Symbolism

"Women are merely in Shadows. They are never to be heard from nor Seen."

In the " Yellow Wallpaper" the wall decoration not only represents how women are trapped in marriage in the 1800s, but it also symbolizes how every women in the nineteenth century were treated like and felt like both emotionally, mentally, and romantically. The narrator states in the story, " On a pattern like this, by daylight, there is a lack of sequence, a defiance of law, that is a constant irritant to a normal mind. The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing. You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. it is like a bad dream" (Page 5). The wallpaper describes the emotion of love as a painful, surprising feeling. In the narrator's case she feels her relationship with John is only causing her to go insane. The narrator goes on to state, " 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 women behind it is as plain as can be" (page 5). Since John mentally isolates his wife, the main character starts to feel as though the yellow wallpaper is a prison with many other women that feel the same way she does. The narrator becomes mentally disturbed by the wallpaper and her husband is not affected by it. The women behind the wallpaper are causing the narrator to become very disturbed by night and this causes her to become very tired in the day. For only the main character can witness the torture the wallpaper represents because she is a women. John is a man and in the 1800s, husbands had the right to do anything. Women were only used as housewives. Even Jennie notices the torture behind the wallpaper. The narrator says, " She didn't know i was in the room, and when i asked her in a quiet, a very quiet voice, with the most restrained manner possible, what she was doing with the paper--she turned around as if she had been caught stealing, and looked quite angry--asked me why i would frighten her so." (Page 6) Jennie also knows the feeling of becoming isolated from society because of her gender and therefor she too can see the prison that lies behind the yellow wallpaper. The narrator also states, " The front pattern does move--and no wonder! The women behind shakes it" (Page 8). The women in the wallpaper want to escape the harsh role in life they experience and want to escape from being shadows of reality. The narrator also says that she notices the women from the wallpaper creeping in the day time. " I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines. I have watched her sometimes off in the open country, creeping as fast as a cloud shadow in a high wind" (Page 7). ''The women in the wallpaper hide from society in the shadows when they are seen for they are afraid that they will be judged as insane creatures outside of their belonging territory that is the home. "The fact that women were not supposed to be caught creeping in the daytime clearly means that women were not to be seen nor heard from" (Liselle Sant). So the women in the wallpaper try to roam free in the open country away from all of their worries and are finally free to express themselves at last. "The yellow wallpaper stands for every women in the world that feel as if their role in society is the wrong position for them in life. Every women wanted to escape the chains that grounded them in the role of an average housewife" (Lone Star College). Freedom was the main goal for all girls in the world that could not express themselves freely and the yellow wallpaper clearly represents every women's thoughts and beliefs towards marriage and society.

Definition of Category- Symbolism is the use of symbols and signs to represent ideas.

  

http://www.lonestar.edu/yellow-wallpaper.htm This link provides deeper information of the Symbolism involved in the story.http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/composition/liselle.htm This link gives more background information of symbolism and details of what the yellow wallpaper represents.