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The narrator and John arrive at an ¨ancestral home¨.
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John selects the large attic room for them to sleep in, which is papered with a really ugly yellow pattern the narrator hates
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The narrator isn't allowed to write, do housework, or help with her baby.
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She begs John to be allowed to move elsewhere or to change rooms, because the inactivity is making her nervous and unhappy. John says no.
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She begins obsessively to try to follow the pattern of the wallpaper, to find some sort of logic or secret that would make it make sense.
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The narrator asks John to again to be allowed to visit his cousins or to move, and he again refuses, claiming that she's putting on weight and getting better.