The Yellow Wallpaper

I intend to focus on the theme of Self Expression throughout the story of "The Yellow Wallpaper" during the course of this blog post. We discussed this theme during class but I would like to point out some things that I came up with. 

I've found that expressing myself is really hard to do. Growing up many people have a hard time identifying who they are. It's especially hard to identify oneself during the transition from middle to high school. I express myself through my friends, others through clubs. However in "The Yellow Wallpaper", the main character is expressing herself through the wallpaper. I guess self expression depends on the situation. 

The main character finds herself locked up in what seems to be a room for those who need to be put in an asylum. Not only is she trapped in a room, physically, but she's also mentally trapped in herself. One of the ways I look at the scene on page 492, where it says "There is one marked peculiarity about this paper, a thing nobody seems to notice but myself, and that is that it changes as the light changes", the ugliness represents the qualities within herself which is why she's able to figure out this pattern. Later in the story, when she tears the wallpaper down on page 495, she's becoming a new woman. She recognizes these ugly qualities on the wallpaper as qualities within herself and decides to change. 

On the other hand, I've also looked at the scene as she's breaking free from her husband and is no longer going to be held against her will. It was mentioned in class that the author got a divorce from her husband, which helped me come up with the theory that she's breaking away from her prison. Which would also explain why the man fainted. We didn't really discuss why John fainted, however I've come up with the idea that by tearing down the wallpaper and saying "I've got out at last...in spite of you and Jane! And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!" (497). The paper hit the floor and so did John.