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I personally found this story hard to read and follow. I do not believe the narrator to be reliable. I think that in the beginning she rather enjoyed being ill in order to be taken care of or to play a victim. In paragraph 7 she tells of her husband being a physician and that being the reason she does not get well faster. Her comments, such as in paragraph 8; ‘you see, he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do?’ and paragraph 14; ‘But what is one to do?’ lets her be helpless to the situation. I also do not feel the husband is not to blame here for some part. As a physician, he should be making sure that she is well as a whole, not just physically. He over looks a lot of her mental illness issues.

When it is brought up to her that she is doing better, she never feels that way and has an example of how she is not getting better. The only time she admits to being better is when her mental stability seems most frail as in paragraph 168; ‘I am feeling so much better!’ This is at the point she notices and writes about the smell and the marks that go around the room. She uses her writing as a tool to enable her illness.

I had a hard time the first time I read through this, but after re-reading it, I got the feeling that her illness has progressed since childhood. Her comment in paragraph 66; ‘I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy store!’ Knowing this, it is easy to see why to her, the fascination with the wallpaper seems normal. I thought at first that maybe it was a post-partum type of disorder, but I can only see that as a small factor in the big picture.

At the end of the story, I thought she had tried to hang herself. She talks about the rope she has and how she could just jump out the window. She states that she does not want to leave or go outside. I just assumed that she tried to kill herself. When I reread the...