Nocturnal

Francis Espiritu

ENGL 48B

Charlotte Perkins Gilman Journal

Author Quote: "I'm feeling ever so much better! I don't sleep much at night, for it is so interesting to watch developments; but I sleep a good deal in the daytime. In the daytime it is tiresome and perplexing." (Gilman 816)

Internet Quote: "The story is about a woman who suffers from mental illness after three months of being closeted in a room by her husband for the sake of her health. She becomes obsessed with the room's revolting yellow wallpaper. Gilman wrote this story to change people's minds about the role of women in society, illustrating how women's lack of autonomy is detrimental to their mental, emotional, and even physical wellbeing. The narrator in the story must do as her husband, who is also her doctor, demands, although the treatment he prescribes contrasts directly with what she truly needs — mental stimulation and the freedom to escape the monotony of the room to which she is confined. The Yellow Wallpaper was essentially a response to the doctor who had tried to cure her of her depression through a "rest cure", Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, and she sent him a copy of the story." (Wikipedia; Charlotte Perkins Gilman)

Summary: The narrator of the story who is confined in the attic of this summer house seems to be a nocturnal person. She seems to look for more signs of the woman in the wallpaper in the evening as if hoping to find some kind of sign or message that she seems to be trying to get across. However, I think the more time the woman spends in the room the closer she arrives to becoming "hysterical".

Personal Opinion: I think that the longer the woman spends in the room, the more hysterical she becomes. If anything I think that the reason why the woman goes crazy is because of her husband's idea to send her away to this summer house to get better, yet the exact opposite happens. Instead of getting better, she becomes worse, and ultimately becomes crazy. Yet I do not think that the woman herself was hysterical from the beginning, if anything it was as if it were a self fulfilling prophecy where in time she became hysterical thinking that everything would be okay. Yet at the same time, I think the woman that she sees in the wallpaper is a ghost telling her to leave; not because the ghost woman's room is being bothered but she does not want the narrator to end up like her. As we read further into the story we learn that the room in the attic seems to be a kind of room where "hysterical' women were once housed. I think that the woman in the wallpaper does not want the narrator to suffer the same fate, so she is trying to warn her and tell her to leave before it is too late. That is why I think the narrator seems to stay awake at night, not because she is naturally a nocturnal person, but is possibly trying to look for some kind of clue or message the woman in the wallpaper is trying to leave behind.