Symbolism In The Yellow Wallpaper

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In the nineteenth century, women were expected to stay home to raise the children and clean the house. Women were supposed to live their lives in the “domestic sphere.” This way of living is the way that John, the narrator's husband, expected her to live. The narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” was not happy or willing to live this way and became ill. The yellow wallpaper used in the narrator's room symbolizes female imprisonment. The narrator uses a horror-themed tale in order to show the position women had in their marriages. Their marriages were very one-sided, the man deciding mostly everything. From the beginning John controls every aspect of the narrator’s life assuring that it is in her best interest. John would continually put down any idea that she had. Forcing her to only think in her head and not aloud, like she was trapped in her own mind. She would write about this saying how John would not approve of her writing. She has no option of being anything but a wife or a mother; her husband sees her as no more than that, so the narrator begins to believe the same thing. Her eyes often ventured to the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom to try and make sense of what was going through her mind. The first time she really looked at the wallpaper she hated it describing it as “... a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely…show more content…
They were expected to stay home and raise the children. The narrator uses a horror-themed tale in order to show the lack of control women had. In order to cope with that, the narrator had to find something that she could feel in control over, and that was the yellow wallpaper. She torn down the wallpaper in the end, showing her escape of being trapped inside her own mind. The yellow wallpaper is used to tie the theme together. The issues with marriage in the nineteenth century were mostly caused by controlling of the

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