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Analysis of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wall-Paper

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on April 28, 2022

First published in New England Magazine in January 1892, and reprinted by Small, Maynard and Company as a chapbook (1899), “The Yellow Wall-Paper” is Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s most famous work. Depicting the nervous breakdown of a young wife and mother, the story is a potent example of psychological realism. Based loosely on Gilman’s own experiences in undergoing the rest cure for neurasthenia, the story documents the psychological torment of her fictional first-person narrator.

The narrator’s husband, John, a physician, prescribes isolation and inactivity as treatment for her illness, a “temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency” (10). John forbids her to engage in any kind of labor, including writing. Despite his admonitions, however, the narrator records her impressions in a secret diary.

Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy Stock Photo

These diary entries compose the text of the story; they reveal the narrator’s emotional descent. As the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that she is suffering an acute form of postpartum depression, a condition acknowledged neither by John nor by the late-19th-century medical community. So severe is the narrator’s depression that a nursemaid has assumed care of the new baby. Deprived of the freedom to write openly, which she believes would be therapeutic, the narrator gradually shifts her attention to the yellow wallpaper in the attic nursery where she spends her time. The paper both intrigues and repels her; it becomes the medium on which she symbolically inscribes her “text.” Soon she detects a subpattern in the wallpaper that crystallizes into the image of an imprisoned woman attempting to escape. In the penultimate scene, the narrator’s identity merges with that of the entrapped woman, and together they frantically tear the paper from the walls. In an ironic reversal in the final scene, John breaks into the room and, after witnessing the full measure of his wife’s insanity, faints. Significantly, however, he is still blocking his wife, literally and symbolically obstructing her path so that she has to “creep over him every time!” (36).

Critics disagree over the meaning of the story, variously arguing the significance of everything from linguistic cues, to psychoanalytic interpretations, to historiographical readings. While some critics have hailed the narrator as a feminist heroine, others have seen in her a maternal failure coupled with a morbid fear of female sexuality. Some have viewed the story, with its yellow paper, as an exemplar of the silencing of women writers in 19th-century America; others have focused on its gothic elements.

Since the Feminist Press reissued the story in 1973, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” has been widely anthologized and is now firmly assimilated in the American literary body of work.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wall-paper. Boston: Small, Maynard, & Co., 1899. Reprint, Old Westbury, N.Y.: Feminist Press, 1973. Lanser, Susan A. “Feminist Criticism, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ and the Politics of Color in America.” Feminist Studies 15, no. 3 (Fall 1989): 415–441. Shumaker, Conrad. “ ‘Too Terribly Good to Be Printed’: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’ ” American Literature 57, no. 4 (1985): 588–599. Veeder, William. “Who Is Jane? The Intricate Feminism of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” Arizona Quarterly 44, no. 3 (1988): 40–79.

A Summary and Analysis of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, an 1892 short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, has the structure and style of a diary. This is in keeping with what the female narrator tells us: that she can only write down her experiences when her husband John is not around, since he has forbidden her to write until she is well again, believing it will overexcite her.

Through a series of short instalments, we learn more about the narrator’s situation, and her treatment at the hands of her doctor husband and her sister-in-law.

To summarise the story, then: the narrator and her husband John, a doctor, have come to stay at a large country house. As the story develops, we realise that the woman’s husband has brought her to the house in order to try to cure her of her mental illness (he has told her that repairs are being carried out on their home, which is why they have had to relocate to a mansion).

His solution, or treatment, is effectively to lock her away from everyone – including her own family, except for him – and to forbid her anything that might excite her, such as writing. (She writes her account of what happens to her, and the effect it has on her, in secret, hiding her pen and paper when her husband or his sister come into the room.)

John’s suggested treatment for his wife also extends to relieving her of maternal duties: their baby is taken out of her hands and looked after by John’s sister, Jennie. Jennie also does all of the cooking and housework.

It becomes clear, as the story develops, that depriving the female narrator of anything to occupy her mind is making her mental illness worse, not better.

The narrator confides that she cannot even cry in her husband’s company, or when anyone else is present, because that will be interpreted as a sign that her condition is worsening – and her husband has promised (threatened?) to send her to another doctor, Weir Mitchell, if her condition doesn’t show signs of improving. And according to a female friend who has been treated by him, Weir Mitchell is like her husband and brother ‘only more so’ (i.e. stricter).

The narrator then outlines in detail how she sometimes sits for hours on end in her room, tracing the patterns in the yellow wallpaper. She then tells us she thinks she can see a woman ‘stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern.’ At this point, she changes her mind, and goes from being fond of the pattern in the yellow wallpaper to wishing she could go away from the place.

She tells John that she isn’t getting any better in this house and that she would like to leave, but he tells her she is looking healthier and that they cannot return home for another three weeks, until their lease is up and the ‘repairs’ at home have been completed.

Despondent, the narrator tells us how she is becoming more obsessed by the yellow wallpaper, especially at night when she is unable to sleep and so lies awake watching the pattern in the wallpaper, which she says resembles a fungus.

She starts to fear her husband. She becomes paranoid that her husband and sister-in-law, Jennie, are trying to decipher the pattern in the yellow wallpaper, and she becomes determined to beat them to it. (Jennie was actually checking the wallpaper because the thought it was staining their clothes; this is the reason she gives to the narrator when asked about it, anyway. However, the more likely reason is that she and John have noticed the narrator’s obsession with looking at the wallpaper, and are becoming concerned.)

Next, the narrator tells us she has noticed the strange smell of the wallpaper, and tells us she seriously considered burning down the house to try to solve the mystery of what she smell was. She concludes that it is simply ‘a yellow smell!’ We now realise that the narrator is losing her mind rather badly.

She becomes convinced that the ‘woman behind’ the yellow wallpaper is shaking it, thus moving the front pattern of the paper. She says she has seen this woman creeping about the grounds of the house during the day; she returns to behind the wallpaper at night.

The narrator then tells us that she believes John and Jennie have become ‘affected’ by the wallpaper – that they are losing their minds from being exposed to it.

So the narrator begins stripping the yellow wallpaper from the walls, much to the consternation of Jennie. John has all of his wife’s things moved out of the room, ready for them to leave the house. While John is out, the narrator locks herself inside the now bare room and throws the key out the window, so she cannot be disturbed.

She has become convinced that there are many creeping women roaming the grounds of the house, all of them originating from behind the yellow wallpaper, and that she is one of them. The story ends with her husband banging on the door to be let in, fetching the key when she tells him it’s down by the front door mat, and bursting into the room – whereupon he faints, at the sight of his wife creeping around the room.

That concludes our attempt to summarise the ‘plot’ of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ begins by dangling the idea that what we are about to read is a haunted house story, a Gothic tale, a piece of horror. Why else, wonders the story’s female narrator, would the house be available so cheaply unless it was haunted? And why had it remained unoccupied for so long? This is how many haunted house tales begin.

And this will turn out to be true, in many ways – the story is often included in anthologies of horror fiction, and there is a ‘haunting’ of a kind going on in the story – but as ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ develops we realise we’re reading something far more unsettling than a run-of-the-mill haunted house story, because the real ghosts and demons are either inside the narrator’s troubled mind or else her own husband and her sister-in-law.

Of course, these two things are linked. Because one of the ‘morals’ of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ – if ‘moral’ is not too strong a word to use of such a story – is that the husband’s treatment of his wife’s mental illness only succeeds in making her worse , rather than better, until her condition reaches the point where she is completely mad, suffering from hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia. So ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is a haunted house story … but the only ghosts are inside the narrator’s head.

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ borrows familiar tropes from a Gothic horror story – it ends with the husband taking an axe to the bedroom door where his cowering wife is imprisoned – but the twist is that, by the end of the story, she has imprisoned herself in her deluded belief that she is protecting her husband from the ‘creeping women’ from behind the wallpaper, and he is prepared to beat down the door with an axe out of genuine concern for his sick wife, rather than to butcher her, Bluebeard or Jack Torrance style.

Narrative Style

As we mentioned at the beginning of this analysis, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ has the structure and style of a diary. This is in keeping with what the female narrator tells us: that she can only write down her experiences when her husband John is not around. But it also has the effect of shifting the narrative tense: from the usual past tense to the more unusual present tense.

Only one year separates ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ from George Egerton’s first volume of short stories , which made similarly pioneering use of present-tense narration in order to depict female consciousness.

The literary critic Ruth Robbins has made the argument that the past tense (or ‘perfect tense’) is unsuited to some modes of fiction because it offers the ‘perspective that leads to judgment’: because events have already occurred, we feel in a position to judge the characters involved.

Present-tense narration deters us from doing this so readily, for two reasons. First, we are thrown in amongst the events, experiencing them as they happen almost, so we feel complicit in them. Second, because things are still unfolding seemingly before our very eyes, we feel that to attempt to pass judgment on what’s happening would be too rash and premature: we don’t know for sure how things are going to play out yet.

Given that Gilman is writing about a mentally unstable woman being mistreated by her male husband (and therefore, given his profession, by the medical world too), her decision to plunge us headlong into the events of the story encourages us to listen to what the narrator is telling us before we attempt to pronounce on what’s going on.

The fact that ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is narrated in the first person, from the woman’s own perspective and in her own voice, is also a factor: the only access we have to her treatment (or mistreatment) and to her husband’s behaviour and personality is through her: what she tells us and how she tells it to us.

But there is another narrative advantage to this present-tense diary structure: we as readers are forced to appraise everything we are told by the narrator, and scrutinise it carefully, deciding whether we are being told the whole story or whether the narrator, in her nervous and unstable state, may not be seeing things as they really are.

A good example of this is when, having told us at length how she follows the patterns on the yellow wallpaper on the walls of her room, sometimes for hours on end, the narrator then tells us she is glad her baby doesn’t have to live in the same room, because someone as ‘impressionable’ as her child wouldn’t do well in such a room.

The dramatic irony which the narrator cannot see but which we, tragically, can, is that she is every bit as impressionable as a small child, and the yellow wallpaper – and, more broadly, her effective incarceration – is clearly having a deleterious effect on her mental health. (The story isn’t perfect: Gilman telegraphs the irony a little too strongly when, in the next breath, she has her narrator tell us, with misplaced confidence, ‘I can stand it so much easier than a baby, you see.’)

In the last analysis, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is so unsettling because it plays with established Gothic horror conventions and then subverts them in order to expose the misguided medical practices used in an attempt to ‘treat’ or ‘cure’ women who are suffering from mental or nervous disorders. It has become a popular feminist text about the male mistreatment of women partly because the ‘villain’, the narrator’s husband John, is acting out of a genuine (if hubristic) belief that he knows what’s best for her.

The whole field of nineteenth-century patriarchal society and the way it treats women thus comes under scrutiny, in a story that is all the more powerful for refusing to preach, even while it lets one such mistreated woman speak for herself.

10 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’”

I absolutely loved this story. read it a few times in a row when I first crossed paths with it a few years ago –

“The Yellow Wallpaper” remains one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read. Excellent analysis!

Fantastic book.

