Review: "The Yellow Wallpaper"

1. Which objects, actions, or places seem unusually significant?
     The room and the wallpaper. The woman, or women, hiding in the wallpaper. The creeping. John's suppossed authority in the field of medicine. John's sister, Jennie. The way the words are printed, being a new paragraph almost every sentence.

2. List the specific objects, people and ideas with which a particular symbol is assoiciated.
     The room represents the main characters oppressed lifestyle. The wallpaper is her ability to look at her life and tear it apart, either piece by piece or all at once. It could also represent her creative nature, her ability to look at something and turn it in to something else. The creeping women are all women who have to creep around their husbands or any other men for that matter. John authority in the field of medicine is never explained or proven. We just assume that because we are told he is a doctor that he is one. His authority is implied and mirrors most male-female relationships. Jennie represents any woman who unquestionably puts herself below a man.

3. Locate the exact place in the story where the symbol links itself to the other thing.
     On page 265, right at the beginning of the story, in the first few lines, the narrator says, "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that." This line already sets up the oppressed woman theme in the story. On page 269, the narrator speaks of Jennie and how "she is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for a no better profession." I think this line shows expresses the narrator's, and perhaps the authors, disapproval of woman like Jennie. Later in the story, after the narrator peals of a large strip of the yellow wallpaper, which may be yellow to represent cowardice, Jennie says, "...she wouldn't mind doing it herself..." and the narrator responds , in thought, with "[Jennie] betrayed herself at that time" (277). The narrator sees that Jennie has the desire to be free, but chooses refuses the urge.

4. Ask whether each symbol comes with ready-made cultural associations.
     Of course, each symbol comes with ready-made cultural associations. These associations go beyond human life. In nature, or so it seems, the female of most species are the dominant animal. They are usually the stay at home mothers, so to speak. The stigma surrounding a creature such as the black widow spider, in which, apparently, the female eats the male after mating, is not one most woman wish to be associated with.

7. Be specific. Identify the exact place in the story where a symbol takes on a deeper meaning.
     At the end of the story, the narrator becomes the woman hiding in the wallpaper. Actually, she becomes the woman who used to be hiding in the wallpaper. The point is the narrator ripped off all the wallpaper. She cannot, and will not, ever go back to hiding in the wallpaper. She literally says, "I've got out at last... And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!" (278).


Checklist numbers five and six are not answerable questions. They are suggestions, so I skipped them.