Three Cheers for John

She seems to be fine at the beginning of the story. There was nothing that he could have done for her mental deterioration. Nothing that John could have done would have done anything to prevent the inevitability of his wife’s transformation into an insane lunatic. Some feminists may argue that John clearly was responsible for the deteriorating condition of his dearly beloved. Again, at the beginning of the story, she remarks rather freely about how she liked to sit on the porch under the roses. Her thoughts and words are testimony to that of a person suffering from extreme boredom. As the story unfolds, her thoughts turn into rather bizarre and nonsensical ramblings about women trapped behind the yellow wallpaper that decorates the room. The first is taken from the characters own mouth, from when she directly states that she “walks a little in the garden or down that lovely lane, [and] sit[s] on the porch under the roses” (The Norton Anthology, p.

Of course, the most damning piece of evidence against the theory that John caused his wife’s insanity by keeping her locked inside the house reveals itself at the end of the story. John did everything within his power to relieve the everyday stresses of his beloved wife by acquiring the services of a nanny.

As mentioned before, this is what some modern day feminists think. Again, the realists’ interpretation is extremely different.