In Charlotte Perkins Gillman's The Yellow Wall-Paper ( The Short Story And Its Writer', Charters, 576) the protagonist represents the effects of the oppression of women in the society of the writer's time. Gilman accomplishes this by the use of complex symbols such as the house, the window, the furniture, and the wall-paper which facilitate the narrator's oppression as well as her self expression. With these things in mind, for the time and place in which The Yellow Wall-Paper is written, the husband and even the doctors are all represented in a caring positive light; their intentions are meant only to help our heroine recover from her ailment'. .
It is customary to find the symbol of the house as representing a secure place for a woman's transformation and her release of self expression. However, in this story, the house is not her own and she does not want to be in it; "A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house I will profoundly declare that there is something queer about it." (576) Although she acknowledges the beauty of the house and especially what surrounds it, she constantly goes back to her feeling that "there is something strange about the house." (577) Her impression is like a premonition for the transformation that takes place inside her self' while she is there. In this way the house still is the cocoon for her transformation. It does not take the form of the traditional symbol of security for the domestic activities of a woman, but it does allow for and contain her metamorphosis. The house also facilitates her release, accommodating her, her writing and her thoughts. These two activities evolve because of the fact that she is kept in the house. .
One specific characteristic of the house that symbolizes not only her potential, but also her trapped feeling, is the window. Traditionally this symbol could represent a view of possibilities, or an opening to another world', but in this instance it also becomes a view to what she does not want to see.
