"The Yellow Wallpaper" written in 1890 by Charlotte Perkins Stetson tells the story of John's wife, a woman without a name, she is simply her husband's property and he believes her to be suffering from a nervous condition. They rent a mansion for the narrator's well-being and she is kept in almost total isolation without any form of creative out lit, not even writing. John is a physician and prescribes almost constant rest and hourly tonics. The narrator tries to write in secret because she believes that it would help her, but having to hide it is exhausting. "Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good," (Stetson, C., 1890, p. 648).
John patronizes the narrator by making her feel unreasonable in her anger towards him despite the fact that he has forced her into a room she did not want to use; a nursery, where she could be completely dominated, when she would have preferred a more feminine room downstairs. He made her feel guilty for asking for something that she wanted; as though his wants and needs were the only one's that mattered. "He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special directionhe takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more," (Stetson, 1890, p. 648). The windows of the nursery have bars in them, which seems to further symbolize the narrator's imprisonment.
The yellow wallpaper conveys to the reader the main messages of the story, such as the chaos of the pattern representing the narrator's disordered mind and the wallpaper's, "sickly sulphur tint," further reinforcing the message of the narrator's illness (Stetson, 1890, p. 649). In two places the wallpaper is stripped off and when I read that, the first thing I thought was, 'is something trying to break free?' As the days pass in isolation, without stimulation, the narrator becomes increasingly preoccupied with the wallpaper and discovers a figure skulking in the background.