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Stetson's Point Of View In The Yellow Wallpaper

682 Words3 Pages

Within the mind of the Narrator, she would always admit to the reader that she has a mental illness. Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Stetson explained the story in First Person, as if it was a diary, and it showed how she was slowly going insane with the wallpaper in the baby’s room. With the narrator’s opinion about the wallpaper, she found the whole thing to be disgusting and vile, which can be figured to imagery, foreshadowing and the point of view that is presented in the story. First of all, Stetson did not grow very fond of the yellow wallpaper as it may have represented her troubles, such as her marriage, family and even her own life. She had described it directly and firmly that the color is “a smoldering unclean yellow”(Stetson) …show more content…

Earlier in the selection, Staton included repetition as part of her foreshadowing as “what can one do?”(Staton) represented her power against her husband. With that question repeating in her mind, she was contemplating whether or not to speak up about her decisions and thoughts about the wallpaper. John knew that she was maybe overreacting towards it and was not really concerned about her, he “does not know how much [she] really suffer[s]”(Staton) and how “that satisfies him”(Staton). With this situation that the narrator is having, it seems like “it is so hard to talk with John about [her] case” (Staton) because she knows that she is going to feel invisible about her choices. The point of view can assist the reader into figuring out why insanity led to her husband fainting at the end of the …show more content…

The reader can discover the dilemma, dialogue and the critical thinking of the characters. With Staton, she had wished that she “can get well faster”(Staton), regarding her mental issues, and how she was “getting fond of the room”(Staton) but not with the “horrid paper”(Staton). She figured that the “fainted figure”(Staton) that had moved behind the “pattern, as if she wanted to get out”(Staton), was a part of her mental illness. Now, she did talk about it openly to her diary as she talks about her family as physicians and the medicine that she takes, so the reader is completely aware about it; however, it was until after she had wrote her last diary that she had “peeled off all the paper [she] could reach standing on the floor”(Staton) and chewing a part of her bed, that the reader can sense that she was going insane and that John fainted once he got to reach her through the locked

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She proceeds to explain the contributing factors of the narrator succumbing to her “disease” of hysteria which was isolation from social interaction and the restriction of her own thoughts. She points out that the narrator is confined to a simple square room with nothing to offer in terms of mental health therapy. The narrator’s lack of the ability to interact with anything or anyone leads to infatuation with the wallpaper, which turns out to be “the

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Stetson, who had suffered through postpartum depression before the release of her short story, wrote to raise awareness for women suffering from mental illness during her time. Women were pushed to the side, often diagnosed as nervous since the physicians during that time were all men. The main character in "The yellow wallpaper" is often pushed aside as her husband is her physician. Her husband John "laughs at [her]" and she feels as if there is nothing else but to accept his laughter because what more can she "expect in marriage" (Stetson 647). Her husband John has diagnosed her with nervousness and recommends that she stay calm

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The narrator believes that to do so would actually benefit her so she secretly writes behind his back and starts feeling much better. The topic of her journal is largely the house. She hates the yellow wallpaper in the bedroom. As times passes on she continues to write. She wishes the wallpaper would be changed but John rebuffs her.

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She begins to slip away from reality and into her dreamlike world. The woman seen in the wallpaper mirrors the narrator 's plight for freedom. While she is free from the restraints of marriage and motherhood, she has been consumed by madness. John dominates the relationship, both as doctor and husband.

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(678) in this statement she is challenging herself and this shows the reader she is facing some confusion. The yellow wallpaper in the main characters (the narrator) bedroom is a major point in the story. The yellow wallpaper plays a major role in the woman’s insanity. The woman’s obsession with the wallpaper creates her problem and affects her mind and judgment. This is shown in, “It dwells on my mind so!”

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The yellow wallpaper is not just the dreadful décor the narrator is stuck within the story but the most important symbol in the story. It symbolizes how women were not allowed to change or free to make their own decisions. The narrator once said that the wallpaper "sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it" (Gilman). She felt like the wallpaper stuck and not able to succumb to change she demonstrates this as well when she says "The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out" (Gilman). The narrator herself became the women she saw in the wallpaper that she felt trapped in a life without change which manifested itself into the wallpaper further increasing the symbolism and importance of yellow wallpaper.

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