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The Yellow Wallpaper Reactions

In: English and Literature

Submitted By Valedor
Words 291
Pages 2
The yellow wallpaper is my favorite story out of the ones we read during the term, tied with a good man is hard to find. Mainly because I am not a particularly big fan of realistic fiction like most of the stories we learned. The story made me feel scared and uneasy throughout the time that I spent reading it, few stories managed to engage me this deeply. The narrator’s contact with her head and the women trapped inside the wallpaper along with the feelings I had when reading the story reminded me a lot of another turn of the screw by Henry James. It felt similar because what happens to the narrator in the yellow wallpaper could be explained in two forms, like an actual trip to madness derived from the isolation or an evil entity trapped inside the wallpaper that drove the narrator into madness. I believe she was driven mad due to the treatment she received. She is forced to hide her nervous condition, which forced her to start a secret journal. This raises an issue today as that kind of treatment is uncalled for at this age; we have actual treatments for mental conditions. It’s hard to believe how some conditions were treated back in the 1900s, not just mental but physical as well. I like to believe that her descent to madness had a lot to do with the women trapped inside the wallpaper, a supernatural entity responsible for her becoming fond of the wallpaper and ultimately getting inside her head. The main craft concept discussed in class that I noticed was the symbolism of the yellow wallpaper. The way the narrator starts to gradually identifying different aspects of the wallpaper are very well

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