I cringe every time this story appears on a reading list or in a curriculum textbook. It’s almost hysterical in tone and quite disturbing in how overstated the “abuse” of the wife is supposed to be. It’s right up there with “The Awakening” as feminist literature that hinders, instead of promoting, the dilemma of 19th century women.

How is it overstated?

To witness the woman’s unraveling and how ignored she is, to me, a profound statement how people with emotional distress are not treated with respect.

Pingback: ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’: A Summary of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Story – Interesting Literature

Terrific analysis. Gothic fiction is always open to many forms of reading and particularly for feminist reading – as openly presented by Angela Carter’ neo-gothic stories (which I would love to read your analyses of one day Oliver!). ‘the Yellow Wallpaper’ I think is the go-to story for most feminist commentators on Gothic fiction – and rightly so. I can’t help notice the connections between this story and the (mis)treatments of Sigmund Freud. Soooo much in this story to think about that I feel like a kiddie in sweet shop!

Thank you as always, Ken, for the thoughtful comment – and I completely agree about the links with Freud. The 1890s really was a pioneering age for psychiatric treatment/analysis, though we cringe at some of the ideas that were seriously considered (and put into practice). Oddly enough I’ve just been rearranging the pile of books on the floor of my study here at IL Towers, and The Bloody Chamber is near the top of my list of books to cover in due course!

I will wait with abated breath for your thoughts! I love Angela Carter :)

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General Education

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s classic short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper" tells the story of a young woman’s gradual descent into psychosis. " The Yellow Wallpaper" is often cited as an early feminist work that predates a woman’s right to vote in the United States. The author was involved in first-wave feminism, and her other works questioned the origins of the subjugation of women, particularly in marriage. "

The Yellow Wallpaper" is a widely read work that asks difficult questions about the role of women, particularly regarding their mental health and right to autonomy and self-identity. We’ll go over The Yellow Wallpaper summary, themes and symbols, The Yellow Wallpaper analysis, and some important information about the author.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" Summary

"The Yellow Wallpaper" details the deterioration of a woman's mental health while she is on a "rest cure" on a rented summer country estate with her family. Her obsession with the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom marks her descent into psychosis from her depression throughout the story.

The narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" begins the story by discussing her move to a beautiful estate for the summer. Her husband, John, is also her doctor , and the move is meant in part to help the narrator overcome her “illness,” which she explains as nervous depression, or nervousness, following the birth of their baby. John’s sister, Jennie, also lives with them and works as their housekeeper.

Though her husband believes she will get better with rest and by not worrying about anything, the narrator has an active imagination and likes to write . He discourages her wonder about the house, and dismisses her interests. She mentions her baby more than once, though there is a nurse that cares for the baby, and the narrator herself is too nervous to provide care.

The narrator and her husband move into a large room that has ugly, yellow wallpaper that the narrator criticizes. She asks her husband if they can change rooms and move downstairs, and he rejects her. The more she stays in the room, the more the narrator’s fascination with the hideous wallpaper grows.

After hosting family for July 4th, the narrator expresses feeling even worse and more exhausted. She struggles to do daily activities, and her mental state is deteriorating. John encourages her to rest more, and the narrator hides her writing from him because he disapproves.

In the time between July 4th and their departure, the narrator is seemingly driven insane by the yellow wallpaper ; she sleeps all day and stays up all night to stare at it, believing that it comes alive, and the patterns change and move. Then, she begins to believe that there is a woman in the wallpaper who alters the patterns and is watching her.

A few weeks before their departure, John stays overnight in town and the narrator wants to sleep in the room by herself so she can stare at the wallpaper uninterrupted. She locks out Jennie and believes that she can see the woman in the wallpaper . John returns and frantically tries to be let in, and the narrator refuses; John is able to enter the room and finds the narrator crawling on the floor. She claims that the woman in the wallpaper has finally exited, and John faints, much to her surprise.

Background on "The Yellow Wallpaper"

The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was a lecturer for social reform, and her beliefs and philosophy play an important part in the creation of "The Yellow Wallpaper," as well as the themes and symbolism in the story. "The Yellow Wallpaper" also influenced later feminist writers.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, known as Charlotte Perkins Stetsman while she was married to her first husband, was born in Hartford, CT in 1860. Young Charlotte was observed as being bright, but her mother wasn’t interested in her education, and Charlotte spent lots of time in the library.

Charlotte married Charles Stetsman in 1884, and her daughter was born in 1885. She suffered from serious postpartum depression after giving birth to their daughter, Katharine. Her battle with postpartum depression and the doctors she dealt with during her illness inspired her to write "The Yellow Wallpaper."

The couple separated in 1888, the year that Perkins Gilman wrote her first book, Art Gems for the Home and Fireside. She later wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" in 1890, while she was in a relationship with Adeline Knapp, and living apart from her legal husband. "The Yellow Wallpaper" was published in 1892, and in 1893 she published a book of satirical poetry , In This Our World, which gained her fame.

Eventually, Perkins Gilman got officially divorced from Stetsman, and ended her relationship with Knapp. She married her cousin, Houghton Gilman, and claimed to be satisfied in the marriage .

Perkins Gilman made a living as a lecturer on women’s issues, labor issues, and social reform . She toured Europe and the U.S. as a lecturer, and founded her own magazine, The Forerunner.

Publication

"The Yellow Wallpaper" was first published in January 1892 in New England Magazine.

During Perkins Gilman's lifetime, the role of women in American society was heavily restricted both socially and legally. At the time of its publication, women were still twenty-six years away from gaining the right to vote .

This viewpoint on women as childish and weak meant that they were discouraged from having any control over their lives. Women were encouraged or forced to defer to their husband’s opinions in all aspects of life , including financially, socially, and medically. Writing itself was revolutionary, since it would create a sense of identity, and was thought to be too much for the naturally fragile women.

Women's health was a particularly misunderstood area of medicine, as women were viewed as nervous, hysterical beings, and were discouraged from doing anything to further “upset” them. The prevailing wisdom of the day was that rest would cure hysteria, when in reality the constant boredom and lack of purpose likely worsened depression .

Perkins Gilman used her own experience in her first marriage and postpartum depression as inspiration for The Yellow Wallpaper, and illustrates how a woman’s lack of autonomy is detrimental to her mental health.

Upon its publication, Perkins Gilman sent a copy of "The Yellow Wallpaper" to the doctor who prescribed her the rest cure for her postpartum depression.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" Characters

Though there are only a few characters in the story, they each have an important role. While the story is about the narrator’s mental deterioration, the relationships in her life are essential for understanding why and how she got to this point.

The Narrator

The narrator of the story is a young, upper-middle-class woman. She is imaginative and a natural writer, though she is discouraged from exploring this part of herself. She is a new mother and is thought to have “hysterical tendencies” or suffer from nervousness. Her name may be Jane but it is unclear.

John is the narrator’s husband and her physician. He restricts her activity as a part of her treatment. John is extremely practical, and belittles the narrator's imagination and feelings . He seems to care about her well-being, but believes he knows what is best for her and doesn't allow her input.

Jennie is John’s sister, who works as a housekeeper for the couple. Jennie seems concerned for the narrator, as indicated by her offer to sleep in the yellow wallpapered room with her. Jennie seems content with her domestic role .

Main Themes of "The Yellow Wallpaper"

From what we know about the author of this story and from interpreting the text, there are a few themes that are clear from a "Yellow Wallpaper" analysis. "The Yellow Wallpaper" was a serious piece of literature that addressed themes pertinent to women.

Women's Role in Marriage

Women were expected to be subordinate to their husbands and completely obedient, as well as take on strictly domestic roles inside the home . Upper middle class women, like the narrator, may go for long periods of time without even leaving the home. The story reveals that this arrangement had the effect of committing women to a state of naïveté, dependence, and ignorance.

John assumes he has the right to determine what’s best for his wife, and this authority is never questioned. He belittles her concerns, both concrete and the ones that arise as a result of her depression , and is said so brush her off and “laugh at her” when she speaks through, “this is to be expected in marriage” He doesn’t take her concerns seriously, and makes all the decisions about both of their lives.

As such, she has no say in anything in her life, including her own health, and finds herself unable to even protest.

Perkins Gilman, like many others, clearly disagreed with this state of things, and aimed to show the detrimental effects that came to women as a result of their lack of autonomy.

Identity and Self-Expression

Throughout the story, the narrator is discouraged from doing the things she wants to do and the things that come naturally to her, like writing. On more than one occasion, she hurries to put her journal away because John is approaching .

She also forces herself to act as though she’s happy and satisfied, to give the illusion that she is recovering, which is worse. She wants to be a good wife, according to the way the role is laid out for her, but struggles to conform especially with so little to actually do.

The narrator is forced into silence and submission through the rest cure, and desperately needs an intellectual and emotional outlet . However, she is not granted one and it is clear that this arrangement takes a toll.

The Rest Cure

The rest cure was commonly prescribed during this period of history for women who were “nervous.” Perkins Gilman has strong opinions about the merits of the rest cure , having been prescribed it herself. John’s insistence on the narrator getting “air” constantly, and his insistence that she do nothing that requires mental or physical stimulation is clearly detrimental.

The narrator is also discouraged from doing activities, whether they are domestic- like cleaning or caring for her baby- in addition to things like reading, writing, and exploring the grounds of the house. She is stifled and confined both physically and mentally, which only adds to her condition .

Perkins Gilman damns the rest cure in this story, by showing the detrimental effects on women, and posing that women need mental and physical stimulation to be healthy, and need to be free to make their own decisions over health and their lives.

The Yellow Wallpaper Analysis: Symbols and Symbolism

Symbols are a way for the author to give the story meaning, and provide clues as to the themes and characters. There are two major symbols in "The Yellow Wallpaper."

The Yellow Wallpaper

This is of course the most important symbol in the story. The narrator is immediately fascinated and disgusted by the yellow wallpaper, and her understanding and interpretation fluctuates and intensifies throughout the story.

The narrator, because she doesn’t have anything else to think about or other mental stimulation, turns to the yellow wallpaper as something to analyze and interpret. The pattern eventually comes into focus as bars, and then she sees a woman inside the pattern . This represents feeling trapped.

At the end of the story, the narrator believes that the woman has come out of the wallpaper. This indicates that the narrator has finally merged fully into her psychosis , and become one with the house and domesticated discontent.

Though Jennie doesn’t have a major role in the story, she does present a foil to the narrator. Jennie is John’s sister and their housekeeper, and she is content, or so the narrator believes, to live a domestic life. Though she does often express her appreciation for Jennie’s presence in her home, she is clearly made to feel guilty by Jennie’s ability to run the household unencumbered .

Irony in The Yellow Wallpaper

"The Yellow Wallpaper" makes good use of dramatic and situational irony. Dramatic literary device in which the reader knows or understands things that the characters do not. Situational irony is when the character’s actions are meant to do one thing, but actually do another. Here are a few examples.

For example, when the narrator first enters the room with the yellow wallpaper, she believes it to be a nursery . However, the reader can clearly see that the room could have just as easily been used to contain a mentally unstable person.

The best example of situational irony is the way that John continues to prescribe the rest-cure, which worsens the narrator's state significantly. He encourages her to lie down after meals and sleep more, which causes her to be awake and alert at night, when she has time to sit and evaluate the wallpaper.

