English 160
Tammy Johnson
25 March 2015
Deeper Meaning of The Yellow Wallpaper
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s
The Yellow Wallpaper
, the narrator goes through a mental crisis. Some could analyze that Gilman’s story was written about an event that happened in her life. Some could say she just wrote it because she could. In
The Yellow Wallpaper
, the narrator known as Jane, does not become mentally stable. Her condition slowly seems to become much worse. Jane’s loving and naive husband John, thought that isolating her would be the acceptable thing to do with her current situation. However, John’s decision made Jane disgruntled; she was shut away in a room upstairs that upset her. Not because of the windows, the floor, the view… because of the wallpaper.
Its faded yellow color, rips, tears, and musty smell upset Jane more than anything. She
loved everything about the room, except for the wallpaper. “There are things in that paper which nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit. I wonder—I begin to think—I wish John would take me away from here!” (insert citation). Within the rips and tears, Jane saw a face that stared back at her as if it were alive. At night, Jane said that the face would move; it had a body.
To Jane, it looked like a