journal 36

Nika Bogoslovsky
3/4/08
Gilman

Quote: "It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked."

Response: This quote is from Charlotte Perkins Gilman herself from Why I Wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper"?This story is meant to empower people and I know I've been focusing on women but I think she lends this empowerment to the men who had to go through Mitchell's treatment too.

Summary: To try to take a different spin on the story, I thought of another way to interpret the main character and her position. I think it would work because it would be a more extreme interpretation of Gilman's feelings towards confined women. This would be what men actually drive women into. Maybe the woman was admitted to the institution at the same time the story says but her stay there is a lot longer than she thinks. John really isn’t her husband but just her doctor and that explains why he’s gone so often because he doesn’t actually live there; he plays along though just to keep her happy. However, he stays there some nights because it is his job and he has to keep watch. Jennie isn’t really his sister but an actual nurse at the ward and the women that the main character sees are other patients. She did have a child but due to her instability as a person, they wouldn’t let her keep it. Everything we get from her point of view is hallucinations and misunderstandings. She really believes John is her husband, she sees women and Jennie is just a housekeeper, but really, she’s crazy. The more I think about it, the more I like it.