preview

The Yellow Wallpaper Summary

Decent Essays

The Yellow Prison Not all prisons have large concrete walls and security guards constantly on patrol, some prisons are created by your own mind and keep you held hostage there. The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” takes place in an old house the narrator describes as a mansion on a large estate. Her and her husband, John, are renting this house as a vacation home for the summer. The narrator almost immediately explains how she believes that she is sick and lets the reader know her husband thinks just the opposite, “You see he does not believe that I am sick!” The husband believes she only suffers from “temporary nervous depression” and picks out a room for her to rest as much as possible. The room he picks, however, makes the narrator feel uncomfortable, …show more content…

The husband declines her request and forbids her from writing, the one thing she enjoys most. So, she is forced to keep a diary and hides it from her husband The narrator at this point has already noted how uncomfortable she feels about not only the room, but also the house itself. She lets the reader know this by saying, “-why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted.” Being forced by her husband to rest in a room with absolutely nothing to do she begins to take notice of the yellow wallpaper. She quickly becomes so intrigued that she begins tracing the patterns on the wallpaper until she creepily convinces herself that there is a woman trapped behind it. A short time before they are supposed to leave the house for the summer she decides to begin tearing off all of the wallpaper. While she is doing this it is clear to the reader that she has began to lose her mind due to being kept in this room for so long. Her husband is attempting to enter the room but is unable to do so because it is locked, he begs her to open it for him. While he is trying to enter to room his now insane wife explains to him how she is now free and nobody can put her back. This story contains an interesting theme of madness and isolation seen

Get Access