Denamarie Ercolani

"...the narrator's obsession with the wall-paper constitutes a regression from a linguistic presentation, the one she would write if John would allow her 'work', to an imaginary reconfiguration, an identification with mirror images in the paper as gestalt" (404).

The overdetermined signifier, the wallpaper, refers to both the title and the image of protean change featured in the story. The presentation of the wall-paper as mirror depicts the "intrapsychic splitting" of the protagionist (406). Lacan explains that hte mirror stage in child development shows the ability of an infant to differentiate itself from the projected image, a development from zero to one, self awareness. The narrator believes that her projections of the victims in a restrictive wallpaper might be similar to her and they share a common psychogenesis with her: they all want to come out.