Journal #28 Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Shirly Ong
English 48B
7 March, 2008
Journal #28 Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Quote:
“The paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it. It is stripped off--the paper--in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life.”

Summary:
The woman in the story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” thinks that the room has been used by a boys’ school as she observe the environment of the room.

Response:
Obviously, the environment of the room in “The Yellow Wall-Paper” is weird. There are a fixed bed, barred windows, and some rings on the wall. The yellow wallpaper with sprawling flamboyant patterns is stripped off while the floor is scratched, gouged, and splintered. Moreover, the room has a smell, according to the woman. There can be many predictions about the previous use of the room. This quote shows that the woman believe a boys’ school has been using this room. She thinks the wallpaper and floor were damaged by the naughty boys while the windows were barred for them. She believes the boys also hated the yellow wallpaper. For me, I do not like the wallpaper neither. It would be terrible if I have wallpaper with the color of sulphur tints and with a dull lurid orange in some places.
Like many of my peers, I think the room was used to tenant people with mental problems, instead of naughty boys. This is a more reasonable explanation because it is unlikely for the kids to have such a great power to scratch and gouge the floor. Besides, it would be strange to have a fixed bed and rings in a boys’ school’s room. On the contrary, I think the damage of the room could have been done when mentally ill patients were locked and left in the room, which made them angry and violent. The woman in the story did the same thing. The rings in the room could have been used to tie patients up when they became too brutal. The windows could have been barred to prevent patients from jumping off it. The bed was fixed to prevent the patients from further damaging the room and harming themselves. These are better explanations for the queer decoration of the room.
I think this story is interesting because it is written from a perspective of a woman who is believed to be mentally ill. Thus, her idea about the previous use of the room is different from ours. Throughout the story, no definite answer about this query is given. Yet, the woman’s idea is mostly reasonable.