A woman's struggle to escape her conditions in a male dominated society.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman writes in "The Yellow Wallpaper" about a mentally ill woman whose imagination makes the yellow wallpaper vivid. Walled-in in her disease, she is isolated and alone. During her weeks in the room with the wallpaper its optical properties occupy her completely and she finds company in a woman who takes her solitude away. The wallpaper represents her illness and limited liberty. She lives in a male dominated society, and her husband and her brother tell her what to do. She is the woman in the wallpaper who tries to escape. If she can find symmetry in the pattern, she will discover the way to escape her conditions. .
The woman who narrates is the woman in the wallpaper and she tries to escape the male dominated society. Her husband John and her brother decide what she has to do. She is not allowed to write, because she ostensibly sick. However, the capability of writing is evidence of her sanity. She "disagree[s] with their ideas" (1658) and thinks that she should do "congenial work, with excitement and change" (1658). She tries to rebel. But it is difficult because John "begin[s] to notice" (1667) and "he hates [her] to have [her] write a word" (1659). Her physicians are afraid of her desire to rebel. Her husband observes the wallpaper, too, and he is affected by it. In order to stop her they declare her mentally disturbed and isolate her. She works at night and when her husband is away. The light influences the woman's activity. The moon indicates that she has to work secretly. When there is no light the woman becomes "plain" (1665) behind the wallpaper, which becomes "bars" (1665). The imprisoned woman acts at night in order not to be seen by her husband, who is already suspicious. .
The woman's goal is the autonomy of women. The properties of the wallpaper point at the situation of women. The unclean yellow indicates that women are inferior to men.