Perhaps part of her problem was boredom. I cannot imagine an average woman's life being exciting back in those days, trapped playing housewife for her husband. The fact that she was stuck in this room made it that much easier for her to fixate on something, anything to occupy herself and distract her from the boredom, in this case the wallpaper. The pattern she described sounded dizzying and, coupled with her possible illness, her preoccupation with the wallpaper either caused or sped up her eventual breakdown.
Monday, January 16, 2012
The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" made me think, strangely, of my grandmother's house. Whenever I would sleep over there, I would stay in my mother's old bedroom, where there was wallpaper very similar to what the narrator describes in the story, on page 101 especially, "It is dull enough to confuse the eye in the following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide - plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions." When I was very young, I had trouble sleeping away from home, so I would spend most of the time I waited to fall asleep studying the patterns of the wallpaper, so long and so much that I would often get dizzy and my vision would blur. I did this out of boredom and to pass the time. I couldn't help but think if the narrator was doing the same.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
That line was for me, the most powerful line to read. i cannot think of anywhere or anything that looks the way she described it. The 'curves" that "commit suicide", I guess I never want to hang out at your grandmas house.I think I know what it is to be bored however. If you stare at anything long enough, your bound to go crazy.
ReplyDeleteI think it is funny that you compare the story to your own personal experience with a "Yellow Wallpaper". However I do not believe she was thinking about the wall paper in a way which you were. Women were suppose to have some exciting life during that time, it may not be as much fun as women lives are now but it was still suppose to be but her life was not exciting and that was something which she could not do her life seems sad and depressing and she just wanted happiness, in her case the wallpaper was a chance for her to see some type of happiness
ReplyDeleteI really like how you related a real life experience to this text. It seems to bring it to life a little bit more. I really agree with your last paragraph talking about how bordom may have been the causing factor of her "illness" and eventually causing a mental breakdown. It seems like a very logic and believable cause to what she may have been going through. Overall, I thought your observations and thoughts were very intuitive and made me think differently about the story than before I read your comment.
ReplyDelete