A Downward Spiral
...at few things the narrator is able to do- such as walking in the garden and writing down her thoughts and feelings- tire her out quickly. She is beginning to worry that she is not getting better and tries to express these feelings to her husband John, who dismisses her as if she is a child. The burden of trying to hide the symptoms of her illness only seem to escalate it to another level. The second distinct stage of the narrator’s illness is severe depression. She begins to cry frequently over the smallest things and her sleep habits also change. She sleeps most of the day away and lies awake staring at the wallpaper most of the night. She becomes secretive about her growing obsession with the wallpaper in her bedroom believing she might be sent off to Weir Mitchell- a prominent psychologist of the time- if she were to share her thoughts with her husband John, and sister-in-law Jennie. The narrator hallucinates about designs she is beginning to see in the wallpaper. She often talks about seeing eyes, what look like broken necks, and "[. . .] a woman stooping down and creeping behind that pattern" (Gilman 709) in the paper. She is also suffering from olfactory hallucinations and complains that the wallpaper has a peculiar smell that radiates over everything. At this point in the story it becomes apparent not only is the narrator failing to get better but she is continuing to deteriorate with each passing moment. The final distinct stage of the narrator’s illness is severe psychosis. The narrator is becoming extremely paranoid . She is becoming scared of her husband John and thinks he is acting strangely. She believes Jennie is spying on her, secretly touching the paper, and also trying to solve the mystery of the woman in the wallpaper. This prompts her to begin thinking homicidal thoughts - such as killing Jennie to keep her from toughing the paper and burning the house down to get rid of the smell of the paper- and suicidal thoughts such as jumping out the window. By this time the narrator’s hallucinations have escalated to the point where she tries to catch the woman in the wallpaper by tying her up with a rope so she cannot escape. From the beginning of the story the narrator’s husband has tried to overlook his wife’s illness. However, he is forced to face the truth after entering the locked door of the bedroom to find her crawling along the wall, rope tied around her waist, her ...