Monday February 8, 2016
Symbolism

      "The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte P. Gilman, is a symbol for whom the narrator actually is and how she truly feels. When the wallpaper starts to reveal bars, it shows that she truly feels trapped and secluded. Also as the wallpaper becomes more intricate, she starts to see a women behind it which shows that she has become more mentally unstable. "Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast and her crawling shakes it all over (Gilman 9)." The women crawling behind the wallpaper also show how she feels confined to the walls of her room. The narrator tears up the wallpaper at the end, which shows that she does not want to accept how crazy she has become. The wallpaper represents her struggle to retain or regain her sanity. The wallpaper has been part of her confinement and by her tearing it down, she is feeling herself from that confinement. 

         Another symbol is the narrator's writings in her notebook and the notebook itself. Both represent the narrator's attempt to have normalcy and sanity during this horrible ordeal of being locked in her room. Despite being told by her husband that he wants to limit the amount of time she uses to write, she continues to write more behind his back and this is her tie to her own sanity and sense of reality.