The Pattern Becomes Bars — The Yellow Wallpaper

By daylight the pattern has no sequence. It defies law and irritates a normal mind. The colour is hideous, unreliable, and infuriating. The pattern is torturing. You think you have mastered it. Then it turns a back somersault, slaps you, knocks you down, and tramples you. It is like a bad dream. The outside pattern is a florid arabesque, a fungus, an interminable string of toadstools budding in joints. That is, sometimes.

One marked peculiarity nobody else seems to notice: the paper changes as the light changes. When the sun shoots through the east window, she watches for that first long straight ray. The change is so quick she can never quite believe it. That is why she watches it always. By moonlight she would not know it was the same paper. At night, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, the outside pattern becomes bars. The woman behind it is as plain as can be.

She did not realize for a long time what showed behind that dim sub-pattern. Now she is quite sure it is a woman. By daylight the woman is subdued and quiet. The pattern keeps her so still. It keeps the narrator quiet by the hour. She lies down ever so much now. John says it is good for her, and to sleep all she can. He started the habit by making her lie down for an hour after each meal. It is a very bad habit. She does not sleep. That cultivates deceit, because she does not tell them she is awake.