The Yellow Wallpaper Break

The Yellow Wallpaper depicts a woman's slow downfall into a break from reality. The unnamed narrator is shown as a young woman who has just recently given birth and been diagnosed with a nervous/depressed disorder that is only temporary, calling to mind post partum disorder. If one keeps the theme of the class in mind, I’ll admit, I at first thought the narrator’s husband (John) was performing some type of mental experiment on her. John seems to be placating her throughout the entire work and his entire demeanor at times just set me on edge a bit. Though as someone undergoing a psychotic break writes the story, perhaps that is a meaningful characterization of John. We see through the narrator’s state of mind that she is slowly declining and her obsession with the wallpaper in the room grows each day. At one point, John thinks that his wife is in fact getting better, but her continued obsession with the wallpaper simply makes it seem as if she feels better. Her obsession becomes so great that she begins to see images within the wallpaper, specifically a woman who escapes each morning and “creeps” around their new home. She becomes so enthralled by the mystery woman that she even goes so far as to change her entire sleeping schedule so she can catch an image of the woman. By the end of the story, her obsession has caused a complete break and she believes that she is in fact, the woman in the yellow wallpaper.