The Yellow Wallpaper Summary

"The Yellow Wallpaper" is one of the defining works of feminist literature. Writing about a woman’s health, mental or physical, was considered a radical act at the time that Perkins Gilman wrote this short story. Writing at all about the lives of women was considered at best, frivolous, and at worst dangerous. When you take a look at The Yellow Wallpaper analysis, the story is an important look into the role of women in marriage and society, and it will likely be a mainstay in the feminist literary canon.

What's Next?

Looking for more expert guides on literary classics? Read our guides on The Cask of Amontillado and The Great Gatsby .

Need important and interesting quotes? Check out these 18 To Kill a Mockingbird Quotes and 9 Great Mark Twain Quotes .

For help analyzing literature and writing essays , read our expert guide on imagery , literary elements , and writing an argumentative essay .

Carrie holds a Bachelors in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College, and is currently pursuing an MFA. She worked in book publishing for several years, and believes that books can open up new worlds. She loves reading, the outdoors, and learning about new things.

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman: “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Review the Feminist criticism section of literary theory in order to identify theoretical vocabulary for analysis and questions to pose of the short story.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.

A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity—but that would be asking too much of fate!

Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.

Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.

John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.

John is a physician, and perhaps —(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)— perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.

You see, he does not believe I am sick!

And what can one do?

If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?

My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing.

So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again.

Personally, I disagree with their ideas.

Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.

But what is one to do?

I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal—having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.

I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.

So I will let it alone and talk about the house.

The most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of English places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people.

There is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden—large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them.

There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now.

There was some legal trouble, I believe, something about the heirs and co-heirs; anyhow, the place has been empty for years.

That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid; but I don’t care—there is something strange about the house—I can feel it.

I even said so to John one moonlight evening, but he said what I felt was a draught , and shut the window.

I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition.

But John says if I feel so I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself,—before him, at least,—and that makes me very tired.

I don’t like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings! but John would not hear of it.

He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another.

He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.

I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more.

He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get. “Your exercise depends on your strength, my dear,” said he, “and your food somewhat on your appetite; but air you can absorb all the time.” So we took the nursery, at the top of the house.

It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playground and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.

The paint and paper look as if a boys’ school had used it. It is stripped off—the paper—in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life.

One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.

It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate, and provoke study, and when you follow the lame, uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide—plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard-of contradictions.

The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering, unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.

It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.

No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long.

There comes John, and I must put this away,—he hates to have me write a word.

We have been here two weeks, and I haven’t felt like writing before, since that first day.

I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack of strength.

John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious.

I am glad my case is not serious!

But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing.

John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.

Of course it is only nervousness. It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way!

I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already!

Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able—to dress and entertain, and order things.

It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby!

And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous.

I suppose John never was nervous in his life. He laughs at me so about this wallpaper!

At first he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies.

He said that after the wallpaper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs, and so on.

“You know the place is doing you good,” he said, “and really, dear, I don’t care to renovate the house just for a three months’ rental.”

“Then do let us go downstairs,” I said, “there are such pretty rooms there.”

Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and said he would go down cellar if I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain.

But he is right enough about the beds and windows and things.

It is as airy and comfortable a room as any one need wish, and, of course, I would not be so silly as to make him uncomfortable just for a whim.

I’m really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper.

Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deep-shaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees.

Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try.

I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me.

But I find I get pretty tired when I try.

It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work. When I get really well John says we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit; but he says he would as soon put fire-works in my pillow-case as to let me have those stimulating people about now.

I wish I could get well faster.

But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!

There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside-down.

I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one place where two breadths didn’t match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other.

I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store.

I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big old bureau used to have, and there was one chair that always seemed like a strong friend.

I used to feel that if any of the other things looked too fierce I could always hop into that chair and be safe.

The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious, however, for we had to bring it all from downstairs. I suppose when this was used as a playroom they had to take the nursery things out, and no wonder! I never saw such ravages as the children have made here.

The wallpaper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and it sticketh closer than a brother—they must have had perseverance as well as hatred.

Then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed, which is all we found in the room, looks as if it had been through the wars.

But I don’t mind it a bit—only the paper.

There comes John’s sister. Such a dear girl as she is, and so careful of me! I must not let her find me writing.

She is a perfect, and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick!

But I can write when she is out, and see her a long way off from these windows.

There is one that commands the road, a lovely, shaded, winding road, and one that just looks off over the country. A lovely country, too, full of great elms and velvet meadows.

This wallpaper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then.

But in the places where it isn’t faded, and where the sun is just so, I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to sulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design.

There’s sister on the stairs!

Well, the Fourth of July is over! The people are gone and I am tired out. John thought it might do me good to see a little company, so we just had mother and Nellie and the children down for a week.

Of course I didn’t do a thing. Jennie sees to everything now.

But it tired me all the same.

John says if I don’t pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall.

But I don’t want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so!

Besides, it is such an undertaking to go so far.

I don’t feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over for anything, and I’m getting dreadfully fretful and querulous.

I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.

Of course I don’t when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone.

And I am alone a good deal just now. John is kept in town very often by serious cases, and Jennie is good and lets me alone when I want her to.

So I walk a little in the garden or down that lovely lane, sit on the porch under the roses, and lie down up here a good deal.

I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper.

It dwells in my mind so!

I lie here on this great immovable bed—it is nailed down, I believe—and follow that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we’ll say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion.

I know a little of the principle of design, and I know this thing was not arranged on any laws of radiation, or alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, or anything else that I ever heard of.

It is repeated, of course, by the breadths, but not otherwise.

Looked at in one way each breadth stands alone, the bloated curves and flourishes—a kind of “debased Romanesque” with delirium tremens —go waddling up and down in isolated columns of fatuity.

But, on the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase.

The whole thing goes horizontally, too, at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction.

They have used a horizontal breadth for a frieze, and that adds wonderfully to the confusion.

There is one end of the room where it is almost intact, and there, when the cross-lights fade and the low sun shines directly upon it, I can almost fancy radiation after all,—the interminable grotesques seem to form around a common centre and rush off in headlong plunges of equal distraction.

It makes me tired to follow it. I will take a nap, I guess.

I don’t know why I should write this.

I don’t want to.

I don’t feel able.

And I know John would think it absurd. But I must say what I feel and think in some way—it is such a relief!

But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief.

Half the time now I am awfully lazy, and lie down ever so much.

John says I musn’t lose my strength, and has me take cod-liver oil and lots of tonics and things, to say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat.

Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia.

But he said I wasn’t able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished.

It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this nervous weakness, I suppose.

And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head.

He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had, and that I must take care of myself for his sake, and keep well.

He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me.

There’s one comfort, the baby is well and happy, and does not have to occupy this nursery with the horrid wallpaper.

If we had not used it that blessed child would have! What a fortunate escape! Why, I wouldn’t have a child of mine, an impressionable little thing, live in such a room for worlds.

I never thought of it before, but it is lucky that John kept me here after all. I can stand it so much easier than a baby, you see.

Of course I never mention it to them any more,—I am too wise,—but I keep watch of it all the same.

There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will.

Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day.

It is always the same shape, only very numerous.

And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit. I wonder—I begin to think—I wish John would take me away from here!

It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so.

But I tried it last night.

It was moonlight. The moon shines in all around, just as the sun does.

I hate to see it sometimes, it creeps so slowly, and always comes in by one window or another.

John was asleep and I hated to waken him, so I kept still and watched the moonlight on that undulating wallpaper till I felt creepy.

The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out.

I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move, and when I came back John was awake.

“What is it, little girl?” he said. “Don’t go walking about like that—you’ll get cold.”

I thought it was a good time to talk, so I told him that I really was not gaining here, and that I wished he would take me away.

“Why darling!” said he, “our lease will be up in three weeks, and I can’t see how to leave before.

“The repairs are not done at home, and I cannot possibly leave town just now. Of course if you were in any danger I could and would, but you really are better, dear, whether you can see it or not. I am a doctor, dear, and I know. You are gaining flesh and color, your appetite is better. I feel really much easier about you.”

“I don’t weigh a bit more,” said I, “nor as much; and my appetite may be better in the evening, when you are here, but it is worse in the morning when you are away.”

“Bless her little heart!” said he with a big hug; “she shall be as sick as she pleases! But now let’s improve the shining hours by going to sleep, and talk about it in the morning!”

“And you won’t go away?” I asked gloomily.

“Why, how can I, dear? It is only three weeks more and then we will take a nice little trip of a few days while Jennie is getting the house ready. Really, dear, you are better!”

“Better in body perhaps”—I began, and stopped short, for he sat up straight and looked at me with such a stern, reproachful look that I could not say another word.

“My darling,” said he, “I beg of you, for my sake and for our child’s sake, as well as for your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind! There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so?”

So of course I said no more on that score, and we went to sleep before long. He thought I was asleep first, but I wasn’t,—I lay there for hours trying to decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or separately.

On a pattern like this, by daylight, there is a lack of sequence, a defiance of law, that is a constant irritant to a normal mind.

The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.

You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well under way in following, it turns a back somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream.

The outside pattern is a florid arabesque, reminding one of a fungus. If you can imagine a toadstool in joints, an interminable string of toadstools, budding and sprouting in endless convolutions,—why, that is something like it.

That is, sometimes!

There is one marked peculiarity about this paper, a thing nobody seems to notice but myself, and that is that it changes as the light changes.

When the sun shoots in through the east window—I always watch for that first long, straight ray—it changes so quickly that I never can quite believe it.

That is why I watch it always.

By moonlight—the moon shines in all night when there is a moon—I wouldn’t know it was the same paper.

At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be.

I didn’t realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind,—that dim sub-pattern,—but now I am quite sure it is a woman.

By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me quiet by the hour.

I lie down ever so much now. John says it is good for me, and to sleep all I can.

Indeed, he started the habit by making me lie down for an hour after each meal.

It is a very bad habit, I am convinced, for, you see, I don’t sleep.

And that cultivates deceit, for I don’t tell them I’m awake,—oh, no!

The fact is, I am getting a little afraid of John.

He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jennie has an inexplicable look.

It strikes me occasionally, just as a scientific hypothesis, that perhaps it is the paper!

I have watched John when he did not know I was looking, and come into the room suddenly on the most innocent excuses, and I’ve caught him several times looking at the paper! And Jennie too. I caught Jennie with her hand on it once.

She didn’t know I was in the room, and when I asked her in a quiet, a very quiet voice, with the most restrained manner possible, what she was doing with the paper she turned around as if she had been caught stealing, and looked quite angry—asked me why I should frighten her so!

Then she said that the paper stained everything it touched, that she had found yellow smooches on all my clothes and John’s, and she wished we would be more careful!

Did not that sound innocent? But I know she was studying that pattern, and I am determined that nobody shall find it out but myself!

Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch. I really do eat better, and am more quiet than I was.

John is so pleased to see me improve! He laughed a little the other day, and said I seemed to be flourishing in spite of my wallpaper.

I turned it off with a laugh. I had no intention of telling him it was because of the wallpaper—he would make fun of me. He might even want to take me away.

