem, like postnatal psychosis or depression, a condition that worsens with isolation and improves with connection with others.

“I never saw such ravages as the children have made here.” 

The narrator misinterprets the marks in her bedroom, believing that rambunctious children caused them. Although the narrator has misunderstood the implications of the marks, the reader might gather that someone imprisoned in this room, much like the narrator has been imprisoned, may have scratched and dug at the furniture and the wallpaper while in the throes of a mental breakdown. The dramatic irony of this quote enhances the suspenseful tone of the short story as well as the deliberate unreliability of the narrator.

“John says if I don’t pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall.” 

Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell was the inventor of the rest cure, the treatment for mental problems in women that was widely accepted at this time in American history. The narrator is undergoing a kind of rest cure under the instruction of her physician husband, and the reader can surmise that she does not want to take the official rest cure, which may be administered under even stricter conditions than the ones she currently endures.

“And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind the pattern. I don’t like it a bit. I wonder—I begin to think—I wish John would take me away from here!” 

The narrator displays a moment of intense self-awareness in this passage, and she expresses fear of her descent into madness. Her imaginings of the woman trapped in the wallpaper are becoming increasingly real to her, which worries her enough to inspire in her a desire to be elsewhere. At this stage in the short story, the narrator still has quite a long time ahead to be trapped in the bedroom, and her wish to be away from the wallpaper portends the looming threat of her breakdown.

“‘Bless her little heart!’ said he with a big hug; ‘she shall be as sick as she pleases. But now let’s improve the shining hours by going to sleep, and talk about it in the morning.’” 

When the narrator shares her observations about her condition with John, he responds to her with a patronizing tone, suggesting that the narrator is choosing to be ill in order to receive extra attention or affection. John’s tenderness is suggestive of a father’s behavior towards a little child, and his words reveal a paternalistic assumption about his wife’s experience.

“At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern, I mean, and the woman behind it as plain as can be.” 

The narrator mentions moonlight in this passage, which has a long-established connection to lunacy. The narrator’s visual hallucinations become more severe at night when shadows play on the walls and when the pattern on the wallpaper appears even more sinister than during the day. Ironically, it is nighttime, when the light is limited, that the narrator is best able to observe the woman in the wallpaper, the narrator’s alter-ego, confirming that the existence of the woman is only in the narrator’s mind.

“The front pattern does move—and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!”

The narrator’s hallucinations intensify as her condition continues to deteriorate. She begins to link the disturbing wallpaper pattern with an imaginary woman behind the wallpaper, the latter a projection of her own imprisoned state. While the woman is trapped in the wallpaper, the narrator is trapped in her room and in her marriage, restricted by patriarchal assumptions about women and their health.

“I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.”

In this scene, the narrator and the woman in the wallpaper become one and the same. As this scene approaches, the narrator and the woman in the wallpaper reverse roles. After, they function as a team before becoming a single woman. In this way, the author may be suggesting that the narrator’s condition and her marriage are universal norms, making a bleak comment on gender roles and the ability for women to have agency over their own lives and health.