how to write an essay on yellow wallpaper

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.

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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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Intresting Analysis of the Yellow Wallpaper

This essay about Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” explores the themes of female oppression, mental health, and personal agency within the context of a patriarchal society. Through the protagonist’s confinement and descent into madness, Gilman critiques societal norms and challenges readers to question the status quo. The narrative techniques employed, including vivid imagery and intimate diary entries, draw readers into the protagonist’s struggles, prompting reflection on gender, mental wellness, and societal expectations both past and present. Ultimately, the essay advocates for a more just and compassionate world, inspired by the timeless lessons of Gilman’s masterpiece.

How it works

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” stands as a beacon of feminist literature, weaving a tapestry of intricate themes and nuanced characters that continue to captivate readers with each turn of the page. In this essay, we embark on an analytical journey into the depths of this seminal work, unraveling its threads to reveal the hidden layers of meaning and social commentary it holds.

At the heart of our exploration lies the theme of female oppression in a patriarchal society, a motif as poignant today as it was during Gilman’s time.

Through the protagonist’s confinement within the eerie confines of her room, adorned with the haunting yellow wallpaper, Gilman casts a spotlight on the suffocating constraints placed upon women by societal norms and expectations. The wallpaper itself becomes a symbol of this oppression, its creeping patterns mirroring the protagonist’s own sense of entrapment within the confines of her gender role.

Yet, beyond the surface-level examination of oppression, “The Yellow Wallpaper” delves into the intricacies of mental health and the effects of isolation on the human psyche. As the protagonist’s descent into madness unfolds, we are invited to witness the fragile boundaries between sanity and insanity blur, each brushstroke of the wallpaper serving as a stark reminder of the fragility of the human mind. Gilman’s masterful portrayal of this psychological unraveling leaves an indelible impression on the reader, prompting reflection on the delicate balance between perception and reality.

Central to our analysis is the character of the protagonist herself, a figure shrouded in complexity and contradiction. Through her eyes, we bear witness to the struggles of motherhood, marriage, and personal autonomy, each layer of her identity peeled back to reveal the raw vulnerability beneath. Her rebellion against the stifling authority of her husband, John, serves as a rallying cry for female empowerment, challenging the notion of women as passive objects to be controlled and manipulated.

Moreover, Gilman’s narrative techniques serve to enhance the impact of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” drawing the reader into the protagonist’s innermost thoughts and emotions. Through the intimate format of a diary, we are granted access to the inner workings of her mind, each entry a window into her unraveling sanity. The vivid imagery woven throughout the narrative, particularly in the descriptions of the yellow wallpaper, creates a palpable sense of unease and foreboding, immersing the reader in the oppressive atmosphere of the protagonist’s surroundings.

Yet, perhaps most striking of all is the relevance of “The Yellow Wallpaper” to contemporary discourse surrounding gender, mental health, and societal expectations. In an age where discussions of women’s rights and mental wellness continue to dominate public discourse, Gilman’s words ring as true today as they did over a century ago. Through her poignant critique of patriarchal society and its impact on the female psyche, Gilman challenges us to question the status quo and strive for a more equitable future for all.

In conclusion, “The Yellow Wallpaper” stands as a timeless masterpiece, its pages imbued with the echoes of a bygone era yet resonant with the enduring struggles of the human experience. Through its exploration of themes such as female oppression, mental health, and personal agency, Gilman invites us to confront the complexities of our own society and chart a course towards a more just and compassionate world. As we close the book on our analysis, let us carry forth the lessons of “The Yellow Wallpaper” into our own lives, striving to dismantle the walls of oppression and embrace the light of progress and understanding.

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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.

Our specialists will write a custom essay specially for you!

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.

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💡 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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The Yellow Wallpaper Essay: Example and Tips

Do you want to learn to write better? Good essays are often perceived as art, and this, of course, sounds scary. But do not worry. The ability to write well involves certain rules, it is a kind of science. What rules should you know to write essays that the brain will like?

