The Yellow Wallpaper

It must be about 3 a.m. I am laid up in this hospital with breast cancer writing about my life. I was married to a doctor, God rests his soul, but men in my days were not fun to be with. I had a depression problem and I believe he was more burdensome than the depression itself.

There was a time when I just had a baby, I became very depressed, and my husband said it would do me well to get fresh air. I, the woman of the times, wanted to get better and I trusted my husband, and had no other way. So he took me out in the country, and I mostly stayed in this beautiful house that had become my prison with one room in particular. It was there that I realized nobody was listening to me, I had become everyone's burden, and my own burdens were not to be heard of. After all, how could I possibly have any, I was given daily baths and massages, I was not to look after my baby at all. I was feed breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was told not to write; it was most forbidden of it. They believed writing excited a woman too much; such a thing was not to be heard of. In that 1880's time a woman was to tend to her husband and the house hold.

The room that I stayed in had the most absurd wallpaper. It was yellow, and it some areas it was faded or torn. I despised the wallpaper, but my dear husband said, "My love if I fix the wall paper then it will be something else I will have to fix. So this is part of your therapy. You must get used to it."

After a while it seemed as if the wallpaper began to reach out at me calling my name. It seemed like a woman was trapped inside the walls. I thought to myself, "I must free her." And night I would wake up, and I would see her watching me. At first I was afraid, but now it seems as if we have become one. I watch her crawling around out in the yard from time to time desperately looking for freedom. I wanted so bad to free her, but how could I. I wanted to ask her, but how? Maybe she doesn't want this freedom I believe she so deserves.