The Yellow Wallpaper

1 Pages 318 Words

The Yellow Wall-Paper
By: Charlotte Perkins Gilman


In the story, The Yellow Wall-Paper by Perkins Gilman, the yellow wall paper symbolized the character and her marriage to her husband John. The character expressed herself through the wall paper. She reflected her life to the yellow wallpaper. She saw a woman trapped behind bars, crawling around the wallpaper fighting to free herself. Those bars resembled her husband. Throughout their marriage, she felt trapped. She always did what she was told by her husband. She was not allowed the write in her journal or even allowed to read. Her husband made all of her decisions for her because according to him, she was unable of making her own decisions. Everything he did was for her best.

The yellow wallpaper intrigued the character so much that towards the ending, she became that woman in the wallpaper. She started to crawl around the floor and eventually crawled all over her husband. It seemed that when she crawled over her husband, she changed completely , she no longer was the obedient “little girl” that her husband loved. At the sight of her crawling, her husband fainted.

The yellow wallpaper is a very important symbol in the story. It portrayed the character’s life. The character was trapped in her marriage just like the woman was trapped in the wallpaper. Both of them constantly tried to release themselves. The woman in the wallpaper consistently shook the pattern and the bars, while the character would try to talk to her husband and try to make him see that she is smart enough to make her own decisions.

The bars from the wallpaper coincided with John. Those bars would not permit the woman from liberating herself. John would not permit his wife to become independent. He wanted her to need him to survive....