Analyzing the Narrator's Symptoms
Examples of narrator losing control over own ideas/thoughts:
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(a) "I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes . . . I take pains to control myself –– before him, at least, and that makes me very tired." (p. 25)
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(b) "It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight." (p. 32)
Examples of narrator's growing obsession:
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(a) "I never saw a worse paper in my life. It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronouncing enough to constantly irritate and provoke study." (p. 26)
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(b) " . . . I determined for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of conclusion." (p. 31)
Examples of narrator's growing paranoia:
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(a) "Of course I never mention it to them anymore –– I am too wise –– but I keep watch of it all the same." (p. 32)
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(b) "The fact is I am getting a little afraid of John. He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jennifer has an inexplicable look." (p. 35)
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(c) "I know she was studying that pattern, and I am determined that nobody shall find it out but myself!" (p. 35)
Examples of narrator's hallucinations:
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(a) "At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it [the wallpaper] becomes bars! The outside pattern, I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be." (p. 34)
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(b) " . . . the only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell." (p. 37)
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Catherine Golden, ed. The Captive Imagination: A Casebook on "The Yellow Wallpaper", NY: Feminist Press, 1991.