Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is about a women feeling trapped in her life. I will argue that the narrator illustrates all of the constraints she feels in her life through aspects of the room. The woman narrates the story, beginning by setting the scene in the mansion that she is currently living in. She describes it as “A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house…but that would be asking of too much fate!”, which foreshadows her feelings about the house. She goes on to say that her husband, John, is a physician and she is sick, but he doesn’t believe so. The woman’s intention of describing different aspects of her life through objects in the room becomes clearer throughout the story.

On page 301, she says, “The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulfur tint in others.” This is the first time that the woman mentions the color of the wallpaper, and at first glance, she judges and describes it negatively. The color of the wallpaper represents the woman’s own life as a whole. People generally think of yellow as a happy and warm color, but in this case, the narrator speaks of it as a sick and repulsive color. She calls the color “sickly sulfur,” which represents her disease, or her mental illness. She also refers to the color as “repellant” and “almost revolting,” and this concludes her life as a whole and how at first glance, someone would see her life as repulsive and be turned off right away, like she was with the color. When she says that the color is “strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight,” this means that her life is slowly becoming less and less interesting and she is losing some of herself as the days go on. Her life is dull and uneventful, but shocking and gruesome at the same time, which is what she means by “dull yet lurid.”

The wallpaper itself represents her husband, John. Throughout the story, she mentions different elements of the wallpaper, especially the pattern. On page 306, she says “The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.” This point takes the reader back to the idea that the color represents her life. In this quotation, she is saying that her life is messy but tolerable, but John is unbearable. Also, on page 307, she says “At night, in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars!” This is her way of describing the literal confinement by John; he makes her feel trapped, like she is in jail, like a prisoner locked away into her own life, and there is no escaping him. She says on page 309, “But nobody could climb through that pattern—it strangles…” This is the woman’s way of saying that there is no way out and slowly, John is becoming more powerful over her and she can’t escape. Lastly, at the end of the story, she rips the wallpaper from the wall, and John faints. This signifies her ripping John out of her life and becoming free from his control.

Throughout the story, the woman has many encounters with a figure within the wallpaper. This figure represents the person that the woman wishes that she could be and the life that she wishes she could live. On page 309, she says “I think sometimes that woman gets out in the daytime!” This is the narrator’s way of displaying admiration towards the figure’s life. In the story, she talks about how she never gets to leave the house, so when she tells the reader that this woman gets out in the daytime, it is like she is telling the reader of her jealousy and how she wishes she could get out in the daytime as well. Also on page 309, she says, “I have watched her sometimes away off in the open country, creeping as fast as a cloud shadow in a high wind.” This is another example of the woman admiring the figure’s life. She feels trapped inside her life by many aspects and she is wishing that she could just break free and run away. Also, she uses the metaphor, “…creeping as fast as a cloud shadow in a high wind,” to say that the figure is running quickly. In the woman’s case, she wishes she could run from all things in her life that tie her down.

On the other hand, some might argue that the wallpaper represents the woman’s marriage to John. On page 301, she says “I never saw a worse paper in my life.” This could be the woman’s way of saying how awful their marriage is and she’s never heard or seen a marriage as bad as theirs. Later on, on page 303, she says “The wallpaper, as I said before, is torn off in spots…” This symbolizes the fact that their marriage is starting to fall apart, but is not yet completely broken. The wallpaper actually represents John, her husband, because at the end of the story, she tears the rest of the wallpaper down and John faints. That scene signifies the woman’s freedom from John’s control and John’s feeling of loss when she is no longer under his wing.

In conclusion, the different aspects of the room and the wallpaper that “trap” the woman are all different elements of her own reality. The color of the wallpaper, a dirty and sickening yellow, describes the woman’s life as a whole. Her life would be seen as repelling and repulsive at first glance through the eyes of anyone who were to see it. Next, the wallpaper itself, especially the pattern of it, represents her husband, John. Throughout the scenes, she describes the pattern as torturing, like it has “bars,” and with other negative connotations. These “trapping” adjectives signify John’s control over her in their relationship and the struggle and entrapment that she feels while he is in her life. In the end when the wallpaper is ripped from the wall, John faints, showing the reader that John was the wallpaper and when it was torn from the wall, he was being torn from her life. Lastly, the figure behind the wallpaper, the other woman, signifies who the woman wishes to be. She describes the woman in the wallpaper doing many things that she is unable to do while trapped in the room, like run freely in the open country and go out in the daytime. Those scenes in particular highlight the opposite of what the woman in the room is doing and she seems to feel a sense of jealousy towards this woman, showing the reader that the woman in the wallpaper lives the life that the woman in the room wishes she could. All of these things make the woman feel trapped in her own reality and she uses the elements of the room to hint at her need for freedom and an escape from all of the things that tie her down in her own life.