The Yellow Wallpaper Notes

The Yellow Wallpaper Notes

1. Plot

   • Analysis
   • This short story takes place in the form of a journal by the narrator. The narrator begins the story by discussing her house that she is currently residing in. She describes it as a romantic felicity but also queer. She thinks the house also might be haunted. The narrator then introduces her husband to the reader who is a physician that is practical. Regardless of being a physician, her husband does not believe that she is sick. The narrator suffers from a nervous depression. Her brother who is also a physician does not believe her.
     • During the time when this piece was written, mental health was not taken seriously as was not viewed as strongly as other physical illnesses. This is why the narrators husband does not take the nervousness of his wife seriously even though he is a physician.
     • To help heal her illness, the narrator must not be active in any way. She is also not allowed to write in her journal and throughout the story she is forced to stop writing because someone is coming. However, she does not feel the same way about her illness because she thinks that if she were more active than she would be able to get better. Therefore, she starts to secretly write.
       • The narrator describes her house and notes the pattern of the walls and how there are bars on the windows. There are rings in the walls and she constantly thinks about the yellow wallpaper. The wallpaper disturbs her and she is perplexed by the pattern. The writing is cut short again because her husband, John, comes to visit her.
         • The narrator starts to become more secretive with her journal and she hides her thoughts from John. The narrator continues to complain about her husband and her lack of activity. Her husband is becoming more controlling and the yellow wallpaper is continuing to dwell in her thoughts. The wallpaper has become intimidating and John starts to become annoyed with his wife and neglectful because he refuses to change the bedroom walls.
           • The narrator discusses how she is curious about the yellow wallpaper and she begins to think about other people that live around the house. John discourages her curiosity. The narrator begins to talk about how she fears the dark and she thinks that her bedroom could have been used as a nursery for younger children. She starts to look more carefully at the yellow paper as she notices the tears, rips, and holes in the wallpaper. Jennie interrupts her as she notices the paper.
             • After the Fourth of July, John tries to send the narrator to a physician as she gets more tired and suspicious of the wallpaper. The narrator is always alone and she starts to notice a pattern in the wallpaper. She thinks that someone is hiding behind it trying to get out. The narrator discusses her desire to leave the house and fully understand the yellow wallpaper. The narrator begins to notice that other people seem to be suspicious around the yellow wallpaper and one day she sees Jennie touching the paper and the narrator scares her. Jennie said she has found yellow staining on her clothes.
               • The narrator starts sleeping less and she begins to smell the wallpaper and notices smudge marks on the wallpaper. The pattern now shows a women trying to get out of the wallpaper and the narrator sees her shaking the bars of the windows like she is trying to escape. She thinks that the John and Jennie are aware of her obsession so she now strives to destroy the wallpaper. She starts to tear off the pattern in the night in hopes of freeing the trapped women. The narrator tears down all the wallpaper and when John sees the mess she has made he faints.
                 • The narrator tries to escape her obsession with the wallpaper but she drawn back in because of the smell that she can not escape even if she leaves the house. When the narrator tears down the wallpaper, it implies that she was the person who was trapped all along because she had relief when wallpaper was taken down. The wallpaper was a reflection of her own obsession because she was mentally trapped and drawn to the paper. Why does John faint in the end?
               • The narrator could be imaging the person being trapped in the wallpaper but it gives her a motive to discover it more.The narrator is becoming more obsessive over the paper and she does not want other people to touch the paper. It could be that she is possessive and she wants to be the person to discover the secret of the paper or she is cautious of the paper and is afraid of what will happen if Jennie touches it. The narrator studies the paper and becomes more entranced by it. The narrator is so obsessed with the paper that her clothes are turning yellow.
             • John does not want her to become curious about the yellow wallpaper, which implies that there is something about the paper that he wants to hide. The room represents innocence since it was the room of a child's nursery and the narrator has the child like trait of curiosity.
           • The color yellow stands out among other colors explaining why the narrator is so obsessed with the wallpaper. Even though changing the wallpaper would help the narrator, John refuses to do so showing how he is neglectful.
         • The narrator seems to be controlled in the story and the bars on the window imply that she is more in a prison than a home. She isn't allowed to write and her windows have doors on them so she could be living in some sort of mental hospital.
       • Why does John not want his wife to write? She feels like she gets more healthy when she does write so does John want her to stay ill?

2. Vocabulary

   • "Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it" (Line 5).
     • Word: queer
       • Meaning: strange
   • "A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity—but that would be asking too much of fate!" (Lines 3-4).
     • Word: felicity
       • Meaning: intense happiness
   • "I don't feel as if it was worthwhile to turn my hand over for anything, and I'm getting dreadfully fretful and querulous" (Line 165-166).
     • Word: querulous
       • Meaning: complaining in a whining manner

3. Characters

   • The Narrator (Jane)
     • The narrator is mentally ill and she is going insane from her obsession with the yellow wallpaper. She was trapped in the yellow wallpaper.
   • John
     • John is a physician and is practical. He is the husband of the narrator and does not believe that she is ill and he does not care for her needs.
   • Jennie
     • She is the sister to the narrator and she takes care of the house that the narrator lives in.