Summary and Analysis of Part 3
Part Three: Summary The narrator and John have just had relatives over for the 4th of July. Even though Jennie took care of everything, the narrator is still tired, and John has warned her he may send her to the physician Weir Mitchell in the fall if she does not get better. She finds she is anxious, argumentative, and cries easily when alone, which is often. The wallpaper is proving to be stimulating. She spends hours studying the confusing, chaotic patterns. In one sunlit section of the room, she can make out a more ordered pattern. The narrator writes only to relieve her thoughts, but the effort is too great even for that. She fails to convince John to let her visit Cousin Henry and Julia, and her tears undermine her argument. John is very caring with her and encourages her to use her will power to get better. The one comfort to her is that the baby has been well, and has not been forced to use the horrid nursery. She thinks there are things in the wallpaper only she knows about; the repeating shape of a woman stooping down and creeping around becomes clearer each day. AnalysisThe narrator says "There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me." Calling it "paper" rather than "wallpaper" suggests the wallpaper functions similarly to the paper she has been writing. The wallpaper is becoming a kind of literary text in which she discovers deep meaning under the surface. The meaning of the wallpaper is, as she says, growing clearer each day. Under the confusing patterns, which more closely mirror her chaotic mind, appears the image of a woman in a somewhat subservient pose ("stooping down and creeping around"). John's paternalism grows, as well. He treats her more like his infant, calling her "his darling and his comfort," as if her identity exists only through him. The narrator also believes "I must take care of myself for his sake," a statement loaded with irony. The irony of John's control over her again resurfaces when he tells her she must use her "will and self-control" to get better when, in fact, he has been controlling her all along. Gilman makes a boldly insulting reference to Silas Weir Mitchell, the doctor who prescribed her a similar "rest cure" in 1887, and who is "just like John and my brother, only more so!"
ClassicNote on The Yellow Wallpaper
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