Three-Act Plot Analysis

Act I

The narrator and her husband arrive at a country estate for a "rest" vacation. She is bothered by their room’s ugly yellow wallpaper.

Act II

Stuck in the room with orders to do nothing but rest, the narrator becomes more obsessed with the wallpaper and less trusting of her husband. She begins to sense a "yellow smell" in the room.

Act III

Convinced there’s a woman stuck behind the wallpaper, she strips it off the walls in order to free her. She then declares that she has escaped from the paper, and her husband faints when he finally sees how insane she has become.