Even before the narrator becomes convinced that the wallpaper contains a mysterious figure, she describes it as having an all-pervasive, changeable, menacing life of its own, invading the whole house and hiding some evil intention.

Many of the rooms and objects in the home and in the narrator’s memory of her childhood, although outwardly inanimate, take on a sort of life.

The narrator’s descriptions of her home, and in particular of the wallpaper, further highlight this contradiction between outward appearance and inner life. His blindness to her inner life means that, when she ultimately breaks down completely at the story’s climax, John is shocked to the point of fainting. He assumes she is improving since she eats more at dinner, ignoring her more emotional complaints. The practically minded John is unable to grasp the realities of his wife’s inner life, which exists outside of his direct observation. Even as her husband is convinced that she is improving, the reader witnesses her obsession with the wallpaper take a dangerous turn as her despair intensifies. Our privileged view into the narrator’s mind leads to an appreciation of the sarcasm and irony that lace her descriptions of her husband John and her life in the home. This, in turn, allows us to watch as the narrator’s husband misinterprets her condition, and as she begins to consciously deceive both him and Jennie. The story’s form, in a series of diary entries, gives the reader a glimpse into its writer’s inner life. Another major theme in the story lies in the contradiction between outward appearance and inner life.

The yellow wallpaper literary analysis