I don’t want to leave now until I have found it out. There is a week more, and I think that will be enough.

I’m feeling ever so much better! I don’t sleep much at night, for it is so interesting to watch developments; but I sleep a good deal in the daytime.

In the daytime it is tiresome and perplexing.

There are always new shoots on the fungus, and new shades of yellow all over it. I cannot keep count of them, though I have tried conscientiously.

It is the strangest yellow, that wallpaper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw—not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things.

But there is something else about that paper—the smell! I noticed it the moment we came into the room, but with so much air and sun it was not bad. Now we have had a week of fog and rain, and whether the windows are open or not, the smell is here.

It creeps all over the house.

I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.

It gets into my hair.

Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and surprise it—there is that smell!

Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours in trying to analyze it, to find what it smelled like.

It is not bad—at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met.

In this damp weather it is awful. I wake up in the night and find it hanging over me.

It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of burning the house—to reach the smell.

But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell.

There is a very funny mark on this wall, low down, near the mopboard. A streak that runs round the room. It goes behind every piece of furniture, except the bed, a long, straight, even smooch , as if it had been rubbed over and over.

I wonder how it was done and who did it, and what they did it for. Round and round and round—round and round and round—it makes me dizzy!

I really have discovered something at last.

Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out.

The front pattern does move—and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!

Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over.

Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard.

And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern—it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads.

They get through, and then the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside-down, and makes their eyes white!

If those heads were covered or taken off it would not be half so bad.

I think that woman gets out in the daytime!

And I’ll tell you why—privately—I’ve seen her!

I can see her out of every one of my windows!

It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight.

I see her on that long shaded lane, creeping up and down. I see her in those dark grape arbors, creeping all around the garden.

I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines.

I don’t blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight!

I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. I can’t do it at night, for I know John would suspect something at once.

And John is so queer now, that I don’t want to irritate him. I wish he would take another room! Besides, I don’t want anybody to get that woman out at night but myself.

I often wonder if I could see her out of all the windows at once.

But, turn as fast as I can, I can only see out of one at one time.

And though I always see her she may be able to creep faster than I can turn!

I have watched her sometimes away off in the open country, creeping as fast as a cloud shadow in a high wind.

If only that top pattern could be gotten off from the under one! I mean to try it, little by little.

I have found out another funny thing, but I shan’t tell it this time! It does not do to trust people too much.

There are only two more days to get this paper off, and I believe John is beginning to notice. I don’t like the look in his eyes.

And I heard him ask Jennie a lot of professional questions about me. She had a very good report to give.

She said I slept a good deal in the daytime.

John knows I don’t sleep very well at night, for all I’m so quiet!

He asked me all sorts of questions, too, and pretended to be very loving and kind.

As if I couldn’t see through him!

Still, I don’t wonder he acts so, sleeping under this paper for three months.

It only interests me, but I feel sure John and Jennie are secretly affected by it.

Hurrah! This is the last day, but it is enough. John is to stay in town over night, and won’t be out until this evening.

Jennie wanted to sleep with me—the sly thing! but I told her I should undoubtedly rest better for a night all alone.

That was clever, for really I wasn’t alone a bit! As soon as it was moonlight, and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her.

I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.

A strip about as high as my head and half around the room.

And then when the sun came and that awful pattern began to laugh at me I declared I would finish it to-day!

We go away to-morrow, and they are moving all my furniture down again to leave things as they were before.

Jennie looked at the wall in amazement, but I told her merrily that I did it out of pure spite at the vicious thing.

She laughed and said she wouldn’t mind doing it herself, but I must not get tired.

How she betrayed herself that time!

But I am here, and no person touches this paper but me—not alive!

She tried to get me out of the room—it was too patent! But I said it was so quiet and empty and clean now that I believed I would lie down again and sleep all I could; and not to wake me even for dinner—I would call when I woke.

So now she is gone, and the servants are gone, and the things are gone, and there is nothing left but that great bedstead nailed down, with the canvas mattress we found on it.

We shall sleep downstairs to-night, and take the boat home to-morrow.

I quite enjoy the room, now it is bare again.

How those children did tear about here!

This bedstead is fairly gnawed!

But I must get to work.

I have locked the door and thrown the key down into the front path.

I don’t want to go out, and I don’t want to have anybody come in, till John comes.

I want to astonish him.

I’ve got a rope up here that even Jennie did not find. If that woman does get out, and tries to get away, I can tie her!

But I forgot I could not reach far without anything to stand on!

This bed will not move!

I tried to lift and push it until I was lame, and then I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner—but it hurt my teeth.

Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it! All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision!

I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try.

Besides I wouldn’t do it. Of course not. I know well enough that a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued.

I don’t like to look out of the windows even—there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast.

I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did?

But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope—you don’t get me out in the road there!

I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard!

It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please!

I don’t want to go outside. I won’t, even if Jennie asks me to.

For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow.

But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way.

Why, there’s John at the door!

It is no use, young man, you can’t open it!

How he does call and pound!

Now he’s crying for an axe.

It would be a shame to break down that beautiful door!

“John dear!” said I in the gentlest voice, “the key is down by the front steps, under a plantain leaf!”

That silenced him for a few moments.

Then he said—very quietly indeed, “Open the door, my darling!”

“I can’t,” said I. “The key is down by the front door under a plantain leaf!”

And then I said it again, several times, very gently and slowly, and said it so often that he had to go and see, and he got it, of course, and came in. He stopped short by the door.

“What is the matter?” he cried. “For God’s sake, what are you doing!”

I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder.

“I’ve got out at last,” said I, “in spite of you and Jane! And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!”

Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!

Perkins Gillman, Charlotte. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” 1892. The Project Gutenberg EBook, 1999. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1952/pg1952-images.html

This work ( Charlotte Perkins Gilman: “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Rachael Benavidez and Kimberley Garcia) is free of known copyright restrictions.

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The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte perkins gilman, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

The Yellow Wallpaper: Introduction

The yellow wallpaper: plot summary, the yellow wallpaper: detailed summary & analysis, the yellow wallpaper: themes, the yellow wallpaper: quotes, the yellow wallpaper: characters, the yellow wallpaper: symbols, the yellow wallpaper: literary devices, the yellow wallpaper: quizzes, the yellow wallpaper: theme wheel, brief biography of charlotte perkins gilman.

Historical Context of The Yellow Wallpaper

Other books related to the yellow wallpaper.

Full Title: The Yellow Wallpaper
When Written: June, 1890
Where Written: California
When Published: May, 1892
Literary Period: Gothic
Genre: Short story; Gothic horror; Feminist literature
Setting: Late nineteenth century, in a colonial mansion that has been rented for the summer. Most of the story’s action takes place in a room at the top of the house that is referred to as the “nursery.”
Climax: The narrator suffers a complete mental breakdown, identifying herself with the woman she has hallucinated as being trapped in the yellow wallpaper and clawing at the walls as she creeps in endless circles about the room and over her fainted husband.
Antagonist: John, the narrator’s husband and doctor, could be considered an antagonist, although he is not a purely evil character.
Point of View: First person narrator, in a series of diary entries.

Extra Credit for The Yellow Wallpaper

Self-funded. To finance her education at the Rhode Island School of Design, Charlotte Perkins Gilman painted advertisements (trade cards) for soap companies.

Utopian lit. In addition to critiques like The Yellow Wallpaper , Gilman wrote utopian fiction through which she imagined a world in which social conditions reflected equality for women.

The Yellow Wallpaper: Summary and Analysis

July 16, 2023

Reading this “The Yellow Wallpaper” summary and analysis will help students gain a solid understanding of a canonical short story. In this article, we’ll analyze the historical and biographical relevance, characters, symbols, themes, and more. We’ll also consider the story from several critical lenses. By the end, readers will be peeling back layers of meaning as if stripping away sheets of wallpaper to reveal multiple, even paradoxical interpretations.

But first, if you haven’t already done so, read “The Yellow Wallpaper.” It’s just over 6,000 words and can be read in one afternoon. Once you’re finished, step back into 19th-century New England for a little historical context.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” Summary: The Author

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, born in Connecticut a year before the Civil War, had an unusual upbringing. Her father abandoned her family in her infancy, and her mother relied on the help of her husband’s sisters. These women made a pretty incredible lineup. They included suffragist Isabella Beecher Hooker, author Harriet Beecher Stowe, and educationalist Catharine Beecher. Gilman’s impressive aunts influenced her understanding of what a woman could accomplish. Her mother, on the other hand, forbade reading fiction. Despite receiving only four years of formal schooling, Gilman enrolled in classes at the Rhode Island School of Design. In this era, most women didn’t attend college at all, and settled instead for marriage.

Around this time, Gilman met Martha Luther, and the two became extremely close. Their friendship evolved into a romance, one constrained by society’s codes and anti-gay laws. Yet she married Charles Walter Stetson at 24. A year later, she suffered postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter. As this depression deepened, her doctor, Silas Weir Mitchell, prescribed a “rest cure.” The treatment involved long, frequent naps, a focus on childcare, and a particular caveat: Charlotte should “never touch pen, brush or pencil” for as long as she lived. For someone passionate about poetry, this rest cure was a death sentence.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” Summary (Continued)

Luckily for Gilman, her depression subsided after she and Stetson divorced—another unusual choice for a woman at this time. We find echoes of these autobiographical events in her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” New England Magazine published Gilman’s story in 1892. While Gilman went on to publish books of poetry and give lectures on topics including suffrage and social reform, “The Yellow Wallpaper” remains her chef d’oeuvre, and has been anthologized in various collections.

Progressive or Problematic Feminist?

Unfortunately, we can’t revisit Gilman without acknowledging her unsavory beliefs. Yes, she championed social reform, and yes, she was related to Harriet Beecher Stowe, the abolitionist author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin . Yet Gilman’s views on race appear convoluted and misguided at best. A deeper look into her writing reveals blatant racism. Though not a supporter of slavery, Gilman adopted a eugenicist stance, claiming that Anglo-Saxons belonged to a purer class of people. These dangerous and abhorrent views complicate the history of women’s rights in America—a movement that owes much of its success to black suffragists .

Though we may study Gilman’s work through a feminist lens, we certainly should not mistake her for a hero. She’s a complex figure, a champion of women’s rights, and an ignorant member of the white elite, blinded by privilege. In fact, the paradoxes in her biography point to a bigger entanglement of class, power, gender, and race in America. Thus, we shouldn’t ignore her problematic views when reading her work. Rather, we ought to incorporate and critique them as part of our analysis of “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

“The Yellow Wallpaper” Characters

A slim cast of characters appears in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” We first encounter the narrator, an unnamed woman, and her husband John, a physician. They appear as “people like John and myself.” This immediate coupling of the two main characters creates a false sense of companionship. Yet as the story progresses, the reader will notice a strange dichotomy. John’s opinions on his wife’s health, and his power to impose his opinions, are at odds with her real mental and physical needs.

The narrator could be called “unreliable.” As her mental health deteriorates, the reader becomes less capable of differentiating between what the narrator sees and reality. This distorted point of view allows for an interesting ambiguity and multiple interpretations. For example, among our list of characters we must consider those that don’t exist. The narrator writes, “I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths,” though John claims they don’t exist.

