The yellow wallpaper

The narrator's insanity climaxes as she identifies completely with the woman in the wallpaper. She believes that not only has the woman come out of the wallpaper, but so has she. Again, the symbolic meaning is that both she and the woman have liberated themselves from masculine oppression; by tearing out of the domesticated prison of the wallpaper, they are free. This moment of liberation again occurs by moonlight when, according to the motif Gilman has drawn, women enjoy a break from the oppression of masculine sunshine.

There is one final irony that avenges the narrator's insanity: John's fainting is a stereotypically feminine show of weakness. The narrator finally achieves an authoritative position in her marriage, with John unconscious and her creative imagination finally free of all restraints.