The Yellow Wallpaper

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In the short story, “The Yellow-Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, many readers may only focus on the authors descriptions of how the narrator feels about the yellow wall-paper and interpret it as a depressed, distraught wife complaining about her life and how she does not like the yellow wall-paper. However, while the yellow wall-paper may be portrayed in that way on the surface, Gilman expresses one of her primary focuses as a writer through the symbol of the yellow-wallpaper. Gilman wrote many works about the unequal treatment and expression of women. As readers read deeper into the text, they will notice how the details of the yellow wall- paper actually represents pain and limitations the narrator endures throughout her marriage. …show more content…

Throughout the short story, the narrators husband constantly controlled and demeaned her by calling her “little girl” (491) and by never letting her make decisions for herself or do things “without special direction” (487). This constant abuse finally took a toll on the narrator until one day she decided she had to “try it, little by little” (495) to remove the wall paper that had been eating away at her. As she begins to peel off the yellow wall-paper she states that she “wants to astonish” (496) her husband by doing this. This represents how suppressed the narrator is in her controlling marriage and how she realizes that her husband knows he has control over her and would’ve never thought she would be finally peeling off the wall-paper. Next, she describes how the yellow wall-paper “sticks horribly and the pattern enjoys it” (496). The description of the wall-paper being sticky represents how hard it is to break free from a controlling marriage. Her husband finds her as a weak women and also enjoys watching her suffer from his constant restraints that he causes her to endure. Also while the narrator is having a hard time ripping off the sticky wall-paper she notices women outside her window and wonders “if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did” (496). This statement portrays how the narrator feels trapped by this wall-paper that represents her marriage and wonders if the other women outside had to escape from their own wall-paper. The narrator also makes a reference in this scene that everything outside is “green instead of yellow” (496). The color green to the narrator represents a fresh new life without her controlling husband, while staying inside the room with the yellow colored wall-paper represents her submissive and lack of self-expression

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