ENG120 English II: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wallpaper MeaningNameInstitutional AffiliationDate
The title of the story, The Yellow Wallpaper has been used in the novel by the narrator to give the implication that the wallpaper is a story that she is supposed to come up with an interpretation about. It has also been used to symbolize an issue that greatly affects her in a direct way. As you read the novel, you will realize that symbolism is developed through the whole story. At the beginning of the story, the narrator appears to be sane and believable but as the story goes on, as a reader you will realize that she is unreliable because she withholds some of the information and confuses information. She says, “If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?. ” The above words have weight in that she personally disagrees with the treatment but has no power to change the situation. In the end, the structure that is the short paragraphs and the thought patterns has been used to show the mental disorder of the narrator. The revelations that are contained in the journal allow the reader to have an intimate view of the gradual mental breakdown of the narrator.
As the story begins, the yellow paper seems to be merely unpleasant since it is soiled and unclean. The worst part appears to be a formless pattern which also fascinates the narrator as she makes efforts to know how it has been organized. She spends hours staring at the paper and later realizes that there is another ghostly sub-pattern that is behind the main pattern and the pattern is only visible in a certain light. Later, the sub-pattern is brought into focus and a desperate woman is seen constantly crawling while at the same time looking for an escape from the main pattern which in this case has been used to symbolize the bars of a cage. She says, “There are things in that paper which nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern, the dim shapes get clearer every day”. In addition, the degenerating sanity of the narrator is seen when she begins to attribute life-like characteristics to them by saying that it knows how it affects her life and that it has eyes that stare at her. After observing that there is a woman trapped in the second layer, she begins to peel off the wallpaper in an effort to free the woman or the women as she soon believes. John and his sister begin to suspect that there is something that is not righ...