How cool was this story???? I found Gilman's descriptions of the narrator's "temporary nervous depression" to be quite enlightening. The following are just a few sentences from the story:
"so I take pains to control myself - before him, at least, and that makes me very tired." (pg. 809)
"But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing." (pg. 810)
"I don't feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over for anything, and I'm getting dreadfully fretful and querulous." (pg. 812)
"I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time." (pg.812)
I fully believe her "temporary nervous depression" has a name, and that name is John (her husband). John appears to be a professional at squashing her hopes, dreams, and desires. She desperately wants to write, but feels compelled to do it in secret for fear that her husband will find out. She also wants to have some company and entertain some friends, but her husband believes that would "exhaust" her. She feels trapped in a lifeless marriage. The wallpaper (yellow, dingy, and faded) symbolizes her marriage and the "woman" that is trapped inside is her.
Gilman makes the yellow wallpaper come alive:
"The color is repellent almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight." (pg.810)
"It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw - not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things." (pg.816)
Gilman uses depression and wallpaper to convey her thoughts on the plight of the everyday woman. I agree with Gilman...........rip the wallpaper down.
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