The Yellow Wallpaper: An Appreciation

By

Hudha Basheer, II MA English.

Everyone loves yellow, I know you too. You love the brightness of yellow sun and the
wilderness of the sunflowers, sweetness of the yummy cheese, glittering of gold and the yellows of Van Gogh. Have you ever felt a yellow smell? It's here in the kitchen, in the bedroom, in the dining room...such a peculiar odour. It spreads like smoke all over.

All the yellow things remind me of her. whenever I find yellow I can see a woman creeping and mumbling in a room. Oh! A long and wide airy room with long windows. she can see the shady garden and green meadows through the window. A room with yellow wallpapers. She loved to walk around the green shades and to watch the sky in sunset like Allie in The Notebook. But unfortunately her partner is not Noah. It is Doctor John. He always takes too much care of his wife. She is ill but not ‘seriously’ ill. So he always goes for his own business. She loves to write but she is always distracted by her husband or cousins because they believe that her writing makes her ill. Her days are like scheduled medical prescriptions. She asks him to arrange the room downstairs for her where she can wake up with the blooming roses and chirping birds but he refuses. She spends three months in the room where she dislikes to be. And she will tell you how she breathes the yellow air, how her life was in the yellow room.

The story is so simple, yet so touching. I find it very relatable to many others like me. It's a story about a woman who gets trapped in the patterns of married life. In the first half of the story you will see how hard she is trying to find the patterns of the wallpaper. Thereafter she recognises the patterns she realises that the torn wallpaper shows the picture of creeping women.

The Dal reminds me of her. I noticed the colour. There are no bright shades of yellow. It is faded. I am tired of the scheduled prescriptions. All my days are designed by others, from bed-to-bed, when to sleep and wake up, what to do and not to. I feel homeless. They always say your age is up already, it's already late, you are a girl and you are meant to be at another home...the patterns are too tough. In the midst of the hustle thoughts the fatigue and weary yellow things make me creep all over.