This short story is without a doubt the most chilling short story I've ever read. I do admire the way that the author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, wrote the horrifying twist at the end of the story, but it is that same shocking twist that makes the short story so alarming.
Early on in the short story, based on our previous classroom conversations regarding feminism, I believed that the speaker was seeing a woman behind the barred wallpaper because she subconsciously felt that women were oppressed during this time period. To discover that she eventually ended up being the woman behind the bars was shocking, but made absolute sense. Connecting details from the story, the speaker is trapped in a room with barred windows, and treated like a child by her own husband. Where is her husband actually disappearing to when he is gone all day? Why is the woman treated so unfairly? Truthfully, much medical advice from earlier time periods ended up being ridiculously inefficient compared to the advanced medical attention we as individuals receive today, but I feel as if her husband fully understands what is going on. Isn't it fairly easy to see the signs of depression blaring from an individual? A main warning sign for me would be the woman's distaste for her own child.
Let's also acknowledge the significance of the wallpaper itself. First of all, there's the connection of the heads that have been strangled trying to escape. What is the author trying to say? If women try to put up a fight and escape the imprisonments deemed suitable for them, they end up being unable to survive? What does this say about society during this era? When the speaker described the yellow hue of the wallpaper, I instantly made a connection to the medical condition of jaundice. Essentially, the way the woman is treated is growing on her like a sort of cancer; you can't really see it, but it's just as malignant and consistently breaks her down.