Jennie, John’s sister, lingers at the story’s periphery, taking care of household chores and the baby. This baby remains offstage, for the narrator feels too nervous to care for him. (“Jennie” is a nickname for “Jane,” which also appears in the story.) Other offstage characters include Gilman’s real-life physician, Weir Mitchell, and a brother, also a physician. While their roles seem minimal, these authority figures work to further dissolve the narrator’s credibility. We also hear of cousins Henry and Julia, whom the narrator isn’t allowed to visit. She does briefly see her mother and Nellie (perhaps a sister), and Nellie’s children. Lastly, the narrator mentions someone named “Mary,” who may be a servant. (From a critical race lens, we might ask if Mary is black. This would explain why her presence appears inconsequential to a white, upper-class narrator.)

“The Yellow Wallpaper” Summary

Much of what occurs in “The Yellow Wallpaper” takes place in the narrator’s mind. The story begins with the narrator’s first secret journal entry. She describes a summer house they’ve rented, which she finds “queer,” and “haunted.” John dismisses these impressions. He prefers rational ideas. He forbids the narrator from daydreaming, as well as writing, or performing any stimulating work. In fact, because of her condition, which John calls a “temporary nervous depression,” the narrator cannot have “society and stimulus.” Rather than pick a pretty room, she must sleep in an eerie nursery covered in garish strips of yellow wallpaper.

The stifling atmosphere of “The Yellow Wallpaper” only worsens. Work takes John away most days. The narrator’s strength has weakened, so she cannot write in her journal for two weeks, nor care for her baby. Describing the room in greater detail, we learn that the floor is “scratched and gouged and splintered.” The wallpaper’s pattern appears to crawl with “absurd, unblinking eyes.” Occasionally, the narrator spots “a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure” there.

Next, Jennie takes on more housekeeping responsibilities. The narrator writes infrequently, recounting her exhaustion, despite enforced naps. John refuses to leave early, though his wife feels worse and cries all the time. Nevertheless, John insists she’s improving. She investigates the figure in the wallpaper and determines she’s a woman. This woman crawls about and shakes the bars that form a pattern on the wallpaper. Determined to discover the wallpaper’s secret, the narrator waits until John is out. Then she locks herself in the nursery and strips off large swaths of paper. When John finds her, she’s creeping about the room, just like the women who creep in the paper and along the hedges. John faints—and the narrator continues to creep right over his prone body!

“The Yellow Wallpaper” Summary: Symbols

The wallpaper serves as the story’s title and primary symbol. The wallpaper becomes the narrator’s obsession, and thus reflects and represents her mental instability. Yet this symbol has layers. Not only does it represent an impenetrable wall where rational thought ends and madness begins. It also offers up a surface on which the narrator can project her own fantasies. In this way, the yellow wallpaper becomes a multi-layered symbol of creative freedom, repression of that freedom, and the madness that ensues.

Within the wallpaper, the narrator finds various images. These images, too, serve as symbols. For example, we might interpret the eyes in the pattern as a sort of watchfulness. They could represent the gaze of society, keeping an eye on the narrator. Reversely, we could interpret these eyes as belonging to the woman, or women, trapped below the paper. In this sense, their eyes reflect an inability to speak. They can look, but they cannot express their imprisonment. Likewise, the bars in the wallpaper point to the repression of women. The narrator describes these bars as an outside pattern, which a woman beneath shakes to no avail.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” Summary: Irony

Besides symbolism, “The Yellow Wallpaper” employs an array of literary devices. Irony pervades the entire story and allows for double interpretations. For example, the narrator writes, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.” The reader can read this at face value. In this case, the narrator suggests that marriage simply involves harmless laughter. Read ironically, the reader will see that the narrator is stating that a wife is not expected to be taken seriously. Irony reveals that John patronizes his wife (or “little girl”). He “cares” for her through a combination of absence and prohibition, denying her any liberty. He contradicts himself, telling his wife she’s fine one moment, then convincing her she’s sick when it suits him.

The nursery room carries an allusion to a very different sort of room. The more the narrator describes this room, the more it sounds like it may have been used to restrain someone. (The bed is nailed to the floor.) Here Gilman invites her readers to recollect Charlotte Brontë’s famous madwoman in the attic, the character Bertha from Jane Eyre . Readers who make this connection may wonder if John insisted on keeping his wife here for the same reason Mr. Rochester hid Bertha. Through allusion, the nursery takes on an even more sinister appearance.

The couple’s baby acts as another allusion, this time to postpartum depression, which Gilman herself suffered from. Doctors at the turn of the century understood very little about postpartum depression. They dismissed it as hysteria, a catch-all phrase to explain away female ailments.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” Summary: Foreshadowing

*Trigger warning: this subsection discusses mental health in relation to suicide, and may be distressing to readers.

Foreshadowing appears in the story as well. When describing the wallpaper, the narrator talks of curving lines that “suddenly commit suicide—plunge off at outrageous angles…” Later, she describes “a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside-down.” A third reference to suicide appears when the narrator states that “to jump out of the window would be admirable exercise.”

Yet Gilman’s narrator remains alive at the end of the story. These planted hints of coming death have a different end goal. They ask the reader to take women, and women’s artistic endeavors, seriously. Gilman herself spoke of suicide during her “rest cure,” when she wasn’t allowed to produce art. The sculptor Camille Claudel and, decades later, writer Virginia Woolf both attempted suicide by jumping from a window. Through this foreshadowing, “The Yellow Wallpaper” warns against a greater societal tragedy taking place across the centuries.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” Analysis: Theme 1

Taken together, these literary devices allow readers to better understand several underlying themes. The first involves the suffering and subordination of women in society. This larger social commentary becomes particularly evident when the narrator begins to see “a great many women” behind the bars of the wallpaper. Through a critical feminist perspective, we might say that the narrator seems to intuit the past repression of other women just like her. She senses that she’s part of a larger, systemic problem. Other details in the story point to this system. Jennie, presumably well-educated and belonging to the upper class, has no prospects other than serving her brother as a housekeeper.

The second theme involves the danger of rest cures. While “resting” sounds innocuous enough, being forced to do nothing can turn into torture. In fact, this lifestyle resembles prison life—no wonder the wallpaper appears to have bars. In the late 19th century, rest cures were prescribed to women who suffered real ailments, including depression. These rest cures backfired, enhancing symptoms of depression. They corralled women into a position of uselessness, just like the narrator state in this story. Deprived of friends, work, hobbies, and exercise, and unable to speak of this deprivation, women were reduced to the role of mother, or worse: a birthing instrument.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” Analysis: Theme 3

The third theme involves creative power as emancipation. While writing wearies the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” it also offers her rare moments of autonomy and agency. The narrator states, “I must say what I feel and think in some way—it is such a relief!” In Gilman’s time, society and medicine reinforced the theory that education would overstimulate women’s brains and lead to hysteria. Today we know that women’s and men’s brains function the same way. Women are equally capable of creative output. In fact, studies show that creative outlets allow people to heal faster. Gilman and many others knew of the benefits of working. In fact, many men in her time did too. Yet those who wished to uphold a strictly patriarchal system forbid women from expressing their opinions. They feared that these opinions would undermine men’s superior positions.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” Analysis and Conclusions

As we’ve seen from “The Yellow Wallpaper” summary, this short story must be read at multiple levels. Various perspectives, from a biographical standpoint to a feminist lens to a critical race lens allow readers to peel back layers of meaning. So what can we make of the ending?

The story ends with the narrator believing she herself has emerged from the wallpaper. Most analyses commonly state that this ending depicts her descent into a full-fledged psychosis. And yet, readers may also come to an inverse conclusion. If the women behind the wallpaper’s bars represent female suppression, we can interpret the narrator’s final act as one of defiance and emancipation.

Rather than throw herself out the window, as a tragic female heroine might, the narrator disobeys her oppressive husband and locks the door. Just as divorce allowed Gilman to overcome her depression, Gilman’s narrator breaks the bonds of her condition by defying her husband. In doing so, she gains autonomy. Merging with the woman in the wallpaper, she frees the woman trapped behind it. In this interpretation, we can conclude that by harnessing her imagination, the narrator finally sets herself free.

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The Yellow Wallpaper - Essay Samples And Topic Ideas For Free

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a seminal piece of feminist literature, explores themes of mental illness, patriarchal oppression, and female autonomy. Essays could delve into the narrative structure, the symbolism of the wallpaper, and the psychological descent of the protagonist. They might also discuss the historical context of women’s mental health during the late 19th century, and how Gilman’s personal experiences influenced her work. Discussions could extend to the story’s influence on feminist literary criticism, its relevance in contemporary discussions on mental health and gender, and how “The Yellow Wallpaper” resonates with or challenges modern readers in understanding the historical and ongoing struggles for women’s autonomy and well-being. We’ve gathered an extensive assortment of free essay samples on the topic of The Yellow Wallpaper you can find at PapersOwl Website. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

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The Yellow Wallpaper Thesis

Table Of Contents

Introduction : How the author’s own experience influences the story
The setting of the story’s opening
How the protagonist becomes trapped and bored
Gilman’s intention why she wrote the story
Gilman’s childhood experience with her mother
Similarity of the author’s and the protagonist’s family situation
Role of the narrator’s husband and his sister in her life
Weir Mitchell’s recommendations concerning the “rest cure”
Details and symbolism of the narrator’s “prison”
The story’s impact on real life
Conclusion : How the book had the effect the author intended
Works cited

Thesis Statement for The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper Thesis Statement: In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the plot is written in first person. The unnamed narrator , through her depression and illness feels trapped in her life being locked in a room with this yellow wallpaper. After tearing off the wallpaper and seeing the woman behind the design escape she too has the epiphany that she is also free. I. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s depression and treatment influenced her writing. A. Charlotte Gilman endured a rough childhood. B. Her married life and her child have influenced her writing. C.

She suffered from severe post-partum depression after the birth of her daughter. . The narrator and protagonist of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” reveals parts of her own life in this story. A. She suffers from a mental illness, and she beings to turn mad. B. Gilman expressed her illness but the husband dismissed what she was saying. I. The narrator and her husband move into a country house for the summer. A. The narrator discusses her husband John and how he is the reason that she has not gotten better. B. The narrator, Jane, discusses her husband John and her sister in law Jennie and what they do for her. IV.

John believes that the best way to cure his wife is with bed rest, for which he keeps her locked up in the room. A. We learn more about the “rest cure,” and explain how it was used in Gilman’s life as well as in “The Yellow Wallpaper. ” B. Since the woman in the story is on bed rest, she is bored often so she becomes obsessed with the wall paper. V. There are many symbols in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” but the most important seems to be the yellow wallpaper itself. A. Critics perceive the symbols in the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper. ” B. The narrator believes there is a woman trapped behind the wallpaper. VI.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper,” in hopes of, “saving people from being driven crazy,” (Rena Korb/Short Stories for Students). A. What was the point in “The Yellow Wallpaper” being written? B. An explanation on the criticism written about “The Yellow Wallpaper. ” V. Conclusion The life of Charlotte Perkins Gilman significantly influenced her writing. The trials she had to overcome during her life made her the author that she was. Growing up, Gilman endured a difficult childhood. While

Gilman was still an infant her father, Frederic Beecher Perkins, abandoned his wife and children.

