John + Depression = Obsession with Wallpaper
"Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia.
But he said I wasn't able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished" (Gilman 534).
Although I also believed that the narrator suffered from post partum depression because of the few references to the baby, I also believe that John had a huge part in her reaction to the wall paper and to her mental break down. I don't think her depression was what drove her to become obsessed with the wall paper and "creep" at the end of the story, but instead John.
The narrator expressed at different times throughout the story that she wanted to socialize with friends and she wished she could deal better with her baby. It was John who was keeping her away from interacting with others and he drove her into isolation.
I think when the narrator sees the woman standing behind the bars in the wallpower, it is representing her feeling of wanting to escape not so much her depression, but rather John. In the end, when John faints, the narrator doesn't try to help him or try to creep around him. Instead, she crawls over him, treating him like nothing else except an obstacle that she was finally able to overcome to continue doing what she wanted.
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Katie, I think that’s a very good reading. Not only did you look at the actual words of the story, but your claim meshes well the author’s possible intentions. For, Gilman herself went through post-partum depression and she eventually divorced her husband for her mental well-being. And I suppose it isn’t overwhelming relevant to the text because I don’t think there’s anything in it about this, but I do wonder why John felt it was ok to treat the main character as he did.