Question

What is the significance of the woman behind the yellow wallpaper and what does the woman mean to the story and to the narrator?

Accepted Answer

The woman behind the wallpaper is an extension of the narrator's personality.  She is the freedom that the narrator is denied.  The fact that the woman behind the wallpaper is able to move around at will and escape out a window into the landscape beyond is the narrator's dream.  However, on the other hand, the woman behind the wallpaper is also imprisoned (crawling around and around desperately attempting to escape) as the narrator is--both in the room and in her mind since she (the narrator) is denied any outlet such as her journal or diary.

Answer

At first, the "woman" behind the wallpaper terrifies the narrator. The narrator finds herself watching the woman creeping and crawling behind the wallpaper, shaking the pattern and trying to get out. However, even though the narrator isn't able to realize it, the woman has already gotten out—the woman is her.

Shortly after the narrator begins to believe that there is a woman behind the paper, her own behavior begins to change. One day, when her sister-in-law, Jennie, is in the room, the narrator says, "[s]he didn’t know I was in the room." Because there is little other than a bed in the room, the narrator would clearly be visible to Jennie, but in her own mind, she is hidden.

The narrator then states that Jennie "said that the paper stained everything it touched, that she had found yellow smooches on all my clothes and John’s." The only way that the narrator's clothes would be stained by the color of the paper is if she was pressing up against the paper. However, even though the...

There is a very funny mark on this wall, low down, near the mopboard. A streak that runs round the room. It goes behind every piece of furniture, except the bed, a long, straight, even smooch, as if it had been rubbed over and over.I wonder how it was done and who did it, and what they did it for. Round and round and round—round and round and round—it makes me dizzy!

At this point, even though she isn't conscious of it, the narrator is the one doing the crawling around the room. Later, the narrator states, "I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. I can’t do it at night, for I know John would suspect something at once." Although she casually admits to creeping around the room, she immediately moves on and refocuses on the creeping "other" woman, who she believes now has the freedom to creep outside during the day.The narrator finally identifies with the crawling woman at the very end of the story, though she still doesn't identify herself as the woman. Rather, at the story's end, the her husband's ignorance and neglect have driven the narrator insane, to the point that she believes she is the woman and being confined by the doctor. When John enters the room to see what has become of her, she cries, “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!”
At the end of the story, it becomes clear to the reader that the woman behind the wallpaper was nothing more than the oncoming insanity of the narrator herself. Much like the narrator's description, the woman is always creeping, slowly and relentlessly approaching, until she fully manifests within Jane and Jane doesn't even recognize herself.

Answer

I might also add, the ugliness with which the wallpaper is described could be compared to the ugliness of her situation. She is being oppressed by the men in her life and by her inability to break the chains of their dominance in order to escape.

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what is the significance og the yellow wallpaper and which adjectives would describe john the best ?

The Yellow Wallpaper

What is the significance of the woman behind the yellow wallpaper and what does the woman mean to the story and to the narrator?

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