-I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store.
-I'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the wall-paper. Perhaps because of the wall-paper.
-And I know John would think it absurd. But must say what I feel and think in some way -- it is such a relief!
-Of course I never mention it to them any more -- I am too wise, -- but I keep watch of it all the same. There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day.
-At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candle light, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be.
-Did not that sound innocent? But I know she was studying that pattern, and I am determined that nobody shall find it out but myself!
These are just some of the quotes that I found over the course of the story that best explain this poor woman's transition from a semi-sane person to one of complete and utter insanity. I think that there was honestly nothing that peculiar about the wallpaper; that was just the one thing that she chose in which to manifest her insanity. If not the wallpaper, then perhaps the window would have been her obsession. I found a good majority of the things that she began to say at the end legitimately disturbing. I read her "reasons" for writing this, but I think only someone who is presently mentally insane could even have the potential to. Unless. perhaps, if she was like Poe, who was in a permanent state of insanity. In all honestly, I found no greater moral behind this story, and if there is any, then I would love to know about it.
Gilman says that she wrote the story in hopes that it might saves at least one other woman from being driven insane by this horrible cure called 'total rest.' Remember that women at this time were treated as second class human beings -- not just second class citizens. I would think it horrible to be assumed to be inferior but loved 'anyway.' How does it make you feel even now if you are treated like a helpless child? Imagine being treated that way all the time.
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