The husband, with the common name John, represents the average man during that time. John is a representative of the repressive authority that a husband had over his wife during this time period. Her husband doesn't believe that she is sick, feeling that she just has a temporary nervous depression. The narrator in the story says, “You see, he does not believe that I am sick! And what can one do?” This shows that she is controlled by her husband and she goes along with what he says is best for her. John also represents many men in society who believe that woman are actually inferior to men and must be treated gently. He refuses to accept his wife's own diagnosis of what she needs to do in order to get well. She

The woman that creeps around on the other side of the wallpaper, is a representative of the woman that she wants to be. She tries her best to rescue the woman trapped on the other side of the wall. Actually, she is trying to free the woman in order to become a free woman herself. She starts to tear down the wallpaper in an effort to break down the barrier. She peels it off in strips, trying to rid herself of the obstacles in her way. In her mind, the woman on the other side, the woman that she wants to be, helps her in tearing down the wallpaper. She says, “As soon as it was midnight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her. I pulled and she shook. I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper. A strip about as high as my head and half around the room.” As the paper comes down, so do the barriers between her oppressed life and her life of freedom. By the end of the story, she successfully pulls down all of the paper and is a free woman.

The wallpaper is a symbol of the barriers and obstacles that she must overcome to be the woman that she wants to be. The yellowing wallpaper both fascinates and annoys her. Her frustrations about the wallpaper are evident when the woman states, “The color is hideous enough

Some topics in this essay:
Perkins Gilman, free woman, , woman woman, woman actually, wallpaper represents, pattern wallpaper represents, narrator story, oppressed woman, pattern wallpaper, john represents, believe sick,