Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“The Yellow Wallpaper”
DOL
• rob commented that us neighbors has got to be
welcoming to children outside of our
neighborhood he mentioned to us
• pronoun (case)
• verb (have)
• reduction (unnecessary words, redundancy)
• Outside not outside of
• Rob commented that we neighbors have to be
welcoming to children outside our neighborhood.
Journal
• Is someone who is mentally unstable a
reliable source of information?
Anticipation Guide
• Women sometimes experience severe
depression after having a baby.
• Someone who is suffering a mental
breakdown is still a reliable source.
• Yellow wallpaper would be pretty in a
baby’s room.
• In the 1800’s, women were dependant on
their husbands for everything.
• A “rest-cure” is a good medical treatment.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Born in 1860
• What was life like for women during this time
period?
– Wives were property of their husbands
– Wives had no direct legal control over their earnings,
children or belongings.
– Some laws prohibited women from going into
business without their husband’s consent
– And a husband could decide where a family would
live
• Gilman’s father often left for extended periods of time
leaving his wife and children with family:
– Great-Aunt, Harriet Beecher Stowe- an abolitionist and
author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• Abolitionist- a reformer who favors abolishing slavery
– Great-Aunt, Catherine Beecher- the prominent advocate of
“domestic feminism.”
• Prominent- widely known
– Great-Aunt, Isabella Beecher Hooker- an ardent suffragist.
• Suffragist- an advocate of the extension of voting rights (especially
to women).
– Her mother was extremely self-reliant.
• Her father and mother divorced.
• Gilman advocated for women’s independence.
• She paid her mother room and board while
supporting herself as a teacher and a
commercial artist.
• She got married and gave birth to a daughter
in 1884 then suffered severe depression (postpartum).
• A doctor prescribed a rest-cure.
– rest-cure- complete bed-rest and limited intellectual
activity
• She removed herself from her doctor’s care and
divorced her husband.
• She moved to California and became a very
important advocator for women’s rights.
• She took her life in 1935 after discovering that
she had inoperable cancer.
– Inoperable
• Unsuitable for a surgical procedure
Setting…
• Setting- tells the time and place of action.
• Setting can play an important role in the
conflict.
• Simile- a comparison between two unlike
things that uses the words like or as: the top
layer of the wallpaper is like bars.
• Personification- giving human traits to nonhuman things.
• Imagery- using language that appeals to
any sense or any combination of senses
(sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell)
• Examples of imagery in The Yellow
Wallpaper:
– find as you read