At the beginning of “the Yellow Wallpaper”, the unnamed woman, who is only a woman belonging to john, is quite normal. She only thinks that the yellow wallpaper is weird and makes her uncomfortable and unpleasant. However, she is getting insane. She imagines crazily that there is a woman living in the wallpaper and wants to save her out of it. Is she only a crazy guy or symbolic and ironic to something? Actually, it is very obvious that her life and the woman herself are extremely limited, and it is the key of the reflection of the yellow wallpaper.

First of all, John, an absolute arch-male, is the source of causing his wife to go insane. He is extremely rational which is against sensitivity and sentimentality. “John is practical in the extreme. He has no patient with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.” John is a doctor and quite good at curing diseases. It is sarcasm that he cannot realize what his wife really needs. He always “laughs at her” and “ignores her feeling and thoughts” based on his opinion absolutely. “John laughs at me, off course, but one expects that.”

John and his friends and family never truly concern about her, but treat her in the way she does not like. “He does not believe I am sick!” “If a physician of high standing, and one’s husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency – what is one to do?” He protects her like a baby, and she dislike it. “Then he took me in his arm and call me a blessed little goose, and said he would go down cellar, if I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain.” He misunderstands her feeling in a very ironic way and makes her more uncomfortable. “John says I mustn’t lose my strength, and has me take cod liver oil and lots of tonics and things, to say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat.” These are not what she wants absolutely!

Moreover, John does not let her do almost every thing. She has no children to take care of, and no housework or any kind of work to do. “She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick!” Actually, she needs to do something to fill her empty mind. “Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.” However, she has to hide her writing and writes secretly. “I must not let her find me writing.” Everyone has work to do, but what she can do is only seeing them working lonely. “And I an alone a good deal just now. John is kept in town very often by serious cases, and Jennie is good and lets me alone when I want her to.”

John even does not let her see “her” relatives or friends, so she has no one to talk freely. The only companions are “John’s family”, and John believes that it does her good. “John thought it might do me good to see a little company, so we just had Mother and Nellie and the children down for a week.” It is not what she wants! She needs someone who can accept her feeling and thoughts and is very familiar with “her” not “John”. “I tired to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him I wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia.” But he does not let her go!

She has nothing to make her happy and no place to flee away for a while to ease her sick mind. Beautiful nature can make her comfortable. She seems to love it very much. “There is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden – large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them.” She is mentally hungry in her “mind” not physically in her “stomach”. “I don’t like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened onto the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings! But John would not hear of it.”

To sum up, she has nothing to focus and concentrate on and no way to gain women’s confidence. She only can concern about trifle things, for example, the yellow wallpaper. The yellow wallpaper is the reflection of the women, “a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places a sickly sulphur tint in others.” The woman is like a bonsai tree, having specific container to live and inability to leap over the limited place. She is lacking in freedom, self-confidence, and courage to express her feeling. No doubt this woman goes insane in the end.