The Yellow Wallpaper Symbolism

            In this story, the wallpaper is the center of attention. It antagonizes the woman the entire time and eventually turns her mad. The wallpaper has a much deeper meaning than is perceived and throughout the story is revealed. The wallpaper represents the woman’s situation where she is trapped mentally and physically and is trying to become free again.

            First, in the beginning the woman is locked in this room with only the wallpaper to stare at. Right off the bat the woman does not like the wallpaper and thinks it is a horrible color and the pattern drives her crazy. The wallpaper started as nothing but this little thing. As she stayed in the room longer it interested her more and more. She starts to right about it more often in her journal and begins to study the pattern. All of a sudden the woman is obsessed with this wallpaper. As she begins to study the wallpaper, she begins to see a faint figure trapped behind it. The more studying she did, she began to see a woman trapped behind the wallpaper and the wallpaper was perceived as bars.

            During this time her husband has her locked in her room, treating her like a child. The husband will not listen to her and acts like the woman has no chance of getting better. By doing this, the husband doesn't realize he is actually the one driving her into insanity. The husband is treating her this way because in that time, men were always superior to women and women had no say in anything. Even the husband’s sister goes along with it and keeps her locked up in the room obsessing over the wallpaper. With this said, the wallpaper symbolizes her family trapping her in this room and being mentally trapped inside herself from all of the stuff she has experienced.

            Finally, the woman finally turns on her family on locks them out of the room. Her goal is to tear off all of the wallpaper so she can set the woman free that is behind it. By turning on her family and destroying the wallpaper, it symbolizes her trying to set herself free. After she tears off the wallpaper, she is still in this rut and can’t get out. So she thought tearing down the wallpaper would help set herself and the woman free but she physically was still not set free. By doing this, her husband and family thought she was insane which meant they were still going to keep her locked up.

            In the end, the woman might have been mentally free but she was still physically trapped inside the room. The wallpaper was the only thing she had to keep her somewhat stable and now it is gone. She has now completely gone insane. The wallpaper is gone and she is “set free” from the bars.