Throughout Gilman’s life her mother suffered from an illness. Gilman was left to do things most children would never have to do on their own, like teach herself to read. Gilman’s mother showed no affection to her children, because she didn’t want to hurt them like her husband had done to her. Gilman lived a life like the unnamed narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper”; a life of isolation and loneliness. Gilman was married in 1884 and had one child, a daughter. Many months after the birth of her daughter, Gilman suffered from post-partum depression.

In that time it was thought to be a mental illness. Gilman would tell her husband that she was sick and he would just dismiss everything she said. After only four years of marriage they separated which was very uncommon; in 1894 they divorced. Gilman moved to California where she started writing stories and sent her daughter to live with her father. After moving to Pasadena, California, she started taking part in social reform movements; which is the reason why “The Yellow Wallpaper,” has so much to do with social reform in the nineteenth century. The story is comprised of ten diary-like entries and written in the first person, thus giving the impression that the narrator is writing her own story in which she is also the protagonist” (Feminism in Literature). As the reader of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” we can also see many aspects of Gilman’s life in the life of the unnamed narrator. The first sign we see of similarity is the way she treats her child. In Gilman’s life she neglected her daughter just like the unnamed narrator neglected her son. We barely even hear of her son in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” so it shows just how unimportant the baby was to her.

Also, the illness that Gilman suffered is nearly identical to the narrator’s illness; the only difference is the level of madness the narrator reaches. At the narrator’s worst stage she was almost animal-like, with the way she was crawling around the room on all fours. “The act of creeping is also a culminating illustration of the protagonist’s disaffection with her husband” (Feldstein). “Her husband, the force that keeps her in the home, has become an inanimate object, one that only gets in the way of her ‘path by the wall, so that [she] had to creep over him’” (Short Stories for Students).

As the narrator is driven further into madness, she becomes obsessed with the wallpaper. Another similarity is the likeness of character in the husbands. The narrator expresses to her husband that she is sick and all he does is dismiss what she says. The narrator is then forced to comply with her husband and go back up to the bedroom where she is cut off from everything; any kind of companionship is gone and she is not allowed to be a wife or a mother. Gilman’s husband was also dismissive of her complaints. The unnamed narrator is married

to John who is a physician.

He believes that the “rest cure” is the best way to fix the illness that the narrator is suffering from. The narrator is treated like a child throughout the entire story by her husband, John. She is isolated; not allowed to feed herself or even bathe herself. The narrator believes that the fact that her husband is a physician is the main reason why she hasn’t gotten better, she writes in her journal, “…perhaps – (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) – perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster” (Gilman).

Then there is Jennie who sees the narrator slowly deteriorate. Jennie is John’s sister and stays at the house to help watch the narrator while John is away at work. She has pretty much taken over the mother role for the newborn baby, because the narrator is not allowed to take care of her child. The narrator sees Jennie as a great housekeeper. The “rest cure” is designed to remove women who are depressed, from stress and all daily activities in her life. “…women such as Jane were separated from their children, kept in bed, hand-fed, bathed, and massaged” (Barth).

Charlotte Gilman was sent to see Weir Mitchell, the physician, who had invented the “rest cure”. She was locked up in a mental institution; after one month of being there she was said to be cured. Mitchell gave Gilman the instructions, “Live as domestic a life as possible… Have two hours’ intellectual life a day. And never touch pen, brush or pencil as long as you live” (Stories for Students). Being on bed rest one can imagine how boring it would become and that is exactly when the narrator started to become obsessed with the wallpaper.

She would sit there and look at it day in and day out. Throughout the story all she can talk about is how disgusting the wallpaper is; it’s the only thing on her mind. She talks about this figure that she can see just in the perfect light, she says it looks like a woman. Being locked up in the bedroom she starts hallucinating and since she has little human contact, her mental state diminishes rapidly. There are not many symbols in “The Yellow Wallpaper;” although the ones that are used are of great importance.

The wallpaper itself specifically represents the narrator’s state of mind and generally symbolizes how society viewed women in the nineteenth-century. Other symbols would be: all the little details of the nursery; the barred windows and the nailed-down bed. “The nursery is said to represent nineteenth-century society’s tendency to view women as children, while the barred windows symbolize the emotional, social, and intellectual prison in which women of the era were kept. Finally, the bed is said by some critics to represent repressed female sexuality” (Stories for Students).

The reason for writing “The Yellow Wallpaper,” stems from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s personal history with what was classified as mental illness in

the times that she lived. Post-partum depression is a legitimate diagnosis in the twenty-first century, unlike in the nineteenth century. It is treated today with medication and talk therapy but in prior centuries it was considered “hysteria. ” The physician, S. Weir Mitchell, treated Gilman with what he considered the proper healing method. Gilman needed to show that S. Weir Mitchell’s methods were wrong for her type of condition.

Overall, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” “was written as a critique of the medical treatment prescribed to women suffering from a condition then known as ‘neurasthenia’” (Short Story Criticism). In fact, “Many years later I was told that the great specialist had admitted to friends of his that he had altered his treatment of neurasthenia since reading ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’” (Feminism in Literature). The story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” seems to have been a story written before society could accept it. It didn’t receive any critical acclaim until the 1920’s. In fact, no one seemed to take it seriously at all before that time.

It seemed to just be a story written by a self-serving feminist, rather than a true account of a woman’s suffering. In the more progressive time, the 1920’s women’s suffrage was at an all time high and Gilman’s work spoke to all women. In several sources they compared her literary style to Edgar Allen Poe. Her use of description and illustration seemed “Poe-esque. ” Once Gilman’s story was taken seriously it became a frightening commentary on misuse of power, the power both of the medical community and the “patriarchal” society in which she lived.

In conclusion, “critics illuminate the sociocultural, psychological, and linguistic dimensions of Gilman’s literary pierce as well as explore its place within literary tradition” (Feminism in Literature). And in the words of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “It has to my knowledge saved one woman from a similar fate – so terrifying her family that they let her go out into normal activity and she recovered. ” What Charlotte Perkins Gilman set out to do by writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” is exactly what she accomplished. Works Cited Page Barth, Melissa E. “The Yellow Wallpaper. Masterplots: Short Story Series, Revised Edition Salem Press, 2004. Pg 1-2. Print. Feldstein, Richard. “Reader, Text, and Ambiguous Referentiality in ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper. ’. ” The Captive Imagination: A Casebook on “The Yellow Wallpaper. ” Ed. Catherine Golden. New York. Feminist Press, 1992. Pg. 307-318. Rpt in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 201. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 Apr. 2013 “Gilman, Charlotte Perkins: Title Commentary. ” Feminism in Literature: A Gale Critical Companion. Ed. Jessica Bomarito and Jeffrey W.

Hunter. Vol. 5: Detroit: Gale, 2005. Pg. 507-528. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 23 Apr. 2013. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper. ” Perrine’s Story and Structure: An Introduction to Fiction. Eds. Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson. 13th Ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2012. Pgs. 279-293. Print. “The Yellow Wallpaper. ” Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1997. Pg. 279-292. Print. “The Yellow Wallpaper. ” Short Story Criticisms. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 62. Detroit: Gale. 2003. Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 Apr. 2013.

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The Yellow Wallpaper Essay Topics & Samples

At some point in your studying, you might be asked to produce “The Yellow Wallpaper” analysis essay. Well, if you’re reading this, you have already received this task! Let’s start by choosing a suitable topic to write about.

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This article by Custom-Writing.org experts contains “The Yellow Wallpaper” essay topics, “The Yellow Wallpaper” essay prompts, and writing samples. Go on reading if you want to learn more!

🌟 How to Choose
💡 Essay Topics
🎓 Thesis Ideas
📝 Essay Prompts
❓ Top 12 Questions
🔍 Research Paper Topics
✒️ Essay Samples

🌟 The Yellow Wallpaper Essay Topics: How to Choose

First of all, you need to think about the topic of your paper. One way to choose a writing idea is to consider the main facts about “The Yellow Wallpaper”:

The story was written at the end of the 19th century about mental disorder treatment of that time.
It is considered one of the strongest and most prominent pieces of feminist literature .

These facts might be your first clue for choosing an essay topic. Try to look at the issues of mental health and gender stereotypes from your perspective.

In case you don’t particularly fancy the theme of feminism in “The Yellow Wallpaper” , there are many other options to choose from. Here are two tips that will help you pick an essay topic:

Try highlighting the moments that stand out for you in the story. Then, expand on them in your paper.
Write down any questions you might have during the reading to use them later.

However, if you don’t want to spend too much time on it, jump straight away to our list of topics for “The Yellow Wallpaper” essays.

Just in 1 hour! We will write you a plagiarism-free paper in hardly more than 1 hour

💡 The Yellow Wallpaper Essay Topics

The meaning of the story’s title.
“The Yellow Wallpaper”   as a horror story.
Representation of madness in the story.
The significance of the unnamed narrator.
Color symbolism in Gilman’s story.
Explain why the story’s ending is optimistic.
Study the use of Gothic elements in the narrative.
Why ”The Yellow Wallpaper” is still relevant today.
The meaning of “creeping” in “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
Comparison of A Rose for Emily and “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
John as Dr. Mitchel’s double in ”The Yellow Wallpaper”.
The symbolism of a fixed bed in Gilman’s story.
Marriage in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and The Story of an Hour .
Infantilization of the story’s protagonist by her husband.
Describe the role of nature in ”The Yellow Wallpaper”.
How a 19 th -century woman’s yearnings are presented by Gilman.
Examine the trope of the haunted house in ”The Yellow Wallpaper”.
Writing as a process of self-assertion in “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
How Gilman’s story influenced mental health treatment of women.
The perils of marriage and motherhood in “The Yellow Wallpaper”.

