Symbolism In The Yellow Wallpaper

In society, it is very common to see individuals suffer from depression disorders. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman portrays a woman who goes mentally insane after giving birth to her baby. Her husband is her doctor and he diagnoses her with a temporary depression disorder, which raises the question of post-partum depression. While staying at an estate during the summer, he confines her to one room in the home, and is unable to do anything she loves. Rao argues that the wallpaper is one dynamic symbol, which is quickly evident throughout. In Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the symbolism is how she portrays her feelings and exaggerates her imagination. Gilman demonstrates the symbolism throughout the short story by depicting her emotions and her imagination. Her husband keeps her confined to the room for their entire stay at the estate to heal her depression. In order to heal her, he takes her newborn baby away from her and tries to take her passion for writing, as well. The bedding is nailed to the ground and the door has a lock on it, so she is unable to leave. The
Coming into the home, she does not like the room, but soon after, she begins to admire what is around her. The wallpaper gains life and makes her relate herself to the wallpaper (Rao 40). She examines the wallpaper and imagines a woman trying to break free. She begins to peel the wallpaper off to set the woman free and realizes the woman is really herself. After peeling the wallpaper off, her husband enters the room and she says, “and I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back” (Gilman 967). At that point, the yellow wallpaper could be a symbol of herself breaking out of confinement and freeing herself from depression. Her creative imagination takes over and Gilman expresses it by using symbolism to represent the woman being trapped in the depression