In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author takes us on a journey through the mind of a woman going insane. The narrator's writings, " this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind - are our binoculars into her private thoughts and failing mind. .
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The main character is round and individual but very much a product of her time. She perceives herself as weak and of lesser value than her husband. She does not make decisions or take responsibility for most aspects of her life. She allows her husband to dictate her days, and her activities. Even the writing she loves is done in secret. She writes, "There comes John, and I must put this away, --he hates to have me write a word-.
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The setting and the people in the beginning of the story appear to be an "ordinary- couple going on holiday. They are excited about the home, "ancestral halls-, that they were able to secure for the summer. Yet, the narrator is hesitant. She feels that the house is "a hunted house-, and that there is "something queer about it."" She cannot understand why they would be able to rent it at such a price. .
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As the reader, you quickly see that this is not an ordinary couple. John, the physician husband, feels that his wife has a "temporary nervous depression-, yet his wife knows that her illness is much more. "You see he does not believe I am sick!- He feels that rest and absolute relaxation will cure his wife along with a few "phosphates or phospites- which he prescribes. .
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The antagonist in the story is the wallpaper. The wallpaper is something that begins to consume the thoughts and actions of the young woman. Initially, the narrator is repulsed by the wallpaper and she feels that "the color is repellent, almost revolting-, but, eventually, it changes to something she grows fond of. "I'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper, perhaps because of the wallpaper-. .
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The wallpaper slowly changes in the story.
