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Character Analysis: The Yellow Wallpaper

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Character Analysis: The Yellow Wallpaper
The narrator in, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” suffers from depression, although her husband, who is a doctor, does not consider it an illness. Therefore, he keeps her on a strict rest cure. She is not allowed to do work of any form, not even care for her baby. All she allowed to do is rest in her room and breath in the air as prescribed by her husband. Because she spends most of her time in her room, she becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in the room and it drives her to insanity. The lack of creative stimulation and relationships with others causes the narrator’s obsession with the yellow wallpaper which leads her to believe she is trapped behind bars in this yellow wallpaper.
John, the narrator’s husband, believes the narrator does not …show more content…
Subsequently, she becomes used to all of the room’s features except for the wallpaper. The other symbols of confinement do not bother her as much as the wallpaper. At first just the ugly pattern and order of the wallpaper bothers her, however as time passes, she begins to believe the wallpaper has eyes that stare at her. This leads her to admit, “This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!” The wallpaper begins to influence her mental state for the reason that she has no other mental stimulation. Without other stimulation from others or work, the wallpaper remains all the narrator focuses on and it begins to push her to …show more content…
The further she focuses on it, the more obsessed she becomes. She begins to observe how it varies in different light and notices a sub pattern within the wallpaper. This she perceives as a positive side to the wallpaper. All of this stimulates her mind and she even becomes excited about life because of the wallpaper. As she continues to study the wallpaper, she notices that the woman in the wallpaper is behind bars and shakes the bars powerfully. Since she only focuses that wallpaper, she begins to put herself in the place of that woman she claims to observe. Had she been taken away from that house or given other activities, she would not have continued with the delusion that she is in the
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