ew from her window, which is a connection to the outside world. Slowly, the woman's focus begins to shift from the external to the internal. One of the first examples of this change is her assertion that "this paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!"(l215). The paper which before had been merely unattractive is suddenly given the more forceful description of "vicious. " This indicates that she is giving it more of her attention. Also, she is beginning to personify the paper. Up to this point, the only active forces in her life had been the people surrounding her, but she now sees the paper as having its own will. In her eyes, it is deliberately trying to worsen her nervous condition. However, I have already said that the paper is a symbolic mirror of the woman herself. This statement leads to the question, why would she be making herself worse on purpose? As her perversity of the wallpaper becomes apparent, the wallpaper begins to show its own duality. Underneath the random outer pattern that represents the woman's behavior towards society, the woman notices a sub-pattern, a "strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design"(l216). This new pattern, which embodies the shape of a woman, is even more obviously representative of the writer. It is also significant that the once "horrid" over-pattern is now reduced to being silly and conspicuous. She is drifting farther from her pattern of behavior designed to deal with the outer world, and beginning to explore this newly discovered side of herself. Her change in behavior is acts as a catalyst for her change in attitude. She writes that she is "getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper"(1216). She has ceased to focus on her outside surroundings, in favor of describing her feeling about the room and its wallpaper. She writes that "I walk a little in t...
