Review "The Yellow Wallpaper"

This story is written as journal entries by the narrator as she spends her summer vacation in this house that her husband takes her to. The narrator has depression and thinks that by keeping a journal to entertain her and help her be imaginative -disturbed by yellow wallpaper -she hides her journal from her husband because he is controlling -begins to like the wallpaper -wallpaper begins to dominate the narrator's life -tries to destroy the wallpaper once she thinks her husband and sister in law are on to her. -she begins to creep around the room and makes her husband faint and then creeps over him

The Servitude of Women in Marriage: The narrator has no say in even the smallest details of her life so she retreats to her obsessive fantasy, the only place she can retain some control and exercise the power of her mind. The Importance of Self-Expression: mental constraints force the narrator to drive her insane. She has to hide her anxieties and fears to have a happy marriage.

The Journal: Gilman uses this technique to show the narrator's descent into madness from both the inside and the outside. The interruptions show the constraints placed on the narrator.

The Wallpaper: usually seen as domestic and humble, but used here to show the domestic life that traps so many women. -first it seems unpleasant because it is dirty and ripped -the second layer focuses on a desperate women who seems trapped behind the main pattern that resembled bars of a cage -narrator sees the heads of many women who are strangled as they try to escape

-uses the sub genre of confessional because it shows a very personal diary -seems like a normal life at first because they are just going on summer vacation -the main character is studied in-depth -focus on character is more important than plot -morality is questioned as she fights depression and freedom

-insane narrator -psychological horror tale -a house that has been empty for long time -depression -fall to madness -obsession with the wallpaper -narrator is alone, detached from husband and sister in law