The Yelow Wallpaper

Left alone with no stimuli is it any wonder that a woman who is admittedly suffering from a nervous condition would start to create her own? She is writer and as such probably has a very active imagination. When told by her physician husband that lack of stimuli and bed rest are the requirements for her recovery she does not agree but complies. In a room which she assumes had been used as a nusery then as a playroom and gymnasium is wallpaper she describes as having "sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin." With her husband gone much of the time she has nothing to do and no one to see and she becomes obsessed with the paper. She starts by analyzing the patterns but before long is seeing a broken neck and bulbous eyes in it and finally she is convinced she sees a woman behind bars. She believes that at night the woman is shaking wallpaper trying to escape from it. I guess the lack of stimuli her husband recommended was not what she needed. Clearly she feels trapped and has projected her feelings onto the paper. It is obviously her that feels the need to escape. I found it interesting that the paper had become such a part of her thoughts that even when she is not in the room or in the house she feels as if she can smell it.