I do not believe this story is a ghost story. It seems to be a mixture of a few things. The first and most substantial is Postpartum Depression. Most of these symptoms of this issue alone describe her condition. Loss of appetite, insomnia, overwhelming fatigue, depression. Page 652 the narrator states “I dont weigh a bit more” “nor as much, and my appetite may be better in the evening when you are here, but it is worse in the morning when you are away.”  page 650 “I cry at nothing, and i cry most of the time.”  She doesn’t sleep at night she stays up studying the images she feels she sees behind the wallpaper. page 652 “its like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind the pattern.”  She tires easy and doesn’t help with the baby or any chores. She stays in the room all day and doesn’t go outside.

        This mixed with the issues of her husband and the times were she is treated as a child herself and her husband kind of speaks down to her calling her a “little girl” and a “silly goose” He treats her more  as a patient than his wife in lot of cases i feel. These issues mixed with just moving into a new home seem to have been to much.  It seems the narrator’s husband John is gone a great deal of time as well and she spends a lot of time alone