Twisted Threads

Reading “The Yellow Wallpaper” starting from the end made the plot more mysterious and intricate. It was difficult to tell if the woman was in an asylum which held bolted down beds and incredible gardens, or if she were simply imagining them into existence because she felt trapped. Reality blurred, and you couldn’t quite see a reason for beds strongly bolted to the floor if she wasn’t being held in ward for the insane. A second mystery was if the man John, indeed, was her husband, or simply a Psychiatric doctor of whom she was having elaborate fantasies. Even the term doctor became ambiguous. What kind of doctor was John, or was he a doctor at all? The further towards the beginning you came the more interesting the possibilities. Was the woman ‘trapped’ behind the pattern a reflection of her own feelings of entrapment behind the window bars? Had she always been insane or had she been driven out of her mind by some secret horror? Was she being held against her will? Were some nefarious experiments being run in an out of the way, broken down mansion? The story was better being read from end to beginning because it allowed for heightened suspense and more varied plot. The possibilities became endless. Until one or two entries from the beginning, there were very few indicators of what had actually happened. Curiosity drove you to follow the thread to the beginning to untangle the mystery. May all our blogs be so lucky!