“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story that was written in first person during 1892. This story depicts society’s attitude towards women with a mental illness at that time. Ultimately, the story shows how women were treated in the 19th century. “And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit. I wonder— I begin to think—I wish John would take me away from here!” (231). Shortly after the narrator who remains unnamed and her husband John rented an old mansion, the narrator encountered a state of delusion in the wallpaper that surrounded her. In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator develops a peculiar relationship with the wallpaper; the author’s use of allusion, symbolism, and personification identifies the existence of the woman’s illness. In the beginning of the story, we learn that the narrator has recently had a baby and John has taken her away for the summer. The narrator immediately describes the house as, “A colonial …show more content…
She described the wallpaper as, “the color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight,” (227). The color yellow tends to represent the sun and can be interpreted as happiness, positivity, and joy; although, the narrator says that it is an unclean yellow that made her feel sick. This analogy implies that the narrator is in a position where she is ill but is not getting the help she desperately needs. The narrator goes on to say, “No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long,” (227). The wallpaper represents how the narrator feels on the inside. She feels trapped, afraid, and alone from everyone-including her husband,