The Yellow Wallpaper

Well, this story was kind of creepy. Wallpaper driving this woman insane. In light of the Mills reading earlier this week, especially his discussion of marriage, this story seems to illustrate rather vividly his opinions. The woman in the story is married to a doctor, who believes she is well when she is actually probably mentally unstable. He patronizes her, and treats her serious concerns as silly because she is a woman. But there is nothing, she believes, she can do about her condition, her social one at least. In the very beginning, when she is talking about her health, she says she disagrees with her husband and brother, but then says repeatedly, "what is one to do?" Later on, you know she feels trapped in her social condition when she starts to identify with the woman behind the wallpaper, behind the bars. She even wonders, " if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did?" The only time she thinks she can be free is when she is completely alone, like the women who creep about in the daylight but are imprisoned by night. When she's alone, she doesn't have to watch what she says and obey her husband. Finally, after she has ripped off most of the wallpaper she exclaims, "And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!" As crazy as that sounds, she thinks she's finally freed herself from her feelings of entrapment and is free to creep about all she wants. It was an interesting story, to say the least.