This is the yellow wallpaper of the tale, a form of physical constraint by the outside world on the narrator and carrying over into the inner world beyond physical space. As Heidegger would point out, human existence is “thrown” into the world, and any sense of self and others must be “shaped in some way by our environment and social structures.”. In this story, the saturated color of the yellow wallpaper becomes symbolic, referencing the narrator’s “thrownness” into a gendered role and traditionally constructed world.
The wallpaper does more than display material oppression; it also reflects the narrator’s mental distress and confusion. As phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty explains, the material world and the body are not distinctions, but embedded. The psychological transformation of the narrator is not just a personal subjective process but also conditioned to a large degree by the material and cultural processes of her environment. The wallpaper, therefore, is not just a striking pattern; it is a material representation of the narrator’s body and soul.