So once again I sit at my computer trying to think of ways to analyze Gilman's the "Yellow Wallpaper" in a different way. After reading this for the 5th time (twice in high school and three here in college) I am starting to run out of things to say. In January I wrote an entry that I will try not to reproduce here.
As I said last semester I really enjoyed reading the short story from the first person's point of view. By starting out in the beginning with the excitement of the narrator at being able to move into this amazing house for the summer and ending with her believing she is the woman behind the pattern, Gilman brings the reader into the mind of the narrator. However, a very good point was posted on my other blog entry by a visitor about whether or not Jane (as we have finally decided was the narrator's name) killed herself. How, is it possible that she did this if she is writing the events that are going on. Could it be that in the final moments she killed the husband and not herself?
The last line of the story says:
Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!
This doesn't really give the reader any real clue as to whether or not this is what happened. Speculation can tell us that when John opened the door to the room he saw all of the wallpaper on the floor around his wife with her crawling all over the floor. I think that he really did just pass out because when would she have killed him? The last section of the story is basically him trying to get into the room and when he finally does he stops at the door and the she is saying that he passes out. She even says that she looked over he shoulder to exclaim the fact that John "can not put her back."
Throughout the story we do see Jane slowly losing her mind. I had previously stated that John did not care about his wife and had he cared he would have been around more. This could also drive a person to want to do terrible things. However, now I think that maybe he did care, but just could not be there to see his wife slowly sinking into such an instable mental state. He does try and do everything the doctor tells him to do to help his wife, and he does try to talk to her. Perhaps he just doesn't know how. I have recently witnessed what it was like to visit a friend in the hospital. You really just don't know what to say. Even the visitors are uncomfortable in such a setting. I can only imagine what the patient feels.
And so I have come to the conclusion that what the visitor to my blog earlier in the semester says just can't hold true. The narrator did not kill her husband, he simply passed out. There really isn't enough evidence to support that line of thought. If anyone else has any ideas on how this can be possible. Please let me know!
Posted by Tiffany Brattina at November 22, 2004 6:51 PM