The Yellow Wallpaper

There are things in that paper which nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit. I wonder—I begin to think—I wish John would take me away from here! (Gilman) 

This part from The Yellow Wallpaper was one that I found interesting. The reader is introduced to the story through the eyes of a narrator, whom we know is ill with something called temporary nervous depression. Her husband, and doctor, has prescribed her with a resting cure where she is not to do anything physically or mentally strenuous. The quote above, to me, proves that she goes bananas (which are also yellow and horrible) from the wallpaper because she saw herself in it.

At the beginning of the story, she describes the room by saying, "I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls" (Gilman). Now, when I hear barred windows, I'm not thinking child safety -- I'm thinking preventing dangerous people from escaping, like a prison. Also the "rings" made me think of the barbed wire that curls along the tops of fences in protective areas, also like prison. Her husband, John, could play the warden. He shuts her up in a house to help her get better but prevents her from doing anything to physically or mentally grueling. John treats her more as a case than his wife and doesn't seem to notice that his "treatment" isn't working, The narrator describes John as, ". . .practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures" (Gilman). Perhaps this is why he cannot actively help his wife with her depression; depression is something he cannot physically grasps and therefore struggles with processing the reality of the disease.

When she says, "There are things in that paper which nobody knows but me, or ever will", I think she's talking about herself. She mentions early in the poem around where she describes her husband as practical, but also says that, "John is a physician, and perhaps--(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)--perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see he does not believe I am sick" (Gilman)! This goes hand in hand with the idea of her husband not being able to grasp her disease, but also leaving her feeling even more isolated by battling depression alone.

The line, "And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern" brought the whole picture together for me. She's isolated in a house, which is more like her prison, where she sees herself growing old in the background of life. John's sister, Jennie, is serving as a housekeeper and nurse, but also reminding the narrator of everything her husband won't allow her to do. She'll grow old blending in, much like the patterns of the wallpaper. Had John let her write and express her feelings instead of insisting he knew how to cure her, she probably would have seen the wallpaper in a different perspective.