I think that an analysis of Post Partum Depression and the
social effects of repression on women can help to enhance one's understanding of the
story. It helps to explain both the women's reaction to her predicament and the
profoundly frustrating element of social inertia to understanding the psychological
condition of women. The familiar refrain of "needing rest" is used as a way to
psychologically repress the narrator, causing the fragmentation of her mind. Reading
into the psychological dimension of socialized repression of women enhances the
understanding of the protagonist and the circumstances surrounding her. At the same
time, since mental illness occupies so much importance in the narraitve, a psychological
criticism would enhance one's grasp and understanding of it. Going beyond the
traditional diagnosis of women's condition as a "case of the nerves," a psychological
reading yield much more profound insight:
Left with no real means of expression or escape,
the narrator represses her anger and frustration and succumbs to insanity. Greg Johnson
emphasizes this theme in an essay for Studies in Short Fiction in which he notes that
the story 'traces the narrator's gradual identification with her own suppressed rage,
figured as a woman grasping the bars of her prison and struggling frantically to get
free."
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