At the same time, one who is sick rarely understands what is happening oneself. An example of her erratic narration is her first assessment of her husband's good intentions, which contrasts her later assessment of his cruelty for preventing her from writing. In this sense, students might find the narration of the story unreliable.

It is also unclear, however, whether or not the narrator believed she was actually sick at all. For example, the narrator has hardly begun her struggle with following the pattern of the wallpaper before she says, 'There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will.'2 It is obvious that isolation did not cure the narrator from her illness. As the reader observes the narrator's mental breakdown, the sentences in the story become shorter and more disconnected.Īs readers follow the narration of Gilman's story, much of what happens in the story seems distorted or unexplained. Her character is also revealed in her writing style. For example, on the first page of the story, the narrator says, 'John is a physician, and perhaps – (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) – perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.'1 Here, the reader's first impression of the narrator is that she is both rather aware and perceptive. She describes her first impressions of the house, of her husband's efforts and her reactions to the medical treatment. Throughout reading, it is useful to list the impressions that the narrator leaves on the reader. Therefore, writing is synonymous with 'voice'. We can take this idea one step further and say that the students' interpretations of the story represent their voices. In essence, I see the story itself as the author's voice as much as it is the narrator's voice too. I imagine the idea of voice to encompass the narrator's language and actions as well as the author's motives for writing. When I think about voice in relation to 'The Yellow Wallpaper,' I think in terms of how a person communicates oneself – how the story is told – beyond the words the narrator provides. It can mean the author's tone, a poem's speaker or the point of view from which a novel is told. 'Voice' is a rather vague term used in analyzing literature.

The yellow wallpaper critical analysis