Analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper

“The Yellow Wallpaper” In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman it is interesting to see an otherwise simple plot become increasingly complex due to the metaphorical significance of the wallpaper. In my reading, I can come up with many applications of the narrator’s “sickness” to matters of the world; such as femininity, depression, and the confines that other people put on us, or that we put on ourselves. After analyzing …

…the patriarchal society prevalent at that time, and also as a representation of the narrator’s mental state, and how it changes throughout the course of the text. These images portray people in general to be less weak than they are sometimes thought to be. The narrator manages to escape her husband’s control, albeit through a descent into madness. If we are to escape control in our lives do we have to go mad?