As a housewife confined mostly at home, the woman yearned to develop herself, to function as an able individual not just in her home but in her society as well. Thus, work became a symbolic manifestation of the woman's yearning for freedom: freedom from the oppressive label of being a housewife, and freedom from being limited and dictated what she needs to do and not do.

Human ignorance is highlighted in the story when, as the woman succumbed to the fixating task of "analyzing" and following the patterns of the yellow wallpaper, her husband thought her nervous breakdown has finally escalated into insanity. As the woman begins to consider the pattern a reflection of her own life, her family, particularly her husband John, began considering her condition as one of insanity: "At night...and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars!...I didn't realize for a long time what the thing...
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