The Yellow Wallpaper: Journal 1-Reader's response

The Yellow Wallpaper starts with the narrator talking about a house that her husband and her had "secured for the summer" (9). I thought instantly that the narrator was superstitious because she keeps wanted to call their summer home a haunted house, but she says that would "reach a height of romantic felicity" (9).
fe·lic·i·ty –noun.

1.	the state of being happy, esp. in a high degree; bliss: marital felicity 6. Archaic. good fortune.

So after she talks about her wishes of her haunted house she describes her husband. His name is John. John is a physician, well doctors make a lot of money so he probably is the financial supporter of the family. The narrator seems to think that he husband is keeping her sick, which doesn't make sense since he is a physician, and he must care about his wife. Ah, but it's because he doesn't believe she's sick. So does that mean she has some sort of hidden mental disease?
The narrator was a writer, which makes sense since she is technically writing this as a diary. Her husband and brother, who is a physician too, say she is forbidden to "work" therefore she should not be writing this at all. There's a paradox for you; she's writing about how she's not allowed to be writing anything.
Now she goes back to describing the house, saying it is "The most beautiful place!" (11), and that "There is a delicious garden" (11). She must really like this place, but I thought she was afraid of the house being haunted. Unless she wants it to be haunted? She admits to having an anger problem with her husband at times, but she holds that anger in, doesn't let it show. That could be an addition to her already troubling mental state.
The one part of the house she doesn't like is their room. She wanted a different room downstairs, but her husband shot that idea down, saying that the upstairs room with lots of windows was better for her so she could get lots of air. The narrator seems to, at least pretend, to be very compliant with all of this, even trying to convince herself of his good intentions. "He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction" (12).
She describes the room as being big and airy, noting that the room was a nursery and then a playroom for its past owner. She goes into great detail about the wallpaper and paint, which she noticed is ripped off on one side of the room. Why this wallpaper is so important to her doesn't make sense to me, but I know its important because of the title. She keeps using negatively connotated words like "repellent", "suicide", "revolting". Why does she hate this wallpaper so much? Why not just paint or paper over it?
Time jumps now to two weeks after her last "entry" in the book. She has more time to write because her husband is gone on "serious cases" most of the day and night. She says, "I'm glad my case is not serious" (14). This is strange because he's neglecting her, knowing she's not mentally normal, and she's glad for the lack of attention, it gives her time to do things she shouldn't, like write.
The name Mary is mentioned, along with the narrator's son. So I'd assume Mary is a sort of nanny for their child, which the narrator isn't allowed to see. A mother who can't see her own son, maybe another addition to her mental case?
Her husband won't cover up the wallpaper, he says her dislike for it is foolish, and that she needs to not let these things bother her. He did say however, that he will fix up the room about in the three months that follow before they leave the house. She's getting more attached to the house now, she says it is an, "airy and comfortable room....all but that horrid paper" (15).
She mentions how when she looks out the window she imagines people walking by. Does this mean that there are imaginary people in her head? Could that be something along the lines of the mental disease Schizophrenia? Or multiple personalities disorder? The narrator tells her husband that she wants to visit her cousins that she likes, but John says that would, if anything, make her condition worse. So she is secluded away from the people she wants to be with.
As time goes on, she becomes attached to the wallpaper she once despised. "This paper looks at me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!" (16). She stares at the wallpaper for long periods of time, looking for patterns and flaws, trying to make order in the chaotic wallpaper. Is this symbolic of her chaotic life? She still doesn't really care for the wallpaper yet, but her thoughts seem to always wander back to it. John's sister is mentioned again in the book. "She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession" (17-18). She is probably described like this because of the author's feminist critique lens on the assumption that a good woman stays at home, and is content doing so. Maybe the narrator didn't want to be like that, so as societies' outcast for the time period, society itself is leading to her mental disorder.
The narrator's husband threatens her that he'll send her to Weir Mitchell if she doesn't get better soon. That was a very bad idea on his part; no way a threat like that will make her feel better, and her feeling well is the only way her mental health would improve. Her mental health is obviously deteriorating; "I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time" (19).
She's always thinking about the wallpaper now, and she's getting more and more lazy. Staring at the wall seems to sap all the strength out of her. John tries to compliment her, but then will talk about her condition and upset her again. Wasn't it he who said that she shouldn't talk about herself like that at all until she's better?
Her husband thinks she's getting better, and maybe physically she is, but she's definitely way worse mentally. She's trying to "master" the patterns in the wallpaper, learn all of them. She's now decided that the wallpaper has multiple layers to it, making it much more complicated then it already was. And that light and dark change the patterns as well, so she stays awake to observe the changes. Severe lack of sleep alone could cause problems, much less on top of everything else she deals with.
She says that her time is more exciting now, with all of it spent on the wallpaper. She thinks she sees a woman dancing in the wallpaper, but only under a certain lighting. You know somethings wrong when in her own secret journal she writes "I have found out another funny thing, but I shan't tell it this time! It does not do to trust people too much" (31). So now she's so crazy that she ignores all logic, she won't even tell herself her secrets in her diary.
She keeps fantasizing about this woman behind the wall, how she sees her outside her windows too, and wants to jump out after her. Is this meaning like suicide? She's gone so insane she sees herself out the window and she wants to jump to herself? Anyways, she can't because of the bars on the windows.
They are now on the last day of living in this ancient house. The narrator has completely lost her mind and decided that she wants to let her friend in the wall out, by riping off all of the wallpaper. She's been doing it subtly for the last week or so, but this day she will get the rest off. She rips and rips, staying in her room, skipping meals. She even locks herself in to get the woman out.
Finally she gets all the paper off the wall, and starts creeping and crawling around the room. Wow, this is just weird now, has the "woman" she saw in the wall possessed her now? So when John's sister, Jennie, tries to come in, the narrator says the key is outside; she threw it out the window. She is freaked out, so she gets John, who takes an axe upstairs, to break the door down if he has to. But then the narrator says "John dear! The key is down by the front steps, under a plantain leaf" (36). John goes down and finds the key, but when he goes up and unlocks the door, he is incredibly disturbed by his wife's behavior. The book ends with the narrator, "I've got out at last, in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!"(36). This is weird because once again there is another woman's name, her own maybe? also, she verbally states that she's the woman behind the wall, since the wallpapers gone so she can't go back. "Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!"(36). So I'm confused, did she kill her husband? He did have an axe with him. Or did he just pass out, and now she's crawling all over him? This woman is completely psycho and this book confuses me.

Things to possibly bring up in discussion:

• Stockholm Syndrome, where one is put in a situation that they despise, something they can't stand to be in, yet over time the trauma causes them to get used to it, and then like the situation they once hated. Could she have suffered from this?
• What actually happens in the end of the book?
• Is her mental breakdown her own fault, or is it the actions/inaction of her husband that led to her mental deterioration? Like how crazy was she in the first place?