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... However, the wallpaper in the room‹stripped off in two places‹has a hideous, chaotic, yellow pattern. ... She soon felt better, and wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper," an exaggerated version of her story. ... Her hiding her writing whenever John is around is similar to the way literary women in the 18th-century, and even the late 19th-century (when "The Yellow Wallpaper" was written), had to hide their work from their families; Jane Austen is famous for having written her novels while periodically stowing away the manuscripts in her familys living-room. ...
Sunshine is also equated with the yellow wallpaper, which is "faded by the slow-turning sunlight." The "sickly sulphur tint" of wallpaper is also associated with illness. ... The title of the story clearly indicates that the wallpaper will grow more important, and Gilman hints that the chaos of the wallpapers pattern will have something to do with the story. ... " Note, too, that the wallpaper has been stripped off in two parts of the room; perhaps something will soon break free. ...
John laughs at her anxiety over the wallpaper and denies her request to repaper the room for their three-month stay; soon she will want to change everything else in the room, too (which she privately admits is true). To avoid looking at the wallpaper, she looks at the garden out of one window, and out of another at the bay, the estates private wharf, and the shaded lane from the house. ...
A recurrent pattern in the wallpaper looks like a broken neck and two upside-down eyes staring at her. The room is damaged from its previous status as a nursery, aside from the torn-off spots in the wallpaper. ...
She also feels watched over by the wallpaper, much as John and Jennie watch over her, adding to her sense of imprisoned surveillance. The sunlight motif pops up again when she claims she can see a figure in the wallpaper "where the sun is just so. ... The wallpaper is proving to be stimulating. ... She thinks there are things in the wallpaper only she knows about; the repeating shape of a woman stooping down and creeping around becomes clearer each day. ... " Calling it "paper" rather than "wallpaper" suggests the wallpaper functions similarly to the paper she has been writing. The wallpaper is becoming a kind of literary text in which she discovers deep meaning under the surface.
The meaning of the wallpaper is, as she says, growing clearer each day. ... She watches the female figure on the wallpaper by the moonlight. ... " He goes to sleep but she stays up for hours staring at the wallpaper. ... She thinks they are both interested in the wallpaper, too; she caught Jennie touching it one time under the excuse that the paper stains clothing. ... The figure of a woman behind bars symbolizes the oppression of female domestication, since she is barred within wallpaper. Wallpaper is stereotypically a floral, feminine fixture in rooms. ... She fears everyone else is trying to figure out the meaning of the wallpaper, and she "cultivates deceit" as she often pretends to be asleep.
Part Five: Summary
The narrator finds life more exciting now because of the wallpaper. Her health improves, but she does not tell John it is due to the wallpaper for fear he would laugh or take her away. ...
The narrator sleeps in the daytime and watches the developments in the wallpaper by night. She finds the smell from the wallpaper‹a subtle but enduring odor‹creeps over the entire house and gets in her hair. The "yellow smell" was initially disturbing, but now she is used to it. ...
At night, the narrator discovers that the wallpaper shakes. ...
The narrator believes she sees the wallpaper woman "creeping" outside in the daylight and hiding when others come.
The narrator has only two days left to remove the "top pattern" of the wallpaper off "from the other one. ... out" in the wallpaper. She reinforces the idea of the wallpaper as holding a tangible meaning she can unlock, and Gilman may as well be telling the reader to do the same with "The Yellow Wallpaper." Both the narrator and the reader try to "peel off" the top pattern of the wallpaper and the story, respectively, to uncover the deeper meaning below.
It is becoming clearer that the woman in the wallpaper represents feminine imprisonment. In her domesticated prison of the wallpaper, she stays subdued and still in bright spots but shakes the "bars" in darker spots. ...
The diffusion of the wallpapers smell symbolizes how the wallpaper is infecting the narrators mind, one that is increasingly paranoid and suspicious about John and Jennie.
Approximate Word count = 3730
Approximate Pages = 14.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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