Exploring the Text
1. The narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" undergoes a profound change from the beginning of the story to the end. How is this change revealed in relation to her response to the wallpaper? How does she feel about the change? How do your feelings differ from the narrator's?
In the beginning of the story, the narrator lives by the rules that her husband John has set for her, catering to his wishes and obeying his professional advice. She is prohibited from interacting with the outside world and is forced to spend most of her time isolated, unable to use her mind in taxing ways until she recovers from her nervous condition. Throughout the course of the story, the narrator begins to become attached to the yellow wallpaper in her room, seeing faces of women in it that have become trapped. At first, the narrator wants to subdue these women and tie them up, keeping them in their place, but as the story professes, the narrator begins to connect herself with these women. She begins to see how these women are trapped, similar to herself, and want to escape their oppressive bonds, and experience world outside of their isolation. Soon, the narrator finds herself assisting these women to escape the wallpaper, and she identifies herself as one of them. By the end of the novel, the narrator no longer sees herself as insuperior to John and rejects typical domestic customs of the time, embracing her creativity and freeing herself from the wallpaper (oppression). The narrator is relieved by this change, no longer having to obey the standards of domesticity and being able to use her full potential. I feel as though this change was essential in a way for the narrator because without transferring her grief and misery into the wallpaper, Jane would have never recognized that she was unhappy with her situation and therefore, wouldn't have rebelled from the typical domestic lifestyle and embraced her own personality and attributes.
2. The narrator describes the room with the yellow wallpaper as a former nursery - that is, a room in a large house where children played, ate their meals, and may have been educated. What evidence is there that it may have had a different function? How does that discrepancy help develop the character of the narrator and communicate the themes of the story?
In line 37-39, the narrator comments that "it was a nursery first and then a playroom and then a gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children and there are rings and things in the walls." This quote suggests that the narrator was naive that the nursery was used as some sort of prison room, suggested by the barred windows and rings on the walls for chains. This discrepancy developed the narrator because the reader is able to witness that she is compliant and listens to what John tells her, trusting that the room is going to function as a recovery place. But in reality, John is using the room to keep his wife from society and to restrict her freedom unknowingly. This contradiction portrays the central theme of the story that women are susceptible to be controlled by men as they accept the societal norms of women. Furthermore, the prison-nursery suggests that women are often blind to the position they have within a household, and that they only live by these regulations because they are all that they have experienced.
4. Look at the description of the wallpaper in paragraphs 96-104. How does the syntax of the sentences both mirror the pattern on the wallpaper and suggest the narrator's agitation?
The syntax of the description of the pattern of the wallpaper connects with the narrators agitation due to the way the narrator is able to view the pattern in a multitude of ways. She is able to see many different connections between the patterns, which in turn, exhausts her because of the difficulty to identify one set pattern. This suggests that the narrator is unhappy in her current life, that she has the ability to see many different ways to escape her position as a housewife, but is unable to find one clear path to take. As a result, she see's rejecting her current lifestyle as unfeasible and in turn, adds to the confusion that she dis experiencing as she learns more about her life as an individual.
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