Thursday, October 4, 2018

Describe the narrator's state after the first two weeks of residence. Has John's relationship with his wife changed at all?

According to the story, the woman had been in the country house, and staying up in the "atrocious" nursery, for two weeks now. Her use of the word "atrocious" to describe the room is the first indication that we get that tells us that the woman has developed a dislike for the place since she first got there.
The first insight that we get into the relationship is that John, her husband, has distanced from her in the sense that he is gone all day, and also at nights, when he has serious cases to tend.
Interestingly, he has a pretty serious case of his own to deal with at home, given that his wife is clearly suffering from postpartum psychosis, a dangerous condition. Ironically, John (as well as the rest of society) is too out of touch with the psychological needs of people, much less of women, to give any importance to what is happening to his wife. The irony is such that the woman even says that she is "glad [her] case is not serious," while the reader knows that it is actually pretty serious, indeed.
Another insight the woman offers is that, apparently, even when John is at home, he still does not understand what is wrong with her. His rationale is that, since there is really no danger to his wife in this location, everything is fine.

John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.

A third insight we get is that John is aware of his wife's fixation with the wallpaper. Still, he tells her to basically snap out of it and quit using her imagination for those "fancies." Essentially, his lack of attention for the woman is what is making her believe that she is a burden to him, and that her current situation is not a time for joy, but an interruption in the daily life of her husband.

He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making, a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies.

We can conclude, based on this information, that John simply could not empathize with the current situation of his wife and, as a result, he distanced himself both physically and emotionally from her due to that specific situation.
The choices he made to care for his wife stemmed from the practicality of placing her in a safe and harmless environment, based on what he and her doctor felt were the best accommodations. However, he was not aware that the only thing that was truly endangering his wife was the increasing instability in her mental condition.
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/theliteratureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf

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