The Yellow Wall Paper: A Literary Argument

Many things can be said about this story, and another great deal of things can be interpreted. As I read this, I realized that it was a bit like a journal writing, and that I was reading a documentation of a slow demise. As we move along in the story, we also move along with Charlotte's eventual mental breakdown.

Quite literally, she absolutely loses it. She rips the wallpaper from the wall, and was said to be "crawling" in circles and never stopping. While at the beginning, she just wrote about hating it, but there was nothing she could do about it. So, she just sat in her room and let the hate for it consume her; soon she was saying that she could "smell" the yellow of the room.

When thinking about this story, it can be quite obvious that Charlotte completely lost her marbles. But throughout the whole thing, she was saying that there was a woman in the wallpaper. I think that might mean her, as she always states that the woman can be seen crawling on the side of the "lovely road", but is often frightened by oncoming buggies  and hides, which could be interpreted as that Charlotte is scared of what might happen to her if she left the house and discontinued her rest cure. As for the woman in the wallpaper, I think it's a reflection of Charlotte herself-- as being stuck in the house for almost three months-- and almost becoming apart of the house.