Question

The Yellow Wallpaper
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper.

It dwells in my mind so!

I lie here on this great immovable bed—it is nailed down, I believe—and follow that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we’ll say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion.

I know a little of the principle of design, and I know this thing was not arranged on any laws of radiation, or alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, or anything else that I ever heard of.

It is repeated, of course, by the breadths, but not otherwise.

Looked at in one way each breadth stands alone, the bloated curves and flourishes—a kind of “debased Romanesque” with delirium tremens—go waddling up and down in isolated columns of fatuity.

But, on the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase.

The whole thing goes horizontally, too, at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction.

They have used a horizontal breadth for a frieze, and that adds wonderfully to the confusion.

There is one end of the room where it is almost intact, and there, when the cross-lights fade and the low sun shines directly upon it, I can almost fancy radiation after all,—the interminable grotesques seem to form around a common centre and rush off in headlong plunges of equal distraction.

It makes me tired to follow it. I will take a nap, I guess.



"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Use the passage to answer the question.

The narrator states, “I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper.” What do details in the passage imply about the narrator’s interest in the wallpaper?

(1 point)

that she thinks the wallpaper is beautiful

that she is becoming obsessed with the wallpaper

that she admires the wallpaper’s design

that she finds the wallpaper soothing
Skip to navigation

Answer 1

that she is becoming obsessed with the wallpaper

The passage shows fixation: “It dwells in my mind so,” she follows the pattern “about by the hour,” and repeats “for the thousandth time,” indicating an obsessive preoccupation rather than admiration or soothing.