• 1 How to write good essays
• 2 Examples of topics for essays about The Yellow Wallpaper
• 3.1 Introduction
• 3.2 Main part. 1st paragraph. Gilman’s Interpretation of The Yellow Wallpaper
• 3.3 Main part. 2nd paragraph. Feminist Interpretation of The Yellow Wallpaper
• 3.4 Main part. 3rd paragraph. Other Interpretations of The Yellow Wallpaper
• 3.5 Conclusion

How to write good essays

We present you a list of not obvious tips, which can help you make your writing more attractive and interesting for the reader:

• One of the main misconceptions is that it is necessary to express the thought literary, do not write dryly, pour water, expand the text due to the abundance of words, descriptions, complex structures. All the way around. If you have fully expressed a thought or situation and have shown all its complexity in three paragraphs – excellent. Let it be so. If, for example, you were asked to write an essay “not less than 6,000 characters”, and you have no more than 3,000, then turn around a thought, a plot, look for shades that would be healthy to say, remember others situations and describe them. But in general, a smart teacher will accept 3000 – if the author captured his attention in this short segment.
• The shorter the better. Imagine that a very long sentence appears in our text. Somewhere in the middle the reader will be lost in it, without following the logic. But as soon as a long sentence is broken into several short ones, attention and positive perception are activated again.
• Different lengths of sentences make the text dynamic, it is easier and more fun to read, gradually learning each line.
• If you are writing an informational or analytical text, do not forget about the law of high readability: the shorter the word, the higher the readability. In English, a word containing free syllables is considered to be long, in a professional environment there is even a special designation “words 4+”. And when it is necessary to reveal the readability of the text, the following gradation is used:
• high readability – up to 10% of long words;
• average readability – 10–30% of long words;
• low readability – over 30%.
• People always carefully read what is listed. So, if part of your story can be presented as a bulleted or numbered list, do it and make sure: the result will be visually appealing.
• Connect your own experience – both positive and negative. The best stories are your personal adventures (the reader can only learn about them from you).
• Use visualization words: imagine, look, remember, etc.
• Write in aphorisms.
• Difficult, but possible: write so that your smile is felt by the reader. Of course, it concerns cases when you write about something positive.

Examples of topics for essays about The Yellow Wallpaper

• Feminist interpretation of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins- Gilman – used as example
• Main characters of The Yellow Wallpaper and their role in the short story
• Literature analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper
• Social prerequisites of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins- Gilman
• Role of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins- Gilman in the development of feminism movement

The Yellow Wallpaper essay example. Feminist interpretation of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins- Gilman

Introduction.

The Yellow Wallpaper is a popular short story by American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine. The novel is viewed as an important early work of American feminist literature.

The story consists of 6,000 words. The story is told from the first person in the form of a diary of a certain woman placed in a room with yellow wallpaper because of postpartum psychosis. The novel written by Gilman after a hard struggle with postpartum psychosis is thus semi-autobiographical.

Jane’s husband, John, the main character of the work, believes that it is in her interest to go on medical rest after the birth of their child. The family spends the summer in a rented colonial mansion, which, according to the narrator, is “something strange”. Jane is locked up in a room upstairs in which, as Jane herself believes, used to be a child’s room. The windows here are boarded up, the wallpaper is torn and the floor is scratched. Jane begins to suspect that another woman was once imprisoned here against her will. The reader is not sure if the damage was caused in the room by the previous resident or the narrator herself, since Jane herself also spoils the situation (once, for example, she bites the wooden bed frame).

Jane keeps a diary secretly from her husband, in which he writes a lot of notes about the wallpaper in the room – their “yellow” smell, “dizzy” pattern, missing parts and how they leave yellow strokes on their skin and clothes when you touch them. She describes how the bedroom increases in length, especially when the wallpaper begins to mutate in the moonlight. In the absence of other incentives, the look of the wallpaper, their design, becomes more and more intriguing for the narrator. Soon she begins to see the figure in the wallpaper pattern and, eventually, comes to the conclusion that there is a woman hiding behind them. Believing that she should try to free the woman from the wallpaper, Jane begins to tear off the remaining paper from the wall.

On the last day of summer, she locks herself in her room to remove the remnants of the wallpaper from the walls. When John decides to return home, Jane refuses to unlock the door. Returning with a key, he finds his wife in circles crawling around the room and touching the wallpaper. She exclaims: “I finally got out!” And John faints, and she continues to circle the room, stepping over her inert husband every time she passes by.

Main part. 1st paragraph. Gilman’s Interpretation of The Yellow Wallpaper

Gilman used literary creativity to explore the role of women in America at that time. She studied issues such as restricting women’s life to the walls of a house and the oppressive power of a patriarchal society. Gilman’s works paved the way for writers such as Alice Walker and Sylvia Plath.

In Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman portrays the madness of the narrator as a way to protest against the medical and professional oppression of women of that era. The impression was made that husbands and male doctors acted with the best of intentions, portraying women mentally injurious and fragile. At the same time, women’s advocates believed that the anger of women diagnosed with mental illness was a manifestation of their inability to properly play the social role assigned to them by dominant men.

