Subjects:
The story takes place at a summer vacation home, where the narrator’s husband, a physician treats her depression in a condescending manner. He either placates her, or dismisses her feelings, typical of the Victorian era: “If a physician of high standing, and ones own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression-a slight hysterical tendency-what is one to do?” (658). This is an example of her oppressed female status in the existing society, as well as, in her own life. Other dominant males in her life also hold the same opinion: “My brother is also a physician, and also of high standings, and he says the same thing.”(658). Again, th
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As the summer goes by and she is isolated more, and able to write less, her condition worsens. The fact that she feels safe to write at all is because she is writing a "dead paper" to no-one: “I did write for awhile in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal-having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition. At night, there is more activity in the wallpaper, so she is more alert and aware: “I really have discovered something at last. She wants to wait until she feels secure enough in her own mind before she lets John know she is beginning to take "control". I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time. He is very careful and loving and hardly lets me stir without special direction. But I can write when she is out and I see her a long way off from the windows. As time goes by, she feels free to “creep” as the woman in the wall paper does: "It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight….
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