Two Page Lit Response: The Yellow Wallpaper

Siarra Williams
November 17, 2008
AP English III Period 11
Two Page Literary Response: The Yellow Wallpaper

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is an interesting short story. She wrote about herself during her depressive state, which was known to her husband and others as a “nervous condition” She and her husband, John, spent their summer in a far off estate so that she would get better. She spent most of her summer cooped up in a nursery turned temporary bedroom with the most disgusting yellow wallpaper. The author uses imagery and dialect to get across to the reader her feelings during her depressive state and how she felt cooped in that room.
The author spent a lot of time describing the wallpaper. It’s intriguing that her first feelings toward the wallpaper were that of disgust and dislike. She expressed to her husband her concerns but he just disregarded them. “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in 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.” (Gilman Page 3) She describes the wallpaper with such imagery and dark words to get across her detestable feelings to the reader. She wants the reader to understand that it was the worst wallpaper she could have ever imagined. She describes it with such dark words to create an odious image of the wallpaper. “There’s one comfort, the baby is well and happy, and does not have to occupy this nursery with the horrid wall-paper.” (Gilman Page 7) The fact that her baby does not have to sleep in the nursery is a high point for the author. She’d rather she sleeps there than her child. Gilman finds the room to be so horrific that she wishes it upon herself rather than her child. Although she hates the room with a passion, she’d rather suffer than have her child see such wallpaper.
“He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get.” (Gilman Page 2) The author includes this to display how her husband felt that her rest was a necessity. He wanted her to get better and he rented out the estate for her well-being. “John says if I don’t pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall.” (Gilman Page 6) The author includes this to show her husbands’ feelings toward her recovery process. If she were not to recover in the time that he allotted he had the control to send her off to another physician. She expressed in her story that she did not wish to see this physician because of the rumors that she heard about from her friends.
In conclusion “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is an interesting story. I love the entire concept of the story. She used so many descriptive words to get her point across. In reading this story I could imagine the yellow wallpaper with all of it s fungus and cracks along the wall. She brought the pages to life and I understood her depressive state more with the intensity in which she described the scene. Her feelings became my feelings, her words became my words. I just connected with her the whole time of the story and throughout her writing style.