“THE YELLOW
WALLPAPER”
“The Yellow Wallpaper”
• The short story is about a women suffering from neurasthenia or postpartum depression.
She wants to work and still be productive, but a physician along with her husband and
brother give her the “rest cure” prescription.
• This is what causes her depression to escalate because she is unable to feel productive in
society.
• The narrator is imprisoned both physically (in her room) and emotionally (in her mind).
Her room has bars on the windows and her life is controlled by a detailed schedule.
• In the end she becomes the woman in the wall that she sees throughout the story.
Setting: Late 1880s
◦A woman’s role = wife and mother
◦Women could not vote or own property
◦Women were to be “pure, pious,
domestic, and submissive.”
Narrative Style
◦Unreliable narrator
◦Style of prose narration becomes
manic
◦Does the narrator go insane or does
she maintain her sanity by interacting
with the only stimulus she has—the
wallpaper?
What could these quotes about the house be
suggesting?
◦ “haunted house…that would be asking too much of fate!”
◦ “And why has it stood so long untenanted?”
◦ “It is quite alone”
◦ “there is something strange about the house—I can feel it.”
◦ The narrator is ‘alone … isolated … haunted … ‘ so these
quotes show the house is symbolic of her.
◦ These words are typical of Gothic literature – they help to
foreshadow the terror which will follow.
◦
Who is the woman in the wallpaper?
◦ Could the woman be the narrator’s shadow?
◦ Could it represent the narrator herself, trapped
inside the wallpaper? (Just as the wallpaper has
trapped the narrator’s mind.)
◦ Like the narrator herself, the woman is trapped
within a suffocating domestic “pattern” from
which no escape is possible…however, she tears
off the paper to free the woman (and herself.)
◦
Major Themes
◦ Female Imprisonment
The wallpaper, a usually feminine, floral decoration
on the interior of walls, is a symbol of female
imprisonment.
◦When John curbs her creativity and writing, the
narrator takes it upon herself to make some sense
of the wallpaper.
Aesthetic changes through insanity
◦The narrator's tone changes from naïve and
depressed to paranoid and excited
◦As she grows insane, her sentences reflect the state
of her mind.
◦Much like the chaotic pattern in the wallpaper, the
sentences get choppy and confusing, grafting
together disconnected one-line comments.
Characters
 Narrator- A young, upper-middle-class woman, newly married and a
mother, who is undergoing care for depression.
 John - The narrator’s husband and her physician. John restricts her
behavior as part of her treatment. Unlike his imaginative wife, John is
extremely practical, preferring facts . He seems to love his wife, but he
does not understand the negative effect his treatment has on her.
 Jennie - John’s sister. She acts as housekeeper for the couple. Her presence
and her contentment with a domestic role intensify the narrator’s feelings
of guilt over her own inability to act as a traditional wife and mother.
Point of view
As the main character’s fictional journal, the story is told in strict
first-person narration, focusing exclusively on her own thoughts,
feelings, and perceptions.
Everything that we learn or see in the story is filtered through the
narrator’s shifting consciousness, and since the narrator goes insane
over the course of the story, her perception of reality is often
completely at odds with that of the other characters.
The point of view of the narrator is essential in understanding the
feelings and emotions that she is experiencing throughout the course
of the story.
Literary devices
A paradox in literature refers to the use of concepts or ideas that are
contradictory to one another, yet, when placed together hold
significant value on several levels.
The uniqueness of paradoxes lies in the fact that a deeper level of
meaning and significance is not revealed at first glace, but when it
does form, it provides astonishing insight.
 Paradox- The narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a paradox: as she loses touch with the outer
world, she comes to a greater understanding of the inner reality of her life. This inner/outer split is
crucial to understanding the nature of the narrator’s suffering.
Literary devices
 Irony - In her journal, the narrator uses verbal irony often,
especially in reference to her husband:
 “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in
marriage.”
 Obviously, one expects no such thing, at least not in a
healthy marriage.
 Later, she says, “I am glad my case is not serious,”
 at a point when it is clear that she is concerned that her
case is very serious indeed.
Literary devices
 FORESHADOWING - The discovery of the teeth marks on the bedstead
foreshadows the narrator’s own insanity and suggests the narrator is not
revealing everything about her behavior;
 The first use of the word “creepy” foreshadows the increasing desperation
of the narrator’s situation and her own eventual “creeping.”
Mysterious thoughts…
• Why are there bars on the windows?
• Why are there teeth marks on her bed?
• Where is she?
• Is the point of view of the story significant?
◦Ideas for a literary analysis essay…
“The Yellow Wallpaper” as a Feminist
Story
◦ “The Yellow Wall-Paper” was written in 1892, and is often referred to as a feminist short
story.
◦ Given that the woman in the story goes mad because her role in society is limited and
her ability to express herself creatively is constricted, can the reader assume that the
author is making a feminist statement?
◦ This topic could take at least two different approaches.
◦ You could either place the story within the historical context (i.e.: What was happening
in 1892 that made this particular story so relevant and resonant, and why does it remain
so important today?)
◦ What does Gilman seem to say about “the female condition” in general by writing
about the life of this one woman and her descent into madness.
Victorian Gender Roles in “The Yellow
Wallpaper”
◦ What is the reader to make of the narrator’s husband, John? He is a physician who
recognizes his wife’s compromised state, but he does not seem to realize just how severe
her condition is, nor does he have an adequate way of treating it.
◦ Instead, he insists that country air will restore her senses and that isolation from others
will give her room to breathe and think.
◦ The textual evidence from “The Yellow Wallpaper” suggests that John is a caring husband
and that he does have positive intentions for his wife; however, he is bound by traditional
gender roles.
◦ Look to the text for examples of John’s positive intentions, and find ways to support the
argument that despite his best intentions, the fact that he was constricted to a particular
gender role limited his ability to truly prevent his wife from slipping into insanity.
The Symbol of the Yellow Wallpaper
◦ The wallpaper that the narrator comes to hate so much is a significant symbol
in the story.
◦ The yellow wallpaper can represent many ideas and conditions, among them
◦ the sense of entrapment, the notion of creativity gone astray, and a distraction that
becomes an obsession.
Examine the references to the yellow wallpaper and notice how they become more
frequent and how they develop over the course of the story. Why is the wallpaper an
adequate symbol to represent the woman’s confinement and her emotional
condition?
The Significance of First-Person
Narration in “The Yellow Wallpaper”
◦ The central character in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” narrates her
own life
◦ Gilman has cleverly taken the reader into the inner-most realms of a woman’s mind and experiences,
yet the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper” remains anonymous, a reflection of her status in society.
◦ Narration, of course, is an important element of any story or novel, and as readers, we are always
evaluating whether the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is credible and reliable.
◦ The narrator of “The Yellow Wall-Paper” appears credible as the story opens, but as her mental state
deteriorates, does her narrative follow suit?
◦ As you read this story, consider the role that narration plays in the development of the plot and the
theme.
◦ How might the story of “The Yellow Wallpaper” have been different, for instance, if it had been told
by the woman’s husband?
◦ Another important question: What effects does this particular choice of narration have on establishing a
connection with the reader and eliciting certain emotional responses?