The Yellow Wallpaper by Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wallpaper seems to be set around the 1870's and in the US because the Fourth of July is celebrated. The protagonist is the narrator, who is not identified at the start but later said to be Jane. She tells the story in a first person point of view. She is the wife of John, the antagonist, a physician who does not believe she is sick. Jane seems to develop as the story goes on by the way she starts to look at the wallpaper and how she has many views or thoughts about it that end up making her go crazy. At first she hates it and wants to get rid of it then is intrigued by it and wants to uncover what is underneath. Jane is suffering from postpartum depression and to get her healthy, John rents a mansion for the summer to let her rest. Jane does not like this because she thinks she is getting worse. She is her own confidant in how everything she does and thinks she keeps to herself and writes it down as a form a therapy. The conflict is internal and man vs. herself because not only does she have to deal with all the thoughts and theories she has about the wallpaper by herself, but also worries about the fact that she is very sick. The climax comes to play when Jane goes on a rampage and tears down the wallpaper to let the women she sees out. Jane becoming the women proofs that she has some sort of psychological problem concluding that she is crazy. The theme of the story is that things are never what they seem.




This story was a little bit disturbing. The way it was told as if she was writing it all down in her journal gave a chance to see what she was going through and her thoughts of all that was happening to her. Living in this day and age is better than back then because now depression can be treated effectively and without having to be secluded in a mansion and not being able to do anything. The way that the story slowly flowed and unraveled Jane’s final outcome was a chance to, in a way, understand how one goes crazy. While reading the story, never did the thought of Jane being crazy came up. It is truly like seeing through an insane persons eyes because they do not think they are crazy, they think all they do is right and logical. Not until the end when Jane says “I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did?” her true sickness is revealed, she was slowly going crazy and the yellow wallpaper drove her to insanity. It was sad reading how she knew something was not right and she could not tell anyone because they never believed her. She kept everything to herself so John would not see that his actions to supposedly help her were really useless. It is weird how since the beginning she knew something was not right about the yellow wallpaper and it turned out to be right.