Analysis of Charlotte Gilmans' "The Yellow Wallpaper"

The Yellow Wallpaper is a first-person narrative, which on one hand can be very limiting in what information is revealed to the reader. Not only can this single voice remember facts differently than other witnesses, the reader must realize that the narrator may not even be telling the truth. On the other hand, the first-person perspective gives a sense of "knowing" the narrator, by being able to read their thoughts. By writing the story as …

…that silly and conspicuous front design" The wallpaper seems to have layers of designs in which she is able to pull various pictures from her imagination. She tries to find some symmetrical pattern and when she seems to be close to establishing one, the pattern changes and it fails her ability to apply a real meaning to the pattern and therefore she jumps back into her imaginative mind, allowing it to run wild with possibilities.