The Yellow Wallpaper is filled with examples of metaphors. The easiest metaphor to see is in the title of the short story. The yellow wallpaper plays a significant role in the progression of the story. The narrator finds the wallpaper absolutely hideous, so hideous in fact that she asks her husband to sleep in another room because she can't stand it. As the story progresses and her mental strength deteriorates, the narrator finds herself intrigued by the wallpaper. The narrator's imagination creates a pattern on the wallpaper that does not actually exist. Instead of focusing on the ugly yellow color, she studies the pattern. As she studies the paper she sees what she thinks to be a woman trapped inside of it. Towards the end of the story when the narrator had succumbed to insanity, she tears the paper off of the walls and creeps around the room in a way that terrifies me to think of. (I had to turn the light on when I was rereading the story.) So to put this in a way that takes a lot of words to say, the wallpaper represents male dominance and also feminine submission during this time period. The wallpaper driving the narrator insane represents freedom. It was against the status quo for a woman to openly speak out against the will of men during the time this story was written. Insanity is also against the status quo in not just that time period but any time period. The "smouldering unclean yellow" color is a reference to the "illness" that her husband believes she has. To combat her "illness", he prescribes lots of rest and time alone to relax and recover. He refuses to let her leave the room. As an example of her submissiveness, she says "I wish I could get well faster." The wallpaper soon becomes more that just a symbol the narrator being imprisoned. It ends up being the thing that imprisons her. The bed also serves the same purpose as it is immovable and further contributes to her confinement.
As you dig deeper into the story you find other metaphors that take a little background knowledge to understand. In ancient cultures, the moon was associated with female power. This was a present idea in the story as well. During the day, the narrator was confined to her room while her husband was at work. This is a symbol of the role of the two genders at this time. The men worked and provided for the family while the women tended to the house. However, during the night while the husband was asleep the narrator was free to let her mind wander. At one point in the story, she actually gets up and wanders around the room at night. She says the paper reveals something different in the moonlight. It acts as an escape from the male-dominated confines of the day and allows her to roam freely, much like the woman that the narrator sees in the paper.
As you dig deeper into the story you find other metaphors that take a little background knowledge to understand. In ancient cultures, the moon was associated with female power. This was a present idea in the story as well. During the day, the narrator was confined to her room while her husband was at work. This is a symbol of the role of the two genders at this time. The men worked and provided for the family while the women tended to the house. However, during the night while the husband was asleep the narrator was free to let her mind wander. At one point in the story, she actually gets up and wanders around the room at night. She says the paper reveals something different in the moonlight. It acts as an escape from the male-dominated confines of the day and allows her to roam freely, much like the woman that the narrator sees in the paper.
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