Blog Post 10: The Yellow Wallpaper

My mom is a high school English teacher, so I had heard of The Yellow Wallpaper before in one of our conversations, but I had never actually read it. Being my first time, I actually had to go back and read through the short story a couple of times because the ending was a little confusing. The first time I read it, I was definitely getting lots of undertones of feminist values and the role of women in that time period. Mental illnesses were not taken as seriously as they are now, especially in women. As for the narrator, she obviously had something going on, but her husband and brother were convincing her the entire time that she was actually just having a “moment” and that she would feel better soon. I think this invalidates a lot of the feelings and emotions that she was going through, which only made her condition worse. I especially feel that the husband did a horrible job being there for his spouse. What kind of husband tells their wife to start feeling better for his sake?

By the end of the short story, the narrator was practically obsessed with the yellow wallpaper, and had determined that a woman was stuck behind it. The way the light shone across the wallpaper had given her clues on how the woman moves, and in turn, how to get her out. I thought it was very telling that she ended up turning into a version of the woman in the wall. Her husband’s reaction was also very telling, in that he obviously did not realize the extent of her condition because he was so focused on her improvement to a fault. I think that this piece of literature did a great job acknowledging the hard place women find themselves in when it comes to mental illness, where a lot of our emotions are summed up to exactly that: that we’re just too emotional. It’s a dangerous setup, leading many to find their condition getting worse the more one invalidates their emotions. This is an extreme example of what can happen to a woman.

4 thoughts on “Blog Post 10: The Yellow Wallpaper

  1. Judith Witke Mele

    I like that you have talked with your mom about this before. And also appreciated that you were confused even though you had talked about/had context about the text (because I was very confused). I was especially confused about the ending. the husband Fainted I assume but what at exactly..?

  2. Margot Austin

    I also had to read through the story a few times, but I believe that the author might have made the story confusing on purpose to force the reader to really focus on what was being said. If it was easy to read and absorb, I believe that some of the messages would be lost and the story would not be as important as it is today.

  3. Theresia Keppel

    I think when people are made to feel like their emotions are invalid they get stuck themselves feeling like they are invalid. I think the yellow wallpaper is a really deep example of how emotions can boil up when left untouched or ignored. I think one lesson that can be taken from the narrator is that regardless how we are feeling, it all is valid.

  4. Alejandra De Leon

    I am glad to hear that it was not just me who was confused at times. I wasn’t sure if there was something I was supposed to understand right away and I wasn’t. However, I agree with Margot’s comment on that it was intentionally written in a way that forces the reader to not be able to skim over the text, but read it carefully. By reading it carefully readers are able to grasp the message as a whole.

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