The Yellow Wallpaper - Sam Wilson

The line: "This paper looks to me as if it KNEW what a vicious influence it had! " (Kindle Location 100). Was of particular interest to me in The Yellow Wallpaper. The narrator comes to see a woman in the paper who is much like her own spirit. She is trapped in the confines of the wallpaper itself, but she is trying desperately to escape without feeling like she is letting down her husband. She must choose between agreeing with the woman behind the paper and obeying her husband's wishes. The "new woman" in the paper beckons her to come and creep in the daylight, to be free from the prison that is created by the patterns of the yellow wallpaper. But the narrator is afraid of the judgement of her friends and family, and she has convinced herself that her husband knows what is best. In reality, she is imprisoned by his parent-like demeanor. He scolds her as he would scold a child, and he talks to her in the same way. She hides her writing from him because it is the only place where she can be herself. The woman behind the wallpaper represents that need for her to be free and independent. When the woman 'escapes,' she is truthfully set free by the narrator ripping all the paper off of the wall. This is symbolic of her own escape from her thoughts and reservations, and her coming into the age of the "New Woman".