The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper is a strange and unusual short story, one that is unlike anything that I have ever read before. When I first started reading it, the story seemed to be dry and kind of hard to follow. As I continued to read, much to my surprise, the story compelled me and I found it to be very intriguing. Something in the story that bothered me was the insensitivity and the lack of true concern that John (the husband) had to his wife (the narrator). It appeared that the only time he ever tried to help or showed any concern for his mentally sick wife was when it was convenient for him. Instead of moving to this summer house for the wife’s health and healing, the end result was that her condition was actually worse. John saw a room with fresh air and a serene atmosphere; she saw a prison with an unmovable bed, barred up windows and disturbing wallpaper. I believe that the wife want to get out of the house and socialize so bad that it eventually added to her insanity. And when John promised to have people over and to go visit some relatives, it was like he was dangling that hope just out of her reach and torturing her with it.
Probably the most disturbing and bizarre part of the story was the ending. The wife appeared to be getting better, but, perhaps due to the wallpaper that John refused to take down, her mental condition worsened. At first, I didn’t understand the final paragraph, but after I read those last few lines again and discussed it in class, I came to the (rough) conclusion that the wife had starred at the wallpaper so much that it came alive in her mind. By tearing the wallpaper off the wall, she was ‘releasing’ all of the other women (like herself) that had been held captive in these same four walls. She may have done this to symbolically free herself. She may even have torn the wallpaper off the walls to prove a point to her uncaring husband.