The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) is a study of a woman’s gradual descent into madness. The story is told from the first person perspective, as the woman narrates how her whole environment goes into overdrive to protect her from the least stress after the post-partum depression she experiences, following the birth of her child. Her household duties are taken away from her, childcare is taken way. The only thing she has to do is nothing all day. Her husband, who is a famed doctor, does not believe his wife is ill. He says she suffers from momentary distemper which can be cured by rest. So he decides that their bedroom, will be the nursery. The room is specially chosen because it has railings at the window. The woman is kept virtually like a prisoner there, for her own good she is told. The husband, who is away for long stretches of time, does not even want his wife to write. But write she does and the writing soon veers into chronicling her gradual descent into madness. Using his patriarchal entitlement, the well-meaning husband overturns her request for a better room with different patterns, despite her repeated requests. But the woman is forced to spend hours in the nursery with its large yellow flowers which she feels are monstrous. The wall paper has also been peeled in many places, by the nursery children in the past.
