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What a fun story! I enjoyed how the woman’s mind unraveled as the story unfolded. I agree about the issue of her having too much “rest” time/free time. As people, we are made to work, and when we don’t get our regular tasks accomplished, it isn’t good for us. I understand, to a point, that her husband wanted her to rest, but clearly, she was living in her head more and more.
This also reminds me of how so many people function nowadays due to our luxury. What I mean by luxury is that we have running water, heated or cooled to our preference. Our homes are climate-controlled. We have refrigerators with food, and grocery stores have TONS of food options. We have personal vehicles to get us around. With no legitimate struggle for survival (mind you, I know we all have difficulties to get through, but nothing like day-to-day survival), our culture moves into a self-focused state in which we have to search for things to overcome…hence all the groups and causes that people are involved in.
As for the setting, the author does a good job of contrasting the faded yellow wallpaper with the fresh greenery of outside. This shows us how stagnate it was in the bedroom. I think we can also see that the woman wanted to get out of the room, and with the bars and the nailed-down bed, the room truly did feel like a jail.
I am torn between this house being a 3-month rest versus a mental home. If this was truly a place for her to rest and recover, the room in which she stayed encouraged her mental deterioration. She was doing the opposite of what she should have been doing (getting outside, CARING FOR HER CHILD, helping with household tasks). Instead, she was left to embrace her vivid imagination, which her husband had chastised her about having. I could see this being a mental home that caused more problems than good. In either case, the woman’s mental illness progressed with the time spent in that room.
I was a bit surprised that she didn’t try to hang herself. I gasped when she revealed that she had a rope for tying up the wallpaper woman. I wonder if her husband fainted because she had the rope around her neck and there was evidence that she had attempted suicide.