now than it used to be. You see I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch. I really do eat better, and am more quiet than I was.” (Stetson 653). This shows that the narrator has truly lost her sanity with her obsession with the wallpaper due to being the only thing besides her.
However, not only did the narrator’s emotions change, but she also created an unrealistic “human” relationship with the wallpaper. Since she was always alone, the wallpaper was the only object she had to make connections with. For example, when the narrator says, “There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down.” (Stetson 649), the wallpaper develops human characteristics based on what the narrator believes she sees. Such examples are when she mentions that the wallpaper has “eyes” staring back and has a “broken neck” or “and it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern” (Stetson 652). By this point, the narrator starts to see a person behind the wallpaper in which she thinks she is not alone. Towards the end, she confirms that there is someone behind the wallpaper trying to escape just like herself, such as when she says, “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out.” (Stetson 652). This shows that the loneliness made her develop a relationship with a non-human object.
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In addition, the narrator’s fluctuating emotions and unrealistic relationship with the wallpaper help her escape from the reality of being isolated from society. Since she is alone, she creates her own world in her mind to help her ease the time in the room. Her emotions and connections with the wallpaper make her believe that no one else will understand her such as the wallpaper does as she states, 'There are things in that wallpaper that nobody knows about but me, or ever will.' (Stetson 652). Besides that, her life now revolves around the wallpaper, and is no longer bored. As she says, “Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch. I really do eat better and am more quiet than I was.” (Stetson 653). At the end of the story, the narrator says, “I've got out at last,' said I, in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the wallpaper, so you can't put me back!” (Stetson 656). She believes that the woman in the wallpaper was in fact herself. Now that the whole wallpaper is stripped off this demonstrates that she has gone insane and believes she has truly escaped from reality.
In the whole story, readers are skeptical of the narrator’s own mental health. When the narrator writes in her journal, she describes different emotions and events that she thinks are happening to her. Her mental constraints worsen her situation. Her distorted illusions created an unrealistic reality that she has been confined to while imprisoned in the room. This creates a sense of unreliability based on her fluctuating emotions, the unrealistic “human” relationship with the wallpaper, and her mental escape from reality.
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