Symbolism of "yellow wallpaper" In the 19th century, society was far from different from what it is today. 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 were they allowed to speak publicly in front of an audience. When a woman married, her husband legally owned everything she owned (including her income, clothing and jewelry, and her children). If he died, she was only entitled to one-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 her short story The Yellow Wallpaper, she 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 struggle for equality and the possibilities of the female sex during the 1800s. The yellow wallpaper itself even is one of the greatest symbols in history. This can be interpreted as symbolizing many things about the narrator. The wallpaper symbolizes the mental block attempted to be imposed 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 the male oppression exerted on the narrator. The wallpaper in fact makes the narrator more and more “sick” as the story progresses. The yellow wallpaper, of which the writer declares: "I have never seen worse paper in my life", is a symbol of the mental screen that men tried to impose on women. Gilman writes: "The color is hideous enough, unreliable enough, and maddening enough, but the pattern is torturous." This is a symbolic metaphor for the restrictions placed on women. The author subliminally says that men's denial of women's equality is a "hideous" act, and that when men appear to grant women some measure of this equality, it is often "unreliable." The use of the words "maddening" and "torturing" are also descriptions of the feelings of women in 19th century society. Another important symbol is the narrator's lack of interaction with the audience. This symbolizes the fact that women were out of the public eye during this time. Women had to stay indoors and take care of the house and the children. They had no place at all in government, in the workplace or outside..