The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper : By the final section of the story, what is the narrator's relationship to her husband? To Jennie? To the wallpaper?

By the final section of the story, what is the narrator's relationship to her husband? To Jennie? To the wallpaper?

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The narrator's insanity climaxes as she identifies completely with the woman in the wallpaper. She believes that not only has the woman come out of the wallpaper, but so has she. Again, the symbolic meaning is that both she and the woman have liberated themselves from masculine oppression; by tearing out of the domesticated prison of the wallpaper, they are free. This moment of liberation again occurs by moonlight when, according to the motif Gilman has drawn, women enjoy a break from the oppression of masculine sunshine.

With her statement that she has gotten out of the wallpaper despite John and Jennie, she suggests that not only her husband, but also the representation of ideal domesticity (in the form of Jennie) has contributed to her imprisonment. She has allowed John and social expectations to dominate her and curb her freedom, but this new self - one made up of the woman in the wallpaper and all the other women she sees "creeping" about - has broken free.

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