"The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman has three themes: becoming free, madness, and the dangers of the "rest cure." The story is written as the secret diary of a woman who is diagnosed with temporary nervous depression by her husband and doctor and is prescribed the "rest cure." Though the narrator wants to write, she is prohibited from any activity due to her treatment. Thus, allowing her to create a figure in the yellow wallpaper while in the confinement of her room. Gilman writes in "The Yellow Wallpaper," of the narrator who is apparently trying to free herself from her sickness and the room, and she is trying to free the woman in the wallpaper. Throughout the story, the narrator, also known as the protagonist of the story, is trying to free herself from her illness. Readers can see this when Gilman writes, "I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me" (748). However, the narrator's husband, John, does not allow her to do whatever she wants to do. Gilman writes, "I don't like it a bit. I wonder-I begin to think - I wish John would take me away from here" (751). At that moment in the story, readers can see that the narrator despises her room and that she wants to flee. The author also writes about the protagonist trying to free the woman in the wallpaper. She writes, "As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her. I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper. A strip about as high as my head and half around the room" (755). In these instances, it becomes apparent that becoming free is a theme in the short story. At the beginning of the story, the narrator is aware of her condition and has her sanity intact. As the story continues, the reader sees the woman lose her sanity and begin to see shapes in the wallpaper. Fo