Prescription Of Madness

"There is one marked peculiarity about this paper; a thing nobody seems to notice but myself, and that is that it changes as the light changes. Then the sun shoots in through the east window-- I always watch for that first long, straight ray-- it changes so quickly that I never can quite believe it. By moonlight--the moon shines in all night when there is a moon--I wouldn't know it was the same paper. At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars!" (Gilman 514).

In the beginning of "The Yellow Wallpaper", by Charlotte Gilman, the narrator immediately dislikes the wallpaper and studies it with the eye of a critical interior designer. The pattern fascinates her and she becomes increasingly obsessed with uncovering its secrets. The mystery of the pattern becomes the center of her life and her only concern. The contrasting views of the wallpaper during night and day play a prominent role in the developing and deterioration of the narrator's mental health.

The narrator's husband, John, prescribes something for the narrator to take every hour of the day while he is at work. John is convinced that the narrators' mental health is improving, although he still makes her take phosphates. Since John is at work, this leaves the narrator trapped in her room to sleep, all alone. While the narrator should be sleeping, she studies the wallpaper. Only periodically will the narrator see the image of a woman. The woman remains completely still, afraid of being caught. The narrator cannot see this as well under the oppressive glare of sunlight in her room, but it becomes very clear by the cool, feminine light of the moon.

With the closing of the day, brings courage to the wallpaper woman. She becomes highly visible, to only the narrator, during twilight. She boldly creeps about the house, fearing nothing. The same thing is true for the narrator. It is only during the night that the narrator finds enough courage to tell John that she wants to leave the dreadful house. Night time also lets the narrators' subconscious roam freely. This is the reason that the wallpaper woman is so visible at night. During the day, the woman and the narrator's mind are stiff, but at night both are free to wander.

The passage above is crucial to the decline of the narrator's mental health throughout the entire story. On the most basic level, it is apparent that anyone who becomes obsessed with wallpaper and believes it to hold a world that people inhabit is insane. Looking deeper into what the narrator reads into the wallpaper, one can understand her more clearly. The narrator reverses her initial feelings of being watched by the wallpaper and starts actively studying