Summary Of Charlotte Perkins Stetson's The Yellow Wallpaper

In Charlotte Perkins Stetson’s short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, we see a narrator who struggles to free herself from the physical and mental forces that constrain her. Not only is the narrator dominated by her husband, but also by her mental perspective of the wallpaper. As this story unfolds we see the narrator begin to objectify herself as part of the wallpaper. The synopsis of this story revolves around a woman (narrator), who is deemed mentally ill by her husband. He coerces the narrator into taking all sorts of medicine and remedies for her health, while being confined to a room. We see the narrator describe her room: “The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow- turning sunlight” (649). So we see that in the beginning, that the narrator is absolutely disgusted by the ambiance of the room. The narrator later on notes, “The floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed…looks as if it had been through the wars. But I don’t mind it a bit- only the paper” (650).
Being held up in her room gives her time to observe the details around her. Throughout her time in the room, she begins to see changes in the wallpaper “This wallpaper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then” (650). She describes herself as getting “dreadfully fretful and querulous” (650). The story continues and the narrator ends up enjoying her room: “I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper” (650). The narrator convinces herself that she will figure out the pattern to the