In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the wallpaper represents society’s oppression of women. The pattern on the wallpaper represents to the narrator and to the reader the male-dominated society that is depriving the narrator of her freedom. "At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars!" she says, ". . . and the woman behind it is as plain as can be." (624). For the narrator, on a personal …showed first 75 words of 268 total…

…showed last 75 words of 268 total…a "broken neck," like the women in the pattern. As it turns out, she isn't wrong, but her "broken neck" turns out to be a broken mind. The wallpaper magnifies the problems the narrator is experiencing. The pattern in the wallpaper is not just an innocent pattern for a children's room as it is first introduced to the reader, but rather it has a mind-numbing quality that readily attracts the projections of the unbalanced mind.