"I have locked the door and thrown away the key..." (The Yellow Wall Paper)
The woman has literally thrown the key out of the attic room. She has locked the room and disposed of the key. The room has taken her in and consumed her.
However, the woman has locked the door to her mind and thrown away the only way to get in. All throughout the short story, she continuously loses her mind further. The door represents the woman's small ounce of sanity still left in her. The key is her wish to succumb to her overworking and delusional mind. She chooses to lock her door and become part of the cracked and dead yellow wall paper.
When she throws the key into oblivion, the woman goes with it; into a deserted land of nothingness. She travels to the land of her own whims. And no one can get back in.
The way I see it, by the end of her tale, she suffered so greatly to the point where the chains that had bounded her mind were just shattered by the overwhelming pressure of her resolve to free herself. In my opinion, it was not so much of a point for her to get into her mind through a locked door, she was trying to get her mind out through the locked door to be able to be free of its prison. She tried so desperately to be able to relieve it of its bondage, even through writing. In the end, though, tearing apart the wallpaper was like tearing apart the door from its hinges, finally being able to let her mind loose.
ReplyDeleteI agree. She continues to go deeper and deeper into her mind, locking out everyone around her.
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