Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator is not a typical upper class young woman, who has just given birth to her first child. She is an inquisitive dynamic young woman, whose nervous condition has gradually gotten worse as she adapts to the restrictions placed upon her. We see how the restrictions transform her through a series of journal entries, and learn that she has a tough time expressing her feelings to others. Through intimate journal entries we see how the protagonist is controlled by a dominating husband, and how she becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper.
The female protagonist feels inferior to John due to his condescending nature towards her causing her mental state to weaken. In the beginning

The wallpaper adds to her frustration; she is confused of what the images in the wallpaper exactly mean. The narrator finds the wallpaper extremely fascinating, and starts to see the patterns within: “One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” (274). She also sees the color of the wallpaper extremely annoying: “The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight” (274). The main character was so intrigued and disgusted that she wanted the wallpaper to be replaced: (275). She was mad that John wouldn’t change it, but when he said, “After the wallpaper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs, and so on.” she agreed that the other items would bother her next: “He is right enough about the beds and windows and things” (275). Although the female protagonist was very disgusted, she became fixated on the

The narrator starts to notice how it changes colors when it is in certain lights: “This wallpaper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then” (276). All of the time she has put into analyzing the wallpaper we see an increase to her mental instability; detailed images start to grow in the narrator’s head: “There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down” (276). She not only see the eyes and the broken neck, but there is also movement: “Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere” (276). The protagonist starts to enjoy the room, as her mind is dwindling, and finds comfort in it: “I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper. It dwells in my mind so” (277). This shows that her thought process is starting to weaken more and more; she is starting to lose the appearance of reality, as she becomes more