📝 The Yellow Wallpaper Essay Prompts

Study the issue of the gender roles in the story and compare it to modern norms. “The Yellow Wallpaper” highlights the problem of the suppression of women. Your essay on this topic may include some comments on family life as well. Since this topic is quite popular, we also suggest presenting your unique interpretation of this question.
The Yellow Wallpaper’s conclusion: different versions. How do you understand the ending of the story? Why, in your opinion, did the author cut it at that specific moment? Brainstorm these questions and try to figure out what would be the best interpretation. Don’t forget to support your opinion with fair arguments.
What is the relationship between the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and her diary? The main character seems to get some relief from journaling her thoughts and daily life events. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help prevent the total crash of her identity at the end of the story. You can write “The Yellow Wallpaper” character analysis essay about it.
Draw a parallel between the description of the wallpaper and the mental health of the narrator. We can notice the change in the writing as the mental illness of the narrator progresses. Look into one particular aspect there: the description of the wallpaper. How does the pattern change in foreshadowing future breakdown?
Compare “The Yellow Wallpaper” to another feminist piece of writing of the same time frame Here it would be perfect if you found some unique elements that Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses in her story. Don’t forget that the focus of this essay should be on the theme of feminism . For better outcomes, add a quotation as a hook at the beginning of your essay.
“ The Yellow Wallpaper” and marriage : is it the fault of the husband? Most people prefer to blame the husband in this story. Indeed, in the 19th century, women didn’t have much choice. However, we can see that the narrator has the power to resist the control of her husband. She doesn’t understand that she can do it.
The role of personification as a tool used by Charlotte Perkins Gilman . It’s a great topic for a literary analysis essay on “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Go through the story’s plot again and find out why personification is used at some moments. How does it affect the writing’s mood, and doesn’t Gilman use some other devices there?
Stigmatizing postpartum depression in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. This issue is related to feminism. Most women’s psychological problems are neglected as only being “in the head.” Miserable were those suffering postpartum depression, as one can see from the treatment plan chosen by John in the story.
Explore different literary devices that are used to highlight the issue of depression in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Analyze what the narrator writes about her state and find the literary devices that Gilman uses to relate to it. For instance, repetition points out the confusion on the one hand and hopelessness on the other.
Can we trust the narrator? The point of view in “The Yellow Wallpaper” plays an important role. The reader can only perceive the events through the narrator’s eyes. However, it means that some things can be not that obvious. Try to analyze the hints and symbolism to find out the missing part of the story.

❓ Top 12 The Yellow Wallpaper Essay Questions

What is the role of creativity in the protagonist’s journey?
What imagery helps to convey the main character’s isolation?
Why does the woman in the wallpaper go in circles?
How does the protagonist’s mental state change throughout the story?
How does the main character’s confinement contribute to her mental decline?
In what ways does Jennie represent a patriarchal woman in ”The Yellow Wallpaper”?
Why does the main character hide her diary from others?
How does “The Yellow Wallpaper” portray the 19 th century’s cult of true womanhood?
Why is S. Weir Mitchel’s real name mentioned in the story?
How does the story challenge traditional notions of femininity and domesticity?
How does the setting of the nursery convey the protagonist’s sense of loss and longing?
How does the protagonist’s journey in ”The Yellow Wallpaper” reflect the broader feminist movement of the time?

🔍 Top 15 The Yellow Wallpaper Research Paper Topics

Analyze the story through the prism of male gaze.
The juxtaposition of logical men vs. irrational women in the story.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” and Freud’s misconceptions about hysteria.
How Gilman’s story relates to Cixous’ ideas about écriture feminine.
Foucault’s Panopticon Effect as portrayed in “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
Analysis of Gilman’s story through the lens of Simone de Beauvoir.
“The Yellow Wallpaper”: comparison to The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan.
The wallpaper pattern as the bars of a prison constructed by society.
Analyze the binary opposition presented in the story through the prism of Jacques Lacan’s ideas of the Imaginary and the Symbolic orders.
Interpret the rhizomatic identity of the main character in “The Yellow Wallpaper” via Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of schizoanalysis.
How does madness liberate the main character from patriarchal concepts of femininity?
Daylight universe of masculinity vs. the nighttime world of imagination in “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
How “The Yellow Wallpaper” had predicted the problem of “the trapped housewife” in America.
Internalized and shared patriarchal values in women characters from “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
How the wallpaper in the story represents the main character’s subconscious.

🎓 The Yellow Wallpaper Thesis Ideas

Spiritual liberation through the awakening of female consciousness in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
Dystopian elements in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
“The Yellow Wallpaper” through the lens of horror: How terror and subversion are used in the narration.
The color yellow in relation to psychology through the lens of Gilman’s story.
Comparative study of female agency in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Plath’s “The Bell Jar.”
Psychoanalytic perspectives on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
How Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” reflects the theme of a female body.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” as a biography: The parallels between the protagonist’s experiences and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s struggles with mental health.
The rebellion against social norms in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story.
The analysis of John’s character and his role as husband in “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
Unreliable narration in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and its effect on the reader’s perception.
How Gilman uses language, storytelling, and images to portray madness.
The suppression of creativity and artistic expression in the face of social expectations in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
Myths and archetypes: Gilman’s story through the lens of Carl Jung’s theory.
The ending of Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a reflection on late 19th-century women’s mental health treatment and its implications on gendered dynamics.

✒️ The Yellow Wallpaper: Essay Samples

Below you’ll find a collection of The Yellow Wallpaper essay examples. Hope you’ll find them useful!

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Key Themes
Alger’s “Ragged Dick” and Gilman’s “Yellow Wallpaper”
“The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Laugh of the Medusa”
Social Values and Norms in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”
American Women in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Symbolism in “The Yellow Wallpaper”
The Story of an Hour and The Yellow Wallpaper: Comparison
Mental Illness in The Yellow Wallpaper
The Yellow Wallpaper and Everyday Use Literature: Comparison
Women Characters in Chopin’s, Gilman’s, Faulkner’s Stories
Isolation, Patriarchy, Materialism, and Mental Illness in “The Yellow Wallpaper”
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Review
Plots of Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Feminist “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Literary Elements in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”
The Description of Wallpaper in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Gilman
Color in The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Perkins
Gender in The Great Gatsby & The Yellow Wallpaper
Uncovering the Wallpaper in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”
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A young woman experiences postpartum depression. Her husband (a physician) takes her on vacation to a mansion to recover by “rest cure.” She loses her mind being confined to a room with a yellow wallpaper. But what is the short story really about? “The Yellow Wallpaper” Study Guide answers this...

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Symbols & Literary Devices in The Yellow Wallpaper

This article by Custom-Writing.org experts contains a comprehensive analysis of literary devices in “The Yellow Wallpaper”: color symbolism, personification, point of view used by Gilman, foreshadowing, and an explanation of the ending’s meaning. 🌈 The Yellow Wallpaper: Symbolism How unfortunate is it that a woman has a mental breakdown just...

The Metamorphosis: Essay Topics & Samples

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The Metamorphosis is a short story written by Franz Kafka, which was first published in 1915. One of his best-known works, it tells a story about a man called Gregor Samsa and his peculiar transformation. He and his family have to deal with the consequences of this metamorphosis. The Metamorphosis...

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62 Essay Topics on The Yellow Wallpaper

Welcome to The Yellow Wallpaper Essay Topics page prepared by our editorial team! Here you will find an extensive list of essay ideas on the short story! Literary analysis, themes, comparison, characters, & more. Get inspired to write your own essay!

🔬 Literary Analysis
🎭 Character Analysis
📊 Compare & Contrast
🗺️ Navigation

🎓 References

🔬 the yellow wallpaper: literary analysis essay topics.

Irony and imagery in The Yellow Wallpaper
Symbolism in The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Significance of First-Person Narration in The Yellow Wallpaper
The Window as a Symbol of the Yellow Wallpaper
Color Symbolism in The Yellow Wallpaper
Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper: Point of View
Would The Yellow Wallpaper Be Different If Told from John’s Point of View?
What are the Meanings behind the Color of the Wallpaper?
Imagery and Allegory in The Yellow Wallpaper
The Yellow Wallpaper: Themes & Symbols
What Are the Examples of Irony in The Yellow Wallpaper?
Gothic Elements in The Yellow Wallpaper
The Yellow Wallpaper: Metaphor Analysis
Setting Symbolism of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
What is the Style of The Yellow Wallpaper?
What Instruments Does the Author Use to Create an Atmosphere of Suspense & Horror in The Yellow Wallpaper?
What Does the Mysterious Figure Symbolize in The Yellow Wallpaper?
Why Does the Description of the Wallpaper Change over Time?

🎭 The Yellow Wallpaper: Character Analysis Essay Topics

What is The Narrator’s Inner Conflict in The Yellow Wallpaper?
Is John the Villain in The Yellow Wallpaper? Why or Why Not?
Who is to Blame for the Narrator’s Descent into Madness? Why?
What is the Significance of the Minor Female Characters in The Yellow Wallpaper?
What Happens to the Narrator after the Story Ends?
Who is the Protagonist in The Yellow Wallpaper?
John in The Yellow Wallpaper: Character Analysis
Why Does the Narrator Remain Unnamed in the Story? What Does This Symbolize?
What Is the Connection between the Narrator & the Woman behind the Wallpaper?
How Does John Treat His Wife in The Yellow Wallpaper?
Is the Narrator Reliable in The Yellow Wallpaper?
Why Does John Faint at the End of The Yellow Wallpaper?
Jane’s Depression In The Yellow Wallpaper
What Does the Woman behind the Wallpaper Represent in The Yellow Wallpaper?

🌻 The Yellow Wallpaper: Themes Essay Topics

The Yellow Wallpaper: Insanity as a Theme
Postpartum Depression in The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Yellow Wallpaper: Women & Mental Illness
Depression due to Repression in The Yellow Wallpaper
The Yellow Wallpaper: Feminist Critique
The Yellow Wallpaper: Perception Vs. Reality
Freedom of Expression in The Yellow Wallpaper
The Yellow Wallpaper: The Three Stages Towards Feminine Freedom
The Yellow Wallpaper as a Feminist Story
Creativity Vs. Madness in The Yellow Wallpaper
Marriage & Family as a Theme in The Yellow Wallpaper
Loneliness in The Yellow Wallpaper
How Does The Yellow Wallpaper Present the Conflict between Rationality & Creativity?
Feminist Theory in The Yellow Wallpaper
Does The Yellow Wallpaper Have a Happy or Sad Ending? Explain Your Answer
Marriage in The Yellow Wallpaper
Feminist Criticism in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper
Main Questions In The Yellow Wallpaper: Analysis Essay
Social Surroundings and Interactions in The Yellow Wallpaper
In What Ways Does the Wallpaper Embody the Theme of the Story?

⌛ Essay Topics on The Yellow Wallpaper’s Context

The Historical Context In Charlotte Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper
Victorian Gender Roles in The Yellow Wallpaper
The Yellow Wallpaper as an Autobiography
Describe the Time Period when The Yellow Wallpaper Was Written
What Was Gilman’s Intention When She Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper?

