In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator and her husband, John, have a difficult relationship. She suffers from depression and her husband is a physician. However, he doesn’t consider that his wife is suffering from something that she can’t control. Instead, he treats her condition as if its self-inflicted, and she could stop making herself sick at any time. He brings her to a abandoned mansion for them to live in for a few months. In this time, the narrator writes about her thoughts and her feelings, as well as the events that are taking place around her and what she thinks she sees. Her writing allows us as readers to get an idea of her relationship with her husband. Some quotes give clues of their relationship. One quote is “If a physician of high standing, and one’s 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?” This expresses how John sees his wife’s condition. He doesn’t take it as a serious problem, but as his wife being hysterical. Also, the narrator asking what can she do suggests that she feels stuck in her situation with no one to rescue her. Anyone who would take special concern for her is strayed away be her husband’s words. The couple don’t see eye to eye about what is really going on. Another quote is “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction”. The narrator takes John’s guidance as loving gestures. Throughout the story, the narrator isn’t allowed to write( even though she does when John’s not around), think too much and must rest a lot. She also has to take medication to help her ‘get over’ her sickness. The last quote is “‘What is it, little girl?’ he said. ‘Don’t go walking about like that, you’ll get cold…Bless her little heart! said he with a bug hug, ‘she’ll be as sick as she pleases!…” I was in shock when her referred to his wife as a little. this statement made me question the relationship between the two, if they were really married couple or if it was just in the narrator’s head. It is not common and very questionable for a man to call his wife a little girl in a serious manner. The fact that he called her a little girl confirmed my thoughts of John being controlling over his wife because he sees her as someone that he isn’t equal to, as a married couple should be, but as a child that doesn’t know any better.
