Although the original narrator’s is told in first person autodiegetic from Jane’s perspective; the retelling gives a different vantage point being told by John in the first person autodiegetic narrative form.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” showed the reader the unraveling of a woman and how she perceived her situation. Throughout her narration we get a sense that she realizes that what she is feeling may be something deeper and much more substantial than what her husband John is leading her to believe about her condition. She wrestles with her current state of anxiety and depression because she has been told by John who is a doctor that it is nothing more than exhaustion. He brings her to house that he promises will be her sanctuary so that she may gain repose and get back to her old self. She has been anxious and feeling melancholy since the birth of their son and does her best to be pleasant, and tries to do as John bids her to do: rest, light exercise, eat well, and sleep. He ignores the fixation that she begins to develop with the wallpaper in the house and does his best to convince her to grab hold of her anxieties, and preoccupy herself with her recovery and rest. He issues a few warnings, though subtle, that if she does not improve that he will take more drastic measures and send her to the repudiated doctor that has handled other women with her similar condition.

“He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get. “Your exercise depends on your strength, my dear,” said he, “and your food somewhat on your appetite; but air you can absorb all the time.”

“But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self control; so I take pains to control myself – before him, at least, and that makes me very tired.”

It seems that in her quest to please and heed his word that she ignores the bubbling anxieties she feels.

It’s also interesting to see her fear of what may happen if she is honest about how she is feeling.

“Better in body perhaps – I began, and I stopped short, for he sat up straight and looked at me with such a stern, reproachful look that I could not say another word.”

The fact that she took care to keep her creeping hysteria from John shows how there was a lack of trust in their marriage. She should not been able to confide in her husband that what she felt was more than exhaustion?

“The Yellow Wallpaper” told from John’s perspective gives us his interpretation of Jane’s behavior. He married his beautiful Jane, and as a man of prestige due to his occupation as a doctor, had hoped to have the perfect picture of domesticity. He does his best as a husband to show Jane love, care and patience, but encourages her to help herself. I correlate the details in my retelling by showcasing his  bewilderment and slight exasperation at the fact that she is taking longer to recover than expected, and that she must in turn push herself to take care to his recommendations, for not only is he her husband, but a doctor as well.

“She should be focusing her thoughts on resting and doing light exercise, but absolutely no writing. I feel that it adds to her whims of her strange caprice. For heaven’s sake, I am a doctor and know how to handle her over exhaustion and need for bit of tranquility. I feel that I have done a fine job at picking the perfect sanctuary. Doesn’t she realize that I know best?”

What I try to convey in John’s version is not only the frustration that he feels at Jane’s whims, but also how he tries to convince himself that there is nothing truly disturbing about her behavior.

“If she doesn’t recover soon, she must go to Weir Mitchell for extensive treatment for her exhaustion and nervousness. The look of horror that overshadowed her face at the mere suggestion broke my heart even further, but at the same time gave me hope! Jane’s insistence that she did not require such treatment made me realize that she is slowly returning to her sound mind, for surely if she were truly on the verge of hysteria she would not protest with such conviction.”

This was the turning point in the retelling in which we start to see that it’s not that John is so domineering, but more so that he doesn’t want to see what is right before him, and that Jane’s condition may be worse than he wants to let himself believe.  We get to see that both Jane and John were both suffering from not being able to face difficulties about their spouses, and that distrust and fear on both their parts led to Jane’s unraveling.

I chose this”The Yellow Wallpaper” in particular because I felt that in relationships, someone may seem like the one who is at fault in certain situations ,and that it’s so important to get both sides of story. A person’s interpretation of a situation and why they may be behaving so is what causes most disconnection between people, and I think that with both stories we are able to see that within the complexity of this couple.

0

0