
The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is about a woman who is stuck under the control of her husband. She does not fully understand what is going on, but her husband thinks that there is something wrong with her, and he is going to take care of her and thinks he knows what is best for her. The woman’s name is not mentioned in the story.  Throughout the story the woman is stuck in a room upstairs that her husband John says she needs to stay in to get better. While she is stuck in that room she becomes obsessed with the wallpaper. The woman keeps a journal that she keeps a secret from her husband John and John’s sister. Both of them say that her writing will not help her get better. Through these writings we can determine that there is more going on with the woman than either of them seem to notice.

For my close reading of “The Yellow Wallpaper” I decided to talk about the room she is staying in, and all the pieces that make it a room. The bed, windows, floor, and wallpaper itself and why the woman seems so obsessed with talking and writing about it. One of the first things noticed is that they wallpaper is yellow. Usually when anyone thinks about the color yellow, it is associated with babies or sunshine, considered a “happy” color. The woman talks about how the color yellow it is not happy at all but a terrible yellow. “It is the strangest yellow, that wallpaper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw-not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things” (pg.308). Her first emotions in the room are already negative, seeing she is viewing the wallpaper in a negative aspect. 

In one of the woman’s writing she explains that the wallpaper is horrible and brings her distress. When in reality wallpaper in any form really cannot be that bad, but to her it is almost like the wall is torturing her. Her husband was the one that decided that she would live in the nursery upstairs, he is taking control over her and there is nothing she can do about it. She talks about how there is a gate so she cannot get out of the room, but she is a grown woman there is no reason she should not be able to leave. She is the one that is being submissive to the husband and obeys all his rules because she wants to please him and she wants to get better as well. John does not let her make any decisions on her own. The woman did not want to be put in the room upstairs, but he says she has to even though there are other options for her to live in. The windows are bared shut, as well as the bed is bolted to the ground. “He said that after the wallpaper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs and so on (pg.302)”. When the woman asked John if he could change the wallpaper that was his response, he knows all the things wrong with the room but he decided not to change it, which is interesting considering he wants his wife to get better, but how is she supposed to when she is unhappy with almost everything in the room? This shows John really does not have her best interest and is not taking his wife’s requests and needs into consideration. 

The wallpaper itself is patterned, not just a normal pattern but something crazy and extreme- almost like the woman. The Wallpaper represents her in more ways than one. “The wallpaper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and it sticketh closer than a brother-they must have had perseverance as well as hatred “(pg. 303). The woman is talking about how the wallpaper is torn in certain spots, saying how the way the paper is torn, the person who tore it must have had the same hatred towards the paper just like her. At nighttime when the moonlight is shining on the wallpaper the woman says she sees a woman trapped behind the wallpaper, but only during the night. During the day there is no woman there, and she does not see anything moving behind the wallpaper. “This wallpaper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then. But in the places where it isn’t faded and where the sun is just so- I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design (pg.303)”. The woman sees herself in the wallpaper, trapped somewhere and she cannot get out. She’s stating that there is someone sulking behind the wallpaper, just like she is sulking behind the mental illness she has. The woman lies awake at night, and sleeps during the day. Her schedule is backwards and her husband does not seem to really care. The woman only seems to see the woman at night when the moonlight glows through because she is awake during the night; once again this shows that she sees herself behind the wallpaper. “At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it as plain as can be (pg. 307)”. The woman has bars on her windows, that keep her from going outside, and she sees the woman at night trapped behind bars as well. In some ways the woman is jealous of the woman stuck behind the wallpaper, in one of her writing she states, “I think that woman gets out in the daytime! And I’ll tell you why-privately-I’ve seen her! I can see her out of every one of my windows! It is the same woman. I know, for she is always creeping, and most woman do not creep by daylight” (pg.309). The woman wants to be able to leave her room, but John will not let her go, he wont even let her go to see her own family. She sees this woman outside wandering around wishing she would be allowed to as well. 

Towards the ending of the story it is the last night in the house, and the woman states “I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard! It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please! (pg. 311)”. Here she is admitting that she is the woman in the wallpaper, and all of a sudden she does not want to leave her room, when previously she hated everything about it and could not wait to go outside. She goes crazy and starts to tear all of the paper off of the wall, as much as she can at least since the bed will not move. Once she has torn off all of the paper and John is trying to come into the room she states, “I’ve got out at last, in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back! (pg.312)”. The entire time she was stuck in the room it was like she was stuck behind the wallpaper. There was no way to get out besides claw her way out. She creeped around the room just the same way the woman in the wall creeped behind the wallpaper. She is satisfied with herself thinking that since she tore off all the wallpaper, now she is free. 