Yellow Wallpaper Setting

There is a setting in every book or story. Certain settings can sometimes play a big part, while others play an irrelevant one. Settings can occasionally cause the characters in your book to change.It depends on the story because every story is different. Setting can contribute to the meaning and success of stories as well. In the Charlotte Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper the setting is a big part of the story. The setting of the Yellow Wallpaper is so important to the story that it not only plays as big of a role as the main character, it changes the main character herself throughout the book. (is that a thesis???)

The Yellow Wallpaper takes place in an ancestral hall located in the countryside during the summer. As you progress further into

She notices how the patterns look like a women creeping behind the wallpaper. Soon she is staying up all night, unable to sleep due to the wallpaper. As soon as the moonlight shines upon the paper she begins thinking about the women she believes is hiding in the paper. She says,” The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out.”(532) The wallpaper is affecting her mental state. She really believes that there is a living human being trying to escape from the wallpaper. Once her husband mentions that they only have three more weeks at the house the narrator is determined to solve the wallpaper before then. She believes that the women is being held inside the paper because the pattern is bars that are trapping her in. The main character has become so obsessed with the wallpaper that she doesn’t even sleep anymore all she does is study the wallpaper. In the beginning of the book she could barely stand to look at the wallpaper and now she is sacrificing sleep to stare at it for hours on end. At the start of this book the main character was a calm women who had a case of the “nervous troubles”, now she has become some women that is obsessed with the women she believes is living behind the paper. You could say that she has gone

Now she has started to take notice of how the wallpaper smells. She describes it as “peculiar” and she can not escape it because everywhere in the house she goes the odor follows her, like the wallpaper does. She admits to having thought of burning down the house to get rid of the smell. This is when the change became blatantly visible. She says,” Though watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out. The front pattern does move- and no wonder! The women behind shakes it!”(534) Next she admits that she thinks the women escapes from the wallpaer during the day because she has seen her roaming around the house, like a ghost. She decides that she wants to help the women by freeing her because what she doesn't realize is that the women “trapped” behind the paper is her. She is trapped with her husband who treats her as if she were a child. So with to days left in her visit she begins to tear off the wallpaper little by little so her husband won’t notice. On the last day is when she changes the most. She locks herself in the room and tears off the wallpaper completely. She says,” I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night and that is hard!It is so pleasant to be out in the great room and creep around as I please.” (537) At this point in the book her mental state has changed so