The Yellow Wallpaper is of a woman, a new mother, who has been brought to a country house for a "rest-cure" (upon medical advice) by her husband; he selects for her the room with the yellow wallpaper, the nursery, in which the "windows are barred for little children" and the bed has been nailed to the floor. Forbidden to write and think, the narrator is subjected to the enforced idleness of mind and body, thus causing her to become increasingly dysfunctional. She obsesses about the yellow wallpaper, in which she sees frightful patterns and an imprisoned female figure trying to emerge. As the story unfolds and pushes toward its inevitable conclusion, the narrator rips off the wallpaper, confining herself within the room, and then begins to creep around it. When John returns home, he gains entry into the room and discovers in her state and finally faints.
The lack of validity becomes more and more apparent when taking a closer look at the story. The plot's progression parallels with the deterioration of the narrator's eccentric thoughts. She comes to believe that the woman in the wallpaper is shaking the pattern, trying to escape, and then later becomes obsessed with rescuing the same woman. It is then that the wallpaper seems to become a symbol of both Anne's confinement and her liberation. With the lines, "I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is so hard!" it seems as if she has released the woman and it is indeed herself. Then towards the end, Jane, who is not mentioned anywhere in the text, becomes another adversary, along with the husband John. The Husband, who in the end the narrator must walk over, faints; and the notion between reality and hallucination hits. The same narrator creeps as John faints to a disrupt setting.
The impression of opposition between what's real and what is imaginary is quite apparent in the story, especially towards its end.
