Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Yellow Wallpaper, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mental Illness and its Treatment
Gender Roles and Domestic Life
Outward Appearance vs. Inner Life
Self-Expression, Miscommunication, and Misunderstanding
Summary
Analysis
The narrator has made a discovery: the front pattern does move, because the mysterious figure of the woman shakes it by crawling around fast and shaking the bars formed by the shadows, trying to climb through. But the mysterious woman cannot escape the strangling pattern.
Here, the link between the mysterious figure and the narrator becomes clearer still. The narrator is similarly trapped, desperate to escape the grasp of her sickness but also the grasp of the society (and her husband who represents that traditional society) that has forced her into this room because of its views of women and mental illness.
Themes
Literary Devices
Quiz
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