Of all the short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman mesmerized me and rapidly became my favorite the further I read. Centered on the narrator, this story illustrates the mental deterioration of a woman bounded to the room by her husband. It’s said the woman suffers from depression and possibly anxiety. Gilman effectively narrated this women’s descent into madness, I myself felt her depravity, her hopelessness as she tries to distract herself with her fixation on the wallpaper. The human mind isn’t wired to be idle. I experience headaches when I spend too long in bed staring at a screen, when I finally get up – the headache disappears. During the peak of quarantine, I forced myself into a daily workout routine. – it kept my mind and body active and overall gave me a sense of purpose. I would wake up and plan my day based on what time I wanted to work out. 

The narrator’s husband disapproves of her journal, her only outlet for creativity and productivity and it makes me wonder. Although medical knowledge was limited in that time period, how could they believe this treatment would lead to the betterment of this women’s mental health? Locking her in a room without anything to do, I feel anyone would become fixated on otherwise obsolete things. And even as her husband took notice of his wife’s unhealthy obsession with the wallpaper, he still kept her in that room, dismissing her thoughts and opinions. John is a negative embodiment of men in that time period, he served more as a prison guard than her husband, exhibiting no empathy nor understanding. The narrator wasn’t as unstable before being locked in that; she could’ve gotten better if only her voice was respected. The yellow wallpapered room serves as her prison both – mentally and physically.