The novel shows a gradual decline of the narrator’s mental state. She reaches the point of complete insanity when she tears down the yellow paper at the end. Having done so, she begins to think that she is the woman who has just been freed from the wall.
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Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper to show the protagonist’s path toward insanity. The narrator’s physician is her husband, John, who confines her to bed rest following postpartum psychosis. She lives without any physical or creative activities and only has a secret diary. The narrator spends most of her time in a former nursery of a rented summerhouse. The walls are covered with yellow wallpaper, with which the character soon becomes obsessed. The person believes that there are secrets hidden in the mansion, so she wants to unravel them.
Confinement makes her mental state even worse. She begins to suspect that a mysterious woman is trapped behind the wallpaper. The narrator’s obsession persists, and she decides to learn all the secrets of the mansion. In the climax of Charlotte Gilman’s novel, the narrator tears down the yellow wallpaper. As she believes, she frees the woman. At this point, she loses her mind entirely and begins to think that she is the one who has been released from the wall. The narrator’s husband, John, finds his wife beyond the point of insanity and faints out of shock.
