Maybe because of the background. So it occupies my mind. The young woman's hatred and fear of ugly patterned wallpaper ended up changing her life forever. He spent a lot of time in the room staring at the wall. Eventually he began to see the shapes behind the patterns. It seems that the shapes represent some sort of woman, or perhaps even more than one woman “crawling” behind the wallpaper. “At night, with any type of light, ...do they become bars? ...and the woman behind it is plain as can be... in the light of day she is submissive, silent. I guess it's a pattern that keeps her so still. The woman behind all the bars is quite symbolic in the tale. The narrator finally sees herself, as well as many other women, imprisoned by their husbands. As she notes that all this staring at the wall has pushed her to realize that she has been hidden all these years, abiding by those expectations and rules created by others. He feels the need to go out, so he ends up removing the wallpaper and imagines "pulling and shaking" those ugly bars, freeing the