 The story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the song "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley are each two accounts of individuals going mad. "Crazy" is a more narrow work that supports the analysis of "The Yellow Wallpaper" with generalizations that well pertain to the story. Literary elements and word usage found in the song make for unique comparison and analyzation of "The Yellow Wallpaper." Through the generalized Lyrics of Gnarls Barkley, we can better understand the woman's feelings and experiences concerning her family and resting home in "The Yellow Wallpaper."

Her state of sanity and rehabilitation expectations changes greatly after moving into the house and completing the three-month visit. The woman's physical impressions of the house are that it is "the most beautiful place"(Gilman, 209) but soon after arriving, she tells John about how she "thinks there is something strange about the house"(Gilman, 209) and that she "can feel it"(Gilman, 209). Her immediate ability to "feel something" alludes to her connection to the house, which develops and becomes her obsession with the wallpaper in the nursery. 

In the first stanza of "Crazy", Gnarls Barkley says, "There was something so pleasant about that place", which closely resembles the woman's initial thoughts about the nursery; "it is an airy and comfortable room as any one need wish"(Gilman, 211). She is comfortable with the big windows and large walls but cannot look past the dreadful wallpaper that lines the entire room. Because the woman's outlook on her visit and the room she is staying in is bright through half of the story, she gives the reader the impression that she is content with the house and can deal with the bothering wallpaper. 

During the day she does not have the chance to interact with human beings other than her husband, John, if he's home, so her overexposure to the wallpaper becomes her only intimate connection. The wallpaper continually bothers the woman throughout the story, but on a greater scale; it allows her to open her mind. Gnarls Barkley says, "even your emotions had an echo in so much space," which is similar to the emotions that the woman is generating for the wallpaper. At night, the woman watches the paper evolve to where she does not "know it is the same paper"(Gilman, 216). What seems to be a month of rehabilitation that passes, the woman's time exposed to the wallpaper breeds an infatuation for what "lives" in the wallpaper. 

In the house, the woman's thoughts are suppressed by her husband's demands and her obsession over the wallpaper's incomprehensible and elusive patterns grows. As she lies awake, she watches the "moonlight on the paper till it feels creepy"(Gilman, 215) and she sees a "faint figure behind which seems to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out"(Gilman, 215). By the woman being taken advantage of by her confinement and imagining not only a figure but a "she" like figure, it can be assumed that she is mentally installing herself in the wallpaper.

The husband and children are ignorant of the woman's mental issues because of how uninvolved she is during the day. Because her husband, the doctor, does not allow her to express herself verbally or on paper, she keeps a secret journal to satisfy her need for conversation and her obsession with the wallpaper. There is an installed fear of the husband that is not openly discussed in the story, but because the woman says, "there comes John, and I must put this away  --  he hates to have me write a word"(Gilman210). Gnarls Barkley says, "you're out there without care", which parallels the woman's feelings on her family. She feels neglected by her family and that results in her talking to herself through her journal. During the day she says, "I cry at nothing and cry most of the time. Of course I don't when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone"(Gilman, 213), which goes to show how poorly she is handling the absence of her family and her expressive stipulations. Because her husband does not "care", as Barkley says, she does not care to meet his demands of not writing. The woman says that "I know john would think it absurd. But I must say what I feel and think in some way"(Gilman, 214), so her defiance of her husband and family begins to resemble her defiance regarding reality.

The woman imagines the figure in the wallpaper as a result of her compensating for little human interaction and affection. The lack of interaction causes the woman to lose touch with reality and her imagination by believing in the person she is writing to. The inability to differ between the two mediums is her knowing, or imagining, too much about the girl she has fabricated. Gnarls Barkley says, "yeah, I was out of touch", which resembles the state of the woman during rehabilitation. She is not only out of touch with her family but other people as well, which is why she constructs a girl in the wall for companionship.

Because the woman does not speak directly to the girl in the wall, she does not know whether or not the girl cares about her or watches her. The woman's outlook on whether or not the girl cares about her is positive and this is because she does not know for a fact that she is real or that she cares about her. The woman is certain that her husband is not taking her well being into consideration because she thinks, "it is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship"(Gilman, 211), and he will not provide her with that. The husband is so set on confining the woman that after a discussion of plans regarding a trip to her cousins he said, "he would as soon put fireworks in the woman's pillow case as to let her have those stimulating people about now"(Gilman, 211).

 The elements of repetition present in Gnarls Barkley's song "Crazy" enhance the evolving theme of "The Yellow Wallpaper". The story develops through the woman persistently analyzing the wallpaper, which coincides with the repetitive lyrics of Gnarls Barkley that asks, "Does that make me crazy? Does that make me crazy? Does that make me crazy?" As the woman repetitively looks at the wallpaper and says gradually more off-putting things like, "there are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern, the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape only very numerous"(Gilman, 214), the reader progressively becomes more aware of the cumulative obsessive interactions with the paper. 

The woman's descent into insanity is not a direct result of the pattern on the wallpaper, but more so a combined effort of that and the mocking figure that she has imagined. By the last days of rehabilitation, the woman has decided that she will free the girl behind bars in the wallpaper if it is the last thing she does. Jennie, her daughter asked to sleep with her one night and the woman's response was, "I should undoubtedly rest better for a night all alone"(Gilman219) knowing that she would not be necessarily alone. Gnarls Barkley's last words of "Crazy" are "I think you're crazy just like me", which is a relevant unspoken discussion that would make sense to hear between the woman and the girl in the wallpaper. No one is to touch the paper because the woman is determined to unleash the woman the following night. As night falls and the moonlight hits the walls, the girl in the paper begins to shake the bars so the woman begins to rip the wallpaper from the wall to Metaphorically "free" the girl, who is assumed to be just as crazy as the woman. 

After ripping all of the wallpaper off, the woman contemplates jumping out of the barred windows, which is similar to the girl escaping the bars in the paper. The girl in the paper is translated into the woman at this point and the woman makes decisions similar to that of the crazy girl in the wall, such as "creeping" around on the floor. The woman begins to creep around the room saying, "I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way"(Gillman220). 

Now that the girl in the paper has possessed the woman, it is more obvious to the readers that in prior parts of the story it was not actually the woman talking. The girl was still escaping the paper through controlling the woman but couldn't completely, so in order to free herself she commanded the woman to tear down the paper that captivated her.

Using the song "Crazy" to analyze "The Yellow Wallpaper" leads to many interesting elements and ideas that have trouble surfacing while reading. One of the more interesting things about "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the woman's gradual shift from sanity to insanity, and without analyzing the story with the song one might never pick up on the exceptionally subtle transition phrasing that Gilman uses. With each stanza of "Crazy," a new level of insanity is reached in the song and within the story. The coinciding rhythms of the song and story help to progress "The Yellow Wallpaper" with coincidental parallelism and flow of content.

