Student Question
What aspects of the house, grounds, and room upset the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper?
Quick answer:
The narrator is disturbed by the house because it feels like a "haunted house" and is unusually cheap to rent. She dislikes the bedroom due to its "repellant" yellow wallpaper and features suggesting confinement, such as barred windows and a bed nailed to the floor. The garden outside, described with words like "mysterious" and "gnarly," contributes to her sense of chaos and unease, adding to the oppressive atmosphere.
The house upsets the narrator because it is someone else's ancestral hall, and she believes it to be "a haunted house." She thinks there is "something queer" about the house, though she cannot quite put her finger on what, especially because the rent on it is so cheap and because it has stood without tenants for so long. The narrator dislikes her bedroom mainly because of the terrible yellow wallpaper, which she describes as "repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering, unclean yellow." She thinks children must have occupied the room before her, because there are "rings and things" in the walls, there are bars on the windows, and there is some kind of gate at the steps so that she cannot descend. Moreover, the bed is nailed to the floor. Out of her window, she can see the garden on the property with its "mysterious deep-shaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees." Adjectives like mysterious, riotous, and gnarly can be interpreted as clues to her feelings; she seems to conceive of the garden as chaotic and odd and perhaps even somewhat menacing.
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