Analyzing The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper uses vivid psychological and psychoanalytical imagery and a powerful feminist message to present a theme of women’s need to escape from imprisonment by their patriarchal society. The narrator’s identification with the woman in the wallpaper is also symbolic of her identification with women of her class in the greater society beyond the confines of the country mansion. She experiences the scrutiny of society through the perceived scrutiny of eyes in the pattern of the yellow wallpaper. Her isolation from social contact and the forced cessation of her writing add layers of repression to her life, forcing her to find escape in madness when she is unable to find physical escape from the nursery of the country mansion or social escape from male domination. The Yellow Wallpaper is a cautionary tale against the subjugation of women by men, against the repression of women’s creative expressions, and against the dangers inherent in the social isolation associated with the 19th century rest cure.