The Yellow Wallpaper SAY MEAN MATTER
Feminist Analysis Chart
As a feminist, Gilman expressed her concern over issues of gender marginalization in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” You will read the short story and
track important quotes as they relate to her development of various themes. You will then explain how or why they matter
THEMES
Creativity vs.
Rationality
The Domestic
Sphere as
Prison
The "Rest
Cure"
Role of
Women in the
19th Century
The Narrator
vs. The Woman
in the
Wallpaper
Sunlight vs.
Moonlight
SAYS (QUOTE)
MEANS
MATTERS in relation to feminist theory
Questions:
1) What was Charlotte Perkins Gilman's incentive to write this story? What goals did she hope it would accomplish?
2) What did hysteria mean, and why were women diagnosed as hysterical? What sorts of behaviors led to a diagnosis of hysteria? What were the
common treatments hysterics received?
3) Imbedded within Gilman's story is her critique of the role and place of women in Western cultures. What does Gilman see as the lot of
women in her own society? What is the cost to women of being consigned to that lot?
4) Who is the woman behind the yellow wallpaper, who looks out through its bars at the narrator as she sleeps? Why does she creep about the
yard and garden at night?
5) Compare "internal" (female) and "external" (male) spaces in the story. What is Gilman saying about each as places for both women and men to
live?
6) What is Gilman's view of motherhood as presented in this work?
7) How does this work reflect the challenges to the Cult of Domesticity put forward by First Wave feminists?