When the disturbed woman first settled into the ghastly kept old room, she was not comfortable at all. She often expressed her desire to live downstairs in one of the nicer bedrooms, but her husband, John, insisted upon residing in the room. He assured her she would never be completely satisfied wherever they stayed because of her own nervousness of the new settings they resided in. If he changed the wallpaper, next “it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then the gate at the head of the stairs, a

An interesting attribute of the wallpaper was that she described it as being one that she would expect a child’s classroom to use, because it seemed as if she was being treated like a child herself while caged in the room. John constantly reminds her of her foolishness, giving her playful hugs and pats, like he would to a young daughter. He persistently calls her names like “blessed little goose” (186) and darling, brushing off any of her concerns as if she had no true reason to be of concern at all. Jennie, his sister and housekeeper, takes care of her, although she is a grown woman. She is not allowed to see her own newborn daughter, and is only reported of her progress by them at their disclosure. She is very much the woman she sees within the wall, trapped and unconscious of what she is to do. Confused of how to beat this downward spiraling battle, she gives all her attention to the wall, sort of releasing herself into its realm, giving herself up to the insanity that everyone else thinks she is curing herself of.

She believes if she concentrates hard enough and puts all her mentality into the wall’s entrenchment, perhaps she will solve its mystery and answer all the questions she has built up. In her last days at the house, she fails to figure out the wall’s purpose and shreds it of its paper leaving it bare. She contemplates all her anger and desperation, thinking that “jumping out of the window [might] be a be an admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong to even try.” (195) Though satisfied with the newly bare walls, she is now completely insane. The further she became obsessed with the wall,

Some topics in this essay:
Yellow Wallpaper”, John Jennie, Perkins Gilman’s, wallpaper described, set free,