First she describes the paper as, "It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough constantly to irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide-plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard-of contradictions." (596). She does not know what to think of the wallpaper. This is symbolic of how she thinks of herself at that present time. The reader can tell the main character's mind is going a million miles a minute. The reader can also tell the woman is not thinking right. The woman's emotions are too inconsistent to be considered normal. Throughout the story what ever happens to the wallpaper also happens to the main character, so this is a foreshadowing hint. She also describes the wallpaper as, "The color is repellent, almost revolting: a smouldering unclean yellow strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others." (596). She starts to realize the wallpaper is starting to make her confused and angry. The yellow wallpaper is more or less disorganized. The wallpaper was at times a comfort for her and other times her worst enemy. .
The underlying symbol of the yellow wallpaper is the main character's sanity. As the wallpaper changes so does the character's attitude towards herself. When the character changes or progresses so does the main character. As the story goes on, the wallpaper is the most revolting and the most chaotic. She starts to see things that are not necessarily there. The narrator states, "But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so-I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design." (598). That figure that she sees is herself in the paper. Then the main character cannot seem to decipher between reality and fantasy.
