Symbolism of "Yellow Wallpaper"In the 19th century society was different from today's. Women were not part of the workforce, could not vote or even have a say in anything. Women were not allowed to testify in court, nor did they have the right to speak publicly before an audience. When a woman married, her husband legally owned everything she had (including her earnings, her clothes, jewelry, and her children). If he died, she would only be entitled to a third of her husband's estate. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wanted to change that. She wanted people to understand the plight of women in the 19th century. In his short story The Yellow Wallpaper he tries to convey this to the reader not only on a literal level, but through various symbols in the story. In The Yellow Wallpaper the author uses symbols to show the restrictions placed on women, the lack of public interaction, the fight for equality and the possibilities of the female sex during the 1800s. The yellow wallpaper itself is one of the most greats in history. It can be interpreted to symbolize many things about the narrator. The wallpaper symbolizes the mental block that was attempted to be placed on women during the 1800s. The color yellow is often associated with illness or weakness, and the narrator's mysterious illness is an example of male oppression over the narrator. The wallpaper in fact makes the narrator more “sick” as the story progresses. The yellow wallpaper, of which the writer declares: "I have never seen worse wallpaper in my life", is a symbol of the mental screen that men have attempted to impose on women. Gilman writes: "The color is horrible enough, unreliable enough and maddening enough, but the pattern is torturing", this is a symbolic metaphor for the restrictions placed on women. The author is subliminally saying that the denial of equality to women by men is a “horrendous” act and that when men appear to grant women some measure of that equality, it is often “unreliable.” The use of the words “infuriating” and “torturing” also describes the feelings of women in 19th century society. Another great symbol is the narrator's lack of public interaction. It symbolizes that women were out of the public eye during that time period. Women had to stay at home and take care of the house and children. They didn't belong in government, in the workplace, or outside at all.