📊 The Yellow Wallpaper: Compare & Contrast Essay Topics

Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart & Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper: Mood Comparison
Solitude as a Theme in The Yellow Wallpaper & A Rose for Emily
Gender Roles in The Yellow Wallpaper & Trifles
The Need for Change in Ragged Dick and The Yellow Wallpaper
The Yellow Wallpaper & A Rose for Emily
Past Essay Topics – University of Warwick
CS Topic Generator – Purdue Computer Science
Literature Topics and Research // Purdue Writing Lab
What are the top research topics in literature? – Quora
Suggested research topics | English at Leicester
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The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman VINTAGE The Classic Tales Podcast

What does our nervous heroine see in the yellow wallpaper, that no one else can? Charlotte Perkins Gilman, today on The Classic Tales Podcast. Welcome to this Vintage Episode of The Classic Tales Podcast. Thank you for listening. A Vintage Episode is released every Tuesday. Please help us to continue producing amazing audiobooks by going to http://classictalesaudiobooks.com, and becoming a supporter. New content is still coming your way on Fridays. Keep an ear open for our Kickstarter for The Golden Triangle – the sixth novel in the Arsène Lupin series. We’re getting ready with boxed sets, special editions, and more! We’ll let you know when we’re ready to pull the trigger. And it’s time for the Classic Tales Book Club to meet again! Keep an eye on your inboxes today for our monthly newsletter which will contain the zoom link. Our zoom meeting will be on Wednesday, April 10th at 4:00 Pacific time, 7:00 Eastern. We’ll talk about the satirical nature of Gulliver’s Travels, and the power of satire. See you then! Follow the link in the show notes to subscribe to our newsletter, and get the zoom link later today. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was raised by her three aunts – one of which was Harriet Beecher Stowe. Apart from The Yellow Wallpaper, she is also known for writing Herland, the story of a lost civilization populated entirely by women. And now, The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Follow this link to become a monthly supporter: Follow this link to subscribe to our newsletter and chat with us on Zoom: Follow this link to subscribe to our YouTube Channel: Follow this link to subscribe to the Arsène Lupin Podcast: Follow this link to follow us on Instagram: Follow this link to follow us on Facebook:

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Analysis of Feminism in 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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three people working in a film set that looks like a mid-century living room. The fly space of a theater is visible above the room's walls

Film set in Schwartz Center: A pop-up laboratory for building worlds

Performing and Media Arts

By | Kate Blackwood , A&S Communications

The room on the Kiplinger Theatre stage is paneled in wood and faded yellow-green floral wallpaper. The lamps, beige and dim, barely disturb the shadows dominating every corner. Old family photos march up the wall. A taxidermy deer head gazes down upon a mustard yellow couch draped with a crocheted color-block throw. The stairs, carpeted in gray shag, look as though they might creak under the weight of the tragedy haunting the house.

The shiver-inducing story of the old couple living in that house and a young man who stumbles upon it took root in student filmmaker Peter Levine’s ’24 imagination two years ago. The resulting short film, “Remembering Colin Stall,” came to life this semester on a set installed on the stage.

Designed by Jason Simms , assistant professor of performing and media arts (PMA) in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) and built by PMA crew and students, the film set was the busy heart of the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts for the first half of the spring 2024 semester.

It was an all-hands-on-deck experience for PMA this spring, said Simms, with many hands-on learning opportunities. Students got involved building, painting, decorating (or “dressing”) the set. In mid-February Levine directed a crew of students and industry professionals in shooting the film, which is Levine’s thesis project in the Robert S. Harrison College Scholars Program . After that, the set became an experimental zone for film and theater technology classes.

“It was a pop-up laboratory,” Simms said. “It definitely took on a life outside ‘Colin Stall,’ which was always part of our intention.”

Laboratory for a story

Levine laughs when he remembers the very first seed of “Remembering Colin Stall.” In a Cornell film writing course, he was trying to create a heart-felt tale about an old couple helping a kid who got lost near their home in the countryside.

“This couple that lives here, their life took place between the 1960s and the 1980s. Then their son died, and they got stunted. They haven’t moved forward in time,” said Levine. “When Jude, a young man running away from home, breaks down outside their house, the elderly couple takes him in.

“I presented it to the class and every single person said ‘this is terrifying,’” he said. “Out in the middle of nowhere, an old couple in their farmhouse. As nice as you want to make it feel, that’s horror. It’s what we expect.”

Levine decided to run with it and grew the script into his thesis project, using GoFundMe and a grant from the Lynne S. Abel ’62 College Scholar Endowment Fund to hire professional film crew and actors. Cinematographer Indeana Underhill signed on as director of photography gratis and Simms agreed to design the production.

In addition to being a professor, Simms is an award-winning scenographer, with more than 150 productions to his credit . His portfolio is full of theater, dance, opera and virtual reality credits at regional and New York City theater, including “Murder on the Orient Express” for the Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City, Utah; “A Raisin in the Sun” for Bristol Riverside Theatre in Bristol, Pennsylvania; and “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” for George St. Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Three people, actors in a play, stand in front of a set that looks like a train car

Simms is also the production designer for “Fish,” a new play by Kia Corthron , which began previews March 21 at Keen Company in New York City. He’s designed recent shows in Ithaca , and others for Cornell PMA. But the expressive vision he shares with his students extends far beyond the walls of any set.

“I’m not a set design teacher, I’m a world-building teacher,” Simms said.

Three people, actors in a play, interact in a stage set living room decorated with couches and a woven rug

He started planning the “Colin Stall” set by collecting images: wood-paneled country houses with dark lighting and fireplaces; vintage 1960s living room photos with family portraits and plaid armchair upholstery.

He also made a 3D computer model, a useful device for visualizing the space. “This will be a world,” he said, scrolling through the model back in January. “It’s country chic horror. Grandma’s attic meets Norman Bates.”

“Jason has a database in his head of architectural knowledge and period knowledge,” Levine said. “He knew exactly what I was going for.”

Simms made plans, then handed them over to Savannah Relos, assistant technical director in PMA (A&S) to actualize, in a collaboration much like an architect and an engineer.

“Jason is aware of the aesthetic of the world, the final picture. It’s my job to take it and make sure it’s going to hold weight, it’s going to support whoever it needs to support,” Relos said. “I’m the reality check.”

A film set under construction, with exposed lumber and buckets of wallpaper glue

Relos said the “Colin Stall” set was much like theatrical sets she builds routinely on the Kiplinger stage, but with some key differences. Unlike a theater set, the film set didn’t have to be open on an audience side, which made bracing the walls simpler. But details were more important, making the finishing touches more laborious. Like the wallpaper, for example.

“If I’m building a theater set, I will paint, I will stencil, I will even use fabric because it’s just an easier medium to work with than wallpaper – all the paste and the tearing,” Relos said. “But for this film set, because the camera is right there, actors are going to be up against the walls. You’re going to be able to tell if the wallpaper’s not real and it will be distracting for the story.”

Three people who are making a movie look over the top of a large film camera

Extreme makeover home edition redress

Levine and his crew filmed “Remembering Colin Stall” in one long weekend. They wrapped around Feb. 20, and the set’s role as an experimental zone began.

Simms’ production design students teamed up with film classes taught by Jeffrey Palmer , associate professor of performing and media arts (A&S) and Doorim Kim , lecturer in PMA, to transform the set for another project.

“The film class came up with a short script and my production design students did sort of an extreme makeover home edition redress of the set so it could serve the script the students in the film class wrote,” Simms said. The students were challenged to create a whole new look and feel on the set—without bringing in any new props or elements. “That was a lot of fun.”

Simm’s course, Project: Terrarium Imagined; World Building through Allegory, in which students design a fictional society from the ground up, spent time on the set, too.

“I used that opportunity to talk about character because when you actually dress a set you’re thinking about the people who live there and what they have and what their world is,” Simms said. “It was a great opportunity again to use this physical laboratory as an example of why this is important.”

As a member of Simms’ production design course, Sid Martis ’25, an architecture student in the College of Art, Architecture and Planning, helped to paint and dress the film set, taking away lasting lessons for his future profession.

“The most important skill in my mind is the actualization process in the creation of any occupiable space,” Martis said. “In architecture, that has also been a challenging jump. It's easy to create a space that's pretty, but it's much harder to create a space that can be occupied by a cast. I feel like on a deeper level, the class is informing me on how to create spaces for others rather than for myself.”

On the precipice of something new

The film set went up, a world appeared and transformed into other worlds and inspired still more. And then it all vanished. By mid-March, Relos and her crew struck the film set to make way for rehearsal and performance of an April 25-27 dance event, the culmination of this year's Choreographing Justice Series , for which Simms will transform the space yet again, a totally different look.

Meanwhile, “Remembering Colin Stall” is in editing. Levine will have a cut of the film ready for the early May student film show and will discuss his project at the Harrison College Scholar Program senior thesis presentations on May 4. And of course, the experience will live on in the minds of the students who participated.

Five people on a film set; one holds the film clapboard

Simms said he’s excited about the many directions students can take skills they learn in PMA: “I think we’re on the precipice of something new in media/performing arts, where they’re going to have to develop a wholistic skill set that could encompass game design, design for film, virtual reality worlds, virtual worlds, immersive – actual in person immersive experiences, high-quality theater and anything else that could possibly fit under that umbrella. It’s a wide umbrella, and I’m excited about the future of it. I recognize that innovation is about to happen.”

In the near future, PMA is considering another film set for the Kiplinger stage next year.

“It was exciting to have something of that scale in our building, in the Schwartz Center. It opens the door for more projects of that scale to happen within PMA,” Simms said. “I think we will see more of this.”

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This thesis could say something like the following: in " The Yellow Wallpaper ," Gilman shows that, just like men, women need intellectual stimulation to stave off depression and that depriving ...
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Thesis for The Yellow Wallpaper
In conclusion, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman serves as a powerful critique of the societal expectations placed on women in the 19th century. The yellow wallpaper itself serves as a symbol of the protagonist's confinement and oppression, and the story as a whole serves as a critique of the societal expectations placed on women in the 19th century.
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Overview. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that was first published in 1892. It is a pivotal work of feminist literature that explores the mental and emotional challenges faced by women in the 19th century. The story is presented in the form of a series of journal entries written by an unnamed woman likely ...
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The Yellow Wallpaper: Symbolism. Gilman has given well-elaborated insights on the meaning of the Yellow Wall-Paper. "She has done this in a slow yet steady pace to release the metaphors that are a clue to the Yellow Wallpaper as a symbol of her husband's authority and dominance" (Gwynn & Zani, 2007, p.71).
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The Yellow Wallpaper Summary. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is one of the defining works of feminist literature. Writing about a woman's health, mental or physical, was considered a radical act at the time that Perkins Gilman wrote this short story. Writing at all about the lives of women was considered at best, frivolous, and at worst dangerous.
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"The Yellow Wallpaper" (1892) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer. A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity—but that would be asking too much of fate!
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Since "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was narrated exclusively in a female perspective, it provided the reader a firsthand account of the insensitive and sexist treatment of women's mental health. ... It addresses the story's themes and characterizations effectively, but it lacks a clear thesis statement and ...
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Full Title: The Yellow Wallpaper When Written: June, 1890 Where Written: California When Published: May, 1892 Literary Period: Gothic Genre: Short story; Gothic horror; Feminist literature Setting: Late nineteenth century, in a colonial mansion that has been rented for the summer. Most of the story's action takes place in a room at the top of the house that is referred to as the "nursery."
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The Yellow Wallpaper as a Symbol of Hope. Finally, the yellow wallpaper should be regarded as a symbol of hope. Looking at the color, the protagonist feels safe. At the same time, the main character understands that the image in the wallpaper is considered to be a reflection of unhappy women who must creep to be a part of society.
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The Yellow Wallpaper Thesis Statement: In the story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the plot is written in first person. The unnamed narrator, through her depression and illness feels trapped in her life being locked in a room with this yellow wallpaper. After tearing off the wallpaper and seeing the woman behind the ...
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The room on the Kiplinger Theater stage is paneled in wood and faded yellow-green floral wallpaper. The lamps, beige and dim, barely disturb the shadows dominating every corner. Old family photos march up the wall. ... Levine decided to run with it and grew the script into his thesis project, using GoFundMe and a grant from the Lynne S. Abel ...

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