Obsessed

The woman in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is secretly obsessed with the wallpaper that surrounds her bedroom. She doesnt realize this completely, but she does more toward the end of the story. When she first notices the paper, she felt hatred towards it as she exclaims, "I never saw a worse paper in my life." (514). After a while of studying the paper, she notices that, "There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down." (516). At this point, it seems as if the wallpaper has humanistic features and she almost considers it an aquaintance. When she was younger, at night she would think of a chair in her room as a strong friend. This makes it seem like she likes the wallpaper because it keeps her company while her husband is away all day.

Having to stay in that room almost all day and night is like being in jail. The bars on the windows act like bars in a jail cell, and John, her husband, won't let her take down the wallpaper while they are staying there. It doesn't seem like a good place for a sick person to stay especially since she can't stand something that surrounds the whole room.

Another metaphor in this story is how alike she and the wallpaper are. They are both sickly looking and they are both run down. This is another reason why she is secretly obsessed with the paper, because they have things in common.