"The Yellow Wallpaper" Review

Reading “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was difficult, to say the least. The story itself went by swiftly; I had no problem getting through it in a short period of time, but the concept of it was challenging to understand.

In my opinion, though I’m not a psychiatrist like John or the protagonist’s brother, I believe she has some sort of mental illness. From my knowledge gained by Psychology with Mr. Cayea this year, I think that she may have schizophrenia. She’s having delusions of a woman being trapped in the wallpaper, raging and stirring chaos behind the patterns at night, and “creeping” about in the daytime.

Putting the unnamed protagonist in such a room only seemed to worsen her condition, because she was able to analyze every detail of that wallpaper, sitting for hours on end just staring and analyzing. There, she was able to lose herself to her delusions without anyone to really stop them from occurring. And when everyone else denied that there was anything wrong with the room or the wallpaper, she remained fervent in her belief that there was in fact something within those patterns. The symptoms (the delusions and stubborn belief that the delusions are true) point to schizophrenia.

Personally, I think that the protagonist’s husband or brother should have done more to help her condition, rather than just placing her in a room for three months. I’m not sure what the time period of this story is supposed to be, but it seems like it was at least one hundred years ago. Either way, the existence of anti-psychotics probably was not, but even so, I think that the protagonist could’ve felt better just talking about what was going on in her mind without anyone turning her away. They also probably could have simply moved her from the wallpapered room. She asked numerous times, and quite honestly, I think she knew better than her husband on that point.

Overall, I think that “The Yellow Wallpaper” is an okay read. I think that the events leading to the end were better than the ending itself, because the ending was puzzling. I’m not really sure what is happening to the protagonist in the end. She may be having a break down, but with the way it’s written, it seems like she’s possessed by the woman from her delusions. It just doesn’t make sense to me, and I think that really takes away from the story for me personally.