The narrator and John arrive at an ¨ancestral home¨.
John selects the large attic room for them to sleep in, which is papered with a really ugly yellow pattern the narrator hates
The narrator isn't allowed to write, do housework, or help with her baby.
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.
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.
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.
