"I've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jennie! And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!" (456)
I did not understand a thing that was going on in this story until the last section, section XI. It started to slightly come together. From my understanding, the narrator is the woman that is behind the wallpaper shaking it trying to become "free". Just like Louis Mallard in "The Story of an Hour", she is taken care of by her husband. Both of the women had some type of "disease" and the husband looked after them with overprotectiveness. Both wanted to be free. I feel that this so called disease the narrator had was a mental issue that was instilled in her head. Once she figured out that there was something special about the yellow wallpaper, she proceeded to find out what it was. This quote is important because it symbolizes the narrator freeing herself from her disease, the protection from John and Jennie, and and whatever other problems she faced. In the quote it says how she stripped the wallpaper so she can't be placed back in it. This shows her refusal to be confined or controlled. The wallpaper symbolizes a prison like state of mind where everything is controlled by someone or something else but by destroying it, she received deliverance from bondage.
I still don't quite understand the story as a whole but that is what I got out of it.
Morgan Stevenson
Strong ideas, Ms. Stevenson, and can definitely be developed into a thesis. But one question--why do you say her "so-called disease"? Are you implying that there's nothing really wrong with her? What makes you think that?
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