Symbolism in “The Yellow Wallpaper” Nelson Mandela once said, “To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.” In the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a mentally unwell woman, the narrator, documents her experience of declining mental health and falls into psychosis while becoming obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom. One of the themes to be found in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is the lack of freedom that women had during the Victorian period. In the story, several examples of symbolism such as the wallpaper, the journal, and the wife crawling over her husband, help to support this. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, we learn very early on of the ugly yellow paper that the narrator describes it. She describes it many times in the story in a very negative light. The wallpaper is representative of the patriarchy and controlling roles of society, while the woman behind it …show more content…
In the story, the narrator's husband, John, and his sister Jennie are unaware of her writing during the time of the story. In one part of the story the narrator writes, “There comes John’s sister. Such a dear girl as she is, and so careful of me! I must not let her find me writing. . . . I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick!” By writing the journal in the first place the narrator is literally rebelling by going against her husband’s wishes and orders because she is “forbidden to ‘work’” until she has gotten well again, as stated in the story. Additionally, the journal is expressing the narrator's thoughts and feelings. At this point in time, women's feelings were not as important and their opinions did not matter. Writing in the journal is the only way for the narrator to express herself, especially as she is beginning to spiral into madness and no one will