Special K

I completley agree that i found it odd the man was so very caring. I pictured a much more fierce and dominating figure. But I guess as you said that the actions that he does are worse than the words that he uses. And as we all know actions speak louder than words.
I also agree with the point you made about the author's concern for the treatment of the day compared with the actual insanity. In my mind i think of the people of that time as very judgemental and blow everything out of proportion. She has a little bit of depression...throw her in a mental hospital!!

i also thought that her husband was more cruel than helpful, mainly for the fact that he kpet telling her that nothing was wrong with her, when there so obviously was. the part in the story that angered me the most was when she told him how the room with the yellow wallpaper drove her mad and he would not let her change rooms, even though he was barely there. controlling? i think so.

lemme know what you think.

Vanessa,

As much as I love ya, I think that you are doing too much character analysis. The character in this story is not clearly important as the symbolism and representation of the room itself. I think that we are doing too much character analysis, and not enough depth reading (looking for other aspects) in these stories. The woman was not the main character, the room was.

I say this because the room represents the imprisonment of women from society and their own husbands. Women were "better seen, not heard" and their husbands made decisions and designed their roles for them. The bed, the flaws of the room, and especially the wallpaper represents the shackles being held on a woman's individualistic freedom. I think that is the most important element in this particular story, not the fact that she is sick. Society tells her she's wrong, when in fact, she is right!

I did more research on this particular topic. I think that not many are grasping what is really going on in the particular time period, so I'm going to shed some light on this topic. Here are two sites I found on the roles of women, and the imprisonment of women in the last 19th century.

Here are the sites:

http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/gilman.htm#INSERT%201

http://www.exampleessays.com/viewpaper/13766.html

I couldn't believe that the author actually had an explanation as to why she wrote the story. After reading "Bartleby," where everything had to be read between the lines, this author flat out says, "I wrote this to say this." That shocked me! Part of me was like, "Is she allowed to do that?!"

I agree with you, though. This woman was way ahead of her times. Amazing how today's normal is yesterday's crazy...

Well, I wouldn't think it was "covering up a more sinister plan." It was more of neglect on John's part. This might be due to the fact that during those times, John's profession and gender makes his decision, I guess you can say, "superior" than the narrator's. Women are merely subordinate of men in the nineteenth-century, if I'm not mistaken.

"The character in this story is not clearly important as the symbolism and representation of the room itself." Well, I think that the narrator is as important as the room itself. The woman in the yellow wallpaper tries to break free of the norms of the society. Throughout the story, we see the narrator develops the same agenda. Initially, she goes along with her husband and his treatment but in the end, she breaks free of whatever she has been imprisoned with.

That moment when the narrator goes "insane" is also the exact moment where she finally realizes herself after all the repression of her feelings because of her husband.

Well, these are all just my opinion... =)