Isolation In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

To begin, the theme that appears throughout the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is the power of isolation and how it can do more harm than good. The theme helps us understand the message the author is trying to convey. The theme can be figured out by identifying the tone, style, characterization, and symbols used throughout the story and piecing them together. The narrator’s tone varied throughout the story, giving you a sense that she is kind of bipolar. For example, in one of the sections starting from paragraph 170, she discusses how she feels better and cannot wait to leave, but then she starts getting anxious talking about the new stench that is circulating around the house. Moreover, her tone changes

The narrator first shares her thoughts with us that, “I never saw a worse paper in my life”, (paragraph 33), by sharing her distaste in it and how it gave her an eerie feeling. Over time, the narrator became obsessed, somewhat possessive of the wallpaper and what it entailed. She started off by just starting at its’ patterns and it would infuriate her. Then, she starts to see a figure of a woman, (paragraph 124). In paragraph 130, she sees the faint figure shake the pattern as if it wants to get out. The figure is Jane’s psychotic persona wanting to escape. She starts getting possessive of the wallpaper when she catches John and Jennie either looking at it or touching it (paragraphs 162-165). She also starts to turn against them as if they are trying to steal the wallpaper from her. At the end of the story, starting from paragraph 194, she claims she had seen the woman only during the daytime and never at night. During the next entry, she wants to free the woman figure and she starts ripping off the paper and starts to creep. The wallpaper overall represented her insanity and what was going on in her head as she remained in the house. Towards the end of the story she just became