Foreshadowing In The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper takes place in a house a woman and her husband have just moved into. The house is described as strange and eerie, and the relationship between the husband and the wife is bizarre as well. The husband’s wife (the main speaker) wants to spend time going out and doing things, but her husband tells she cannot and that she’s not well and has to rest. Her husband practically forces her to rest in her bed all day, which is where the wife notices the strange wallpaper, and begins to imagine that there is a woman that is trapped in the yellow wallpaper. The wife begins to strip off the wallpaper savagely, where her husband then walks in on her and passes out after seeing what she was doing. The wife continues to rip off the yellow
wallpaper, which is where the story concludes. I found this story to be rather interesting, because it was haunting but not in a disturbing way.
I find that there is a lot of meaning behind the wife ripping off the wallpaper and the husband fainting. Throughout the story, it is indeed shown that the husband restricts the wife of being able to do anything; forcing her to lay in bed all day and have nothing to do but stare at the walls. This would indeed drive anyone crazy. When it’s told that the wife begins to imagine a woman is trapped in the wallpaper, I already assume that this symbolic for the way the wife feels herself. The woman she is imagining in the wallpaper is pretty much an epitome of herself, and how she feels trapped in the room but her husband. When the wife begins to tear down the wallpaper, it’s also symbolic for how she feels. By tearing the wallpaper off the walls, she feels she is freeing this ‘woman’ that is trapped in the wallpaper, when in reality, the wife is freeing herself. Tearing the wallpaper off the walls makes her feel like she is freeing herself from being trapped in “the wallpaper” by her husband. The story also described how her husband thought she was sick in the head because of the imaginative nightmares she used to have, so that’s why he was making her stay in bed, to put a strain on her mind. I feel this is the reason he fainted when he walked in on her tearing down the wallpaper, because he sees her are
crazy. This story taught me an interesting meaning, of how we cannot put a strain on our creative minds. I enjoyed how the writer was able to tell that meaning through such an odd and eerie story. Everything in the story was symbolic, and contributed to my understanding of what the story was trying to convey. I also think the story is trying to show how good it feels for a woman to break free from an oppressive/restraining husband.