The story follows the diary entries of a woman in the late 1800s over three summer months. Her husband placed her in an old daycare center with strict orders not to leave her after the birth of her first child. This was called the “rest cure”, a medical treatment administered to hysterical women at this particular time, particularly after childbirth. Her husband forbids her from seeing most of her friends unless she is supervised and forbids her from writing in her diary for the sake of her health. This narrator writes that she disagrees with her husband and his diagnosis, but she passes it off as something “to be expected…in marriage” (Gilman 647) and says nothing. Her husband is desperate to cure her, and in his anxiety he threatens to "send her to Weir Mitchell in the fall" (Gilman 650), a mental health facility with a disreputable reputation. As the story progresses, his care is entrusted to the housekeeper and sister-in-law, Jennie. Her relationship becomes more and more strained with her husband as she sees him less