Use of Symbols

             In "The Yellow Wallpaper," Charlotte Perkins Gilman employs many objects that function to reflect women's role in a society of male supremacy. The wallpaper in the room symbolize the narrator's entrapment within the domestic hemisphere. As she sees a shape of a woman barred behind the wallpaper, this indicates her imprisonment from her husband, who seems to control nearly every aspects of her daily life. By tearing down the wallpaper at the end of the story, the narrator surfaces from the sphere that John has restrained her, therefore finally being able to recognize her own individuality.
             In addition to the wallpaper, Gilman also utilizes sunlight to portray the stiffness of male ascendancy. During the daytime, John controls the way the narrator should act. Although she believes that "congenial work, with excitement and change, would do her good," he forbids her to work until she is well again. Similar to the woman on the wall, the narrator is confined to the strict environment, unable to act courageously as she does at night. Thus daylight symbolizes demands that the narrator has to follow, which seems like an atmosphere that is inevitable to escape from.
             In contrast to the wallpaper and daylight that symbolize feminine entrapment, Gilman uses windows to represent the possibility of escape. Through the windows, the narrator is able to view a beautiful garden as well as a lovely sight of bay, thus envisioning a freedom that she is unable to attain. She claims, "I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise" (Gilman 254). Through her declaration, it is visible that the windows are the source escape from her imprisonment, which enables her to flee away from the harsh reality of male supremacy.
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