Relationship with John

In my opinion, not only is the rest cure not helping her, but the narrator's relationship with her husband John is not helping her one bit either. Though she claims he loves her, he speaks down to her and makes her feel guilty about her condition. Despite the "my dears," he treats her as any other patient. She describes her feelings, "He takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more." (369). She goes on later to confess, "It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so." (374). Even when she is talking about the care and love John gives her, we get a sense by the way she says she feels "basely ungrateful" and how she confesses "it is so hard to talk with John," that she feels trapped and guilty for not agreeing with him about the rest cure.

John even talks to her as though she is a child, and Gilman seems to look right past that. He refers to her as little several times throughout the reading: "called me a blessed little goose," (370), "What is it, little girl?" (374), and "Bless her little heart!" (375). He also, "gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head," (373), as though she was a child going up for bedtime. The final reason he is not helping her and most likely making her worse by being condescending, is by telling her, "There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy." (375).

It is so obvious to me that he is doing her no good. How could she see past that? Was she really that ill? Was it just the time? How could be think locking someone up by themselves without being able to do something would make them better? Would she have been better off with a different husband? Someone who wasn't a physician?