Demanded

Demanded

The main character in the Yellow Wallpaper is stripped of her identity by the alienation of her husband and the fact that he treats her like a child. She goes on throughout the story stating how she is trapped and how its not fair that she has to saty in the house.

When she is suppressed by him telling her what she can and cannot do, he tells her “You know the place is doing you good and really, dear, I don’t care to renovate the house just for three months rental.” (Gilman 187). In this statement that he makes he is showing that he doesn’t want to change the house, and wants her to keep her in the same setting. He isolates her physically, emotionally, and doesn’t let her have friends, or write in her journal throughout the story. The husband thinks that she will be less stressed out and will be protected from the outside world.

When her husband comes in the room she makes a comment saying how her opinion doesn’t even matter to him because he thinks that she doesn’t even know what she is talking about. This is what she states, “Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do?” (p.182). She accepts the fact that she knows her view doesn’t matter. She says another saying about putting herself down, “I meant to be such help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already.” (p. 184).

Another major part of this story she talks about and to yellow wallpaper as if it is her friends. “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.” (p.183).

In this paragraph she is talking about the wallpaper and the way that she is looking at. She comes out and states how she feels about herself and how her husband tells her what to do and what not to do, and while keeping her inside is not helping her. She does this in the paragraph above.