What Is John's Response To The Yellow Wallpaper

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Close reading #2: The Yellow Wallpaper The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is about a woman personal accounts of her own “rest cure” treatment for nervous disorders.The autobiographical short story describes the childlike obedience of women to male authority figures that was considered normal during the nineteenth century. By examining the language and text of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story "The Yellow Wallpaper” we see that the main character oppression by her husband is what causes her downward spiral into insanity. An example of one of the things that led to the narrators decent into madness would be her not being able to change the wallpaper. When the narrator ask to change out the wallpaper John’s response is “dear, I don't care to renovate the house just for a three months’ rental.”(page 3). This quote conveys that John, her husband really does not take into…show more content…
She states “Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good”(page 1) then mentions “John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition” (page 1). The Narrator believes that there are other means of treatment that would benefit her more so than the ones that her husband has currently implemented, the “rest cure” which is lying in bed all day and mental activity for only two hours a day. By doing this it causes her to think about the reasons why she is doing nothing then will think about her illness which will cause her to try not to think about it and find something else to focus her attention on, like the wallpaper—which she hates causing her to not think about shifting her train of thought to “nothing” and the cycle repeats itself. John controls her life and makes every decision for her, this becomes more evident as the story progresses when she slips deeper into her insanity rejecting Johns decision
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