The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper

In the short story 'The Yellow Wallpaper'; by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator and her husband move to a colonial mansion for three months in order to help the narrator get better. She moves upstairs in this horrid room with yellow wallpaper. Throughout the story she studies the wallpaper because she isn't allowed out of the room that much because her husband, John, a physician, says that it is best that she stays inside. As she learns more about the wallpaper she realizes that she sees a woman inside it and she spends a lot of time plotting how to free the woman. She locks her room and tears off most of the wallpaper and frees the woman. At the end John comes into the room, sees what she has done and faints.
Everyone deals with their personal obstacles differently and 'The Yellow Wallpaper'; is a perfect example because there are many different obstacles throughout the story. The narrator and John both handle them differently and a result of which, is an essential change by both of them.

First of all, John handles everything to an extent but he doesn't solve the problem at hand. He tends to run away from it. For example, when the narrator asks, 'why the house had stood so long untenanted,'; he just laughs at her and doesn't even investigate about it, which proves that he just let it go and does nothing about it. And that is what he does throughout the whole story. Also he 'scoffs openly at any talk.'; This means that he doesn't talk about his problems and he would prefer to keep things bottled up then to express how he is really feeling. He is also always 'going into town for more serious cases.'; This is another way in which John deals with his problems, he runs away from them. He also avoids the actual subject by calling his wife a cute name like, 'bless her little heart,'; and, 'my blessed little goose.'; These quotes just make it so he doesn't have to answer the question and then he has relinquished himself from the situation. Another thing that he does to handle obstacles is he lies. When the narrator says that she doesn't feel any better, and this happens often, then he just says, 'you are getting better, you are eating more and you have more color today.'; So john handles his obstacles in an inefficient and ineffective matter.

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...hing normally, but she is restricted to a limited amount of socialization. This gives her time to analyze her obstacle and overcome it quicker than John does.

Both the narrator and John undergo an essential change. The narrator begins the story as a woman who is somewhat mentally distraught. Throughout the story you can see her become different through her thoughts and actions. By the end of the story she has become clinically insane and is in desperate need for help. John on the other hand does not come to the realization that at the beginning of the story, the narrator has some issues that have to be dealt with and he just ignores them for the most part. Finally at the end of the story he comes to the realization that in fact, his wife is nuts.

In conclusion, everyone experiences obstacles in their life, and all have a different approach in which they attack the obstacle. Some are more effective than others are. The narrator was much more effective than John was because she had time to analyze the problem and then do something about it. Where as John would pretty much just leave it be and hope it eventually went away.