Women were not even encouraged to write, because their writing would ultimately form a personality and become a form of disobedience. Gilman realized that the letter was one of the few permitted forms of female existence in times of powerlessness.

Gilman explained that the idea for the work originated from her patient experience: “The real purpose of the work was to reach out to psychiatrist Silas Weir Mitchell and convince him that he was going the wrong way.” She suffered from depression and consulted a well-known medical specialist who prescribed her “complete rest”, a method that demanded “to live as domestic life as possible”. She was forbidden to touch a pen, pencil or brush and was allowed only two hours of mental stimulation per day.

Three months later, almost in despair, Gilman decided to disregard the diagnosis and began to work again. Realizing how close she was to complete mental disorder, she wrote “Yellow Wallpaper” with additions and exaggerations to illustrate her complaint about an incorrect diagnosis. She sent a copy to Mitchell, but never received a response.

She added that The Yellow Wallpaper “was not written to make people crazy, but to save them from insanity, and it worked.” Gilman claimed: many years later, she learned that Mitchell had changed the methods of treatment, but literary historian Julie Bates Doc denied this information. Mitchell continued to develop his methods, and in 1908 — already 16 years after the publication of the Yellow Wallpaper — he was interested in opening hospitals entirely devoted to rest, so that his treatment would be more accessible to the masses.

Main part. 2nd paragraph. Feminist Interpretation of The Yellow Wallpaper

This story was interpreted by feminist critics as a condemnation of male control over nineteenth-century medicine. The narrator’s thoughts about recovery (she should work, not rest, rotate in society, and not remain in isolation, perform maternal duties, and not completely distance herself from her child, etc.) go out of control of the language stereotyped as irrational, and therefore not mistaken about the state of identity. This interpretation is based on the concept of the “home sphere,” in which women of that era were imprisoned.

Feminist critics focus on the triumphal finale of the story. While some argue that the storyteller was distraught, others interpret the ending as finding a female self in a marriage that made a woman feel trapped. The emphasis on reading and writing as gender practices also emphasized the importance of the symbol for wallpaper. When the narrator was not allowed to keep a diary or read, she began to “read” the wallpaper until she found the desired salvation. Seeing women on the wallpaper, the narrator realizes that she can not spend her life behind bars. At the end of the story, when her husband lies unconscious on the floor, she crawls through his body, symbolically rising above him. This is interpreted as a victory over her husband to the detriment of her sanity.

Susan S. Lancer in the articles “Yellow Wallpaper: Feminist Criticism” and “American Color Politics” apologizes modern feminism and its role in changing literary theory and practice. “Yellow wallpapers” were one of many books lost to readers because of the ideology that characterized a number of works as grim or offensive. Critics such as the editor of the journal Atlantic Monthly, rejected the story. Lancer claims that the work of Edgar Allan Poe also tells about poverty and devastation, but his works are still being printed and studied.

The Yellow wallpaper provided feminists with critical tools for different interpretations of literary creativity. Lancer says that the story was “a particularly favorable model for such a rethinking … because the narrator herself comes to a kind of feminist interpretation when she tries to “read” the wallpaper. The narrator tries to reduce the meanings that open in the drawings to a common denominator. At first, she focuses on the inconsistency of the pattern: it is “bright”, but at the same time “stupid”, “clear”, but at the same time “curved” and “vague”. She takes into account the laws and tries to geometrically arrange them, but she gets even more confused. Wallpapers change shade depending on the lighting and emit a distinct smell that Jane cannot recognize. At night, the narrator sees a woman behind bars in a complex wallpaper design. Lancer claims that Jane was able to find “a text space where she can detect any self-prediction.” Lancer creates a connection between the narrator and the reader. Both the one and the other, in contact with a complex confusing text, are trying to find one basic meaning. “So we were taught to read,” writes Lancer, explaining why readers cannot fully understand the text. Patriarchal ideology deprived many scholars of the opportunity to interpret and appreciate such stories as the Yellow Wallpaper. Thanks to feminist criticism, The Yellow wallpaper have become a textbook reading from the standard curriculum. Feminists have made a great contribution to the study of literature, but according to Lancer, their point of view is not absolute, because “if we recognize the fact of the participation of women writers and readers in the dominant discourse and social practices, perhaps our own standards should also be deconstructed since we have to recover still hidden or missed senses.”

Martha J. Cutter, in her article “The Writer as a Doctor: New Models of Medical Discourses in Late Prose by Charlotte Perkins Gilman,” tells how Gilman in her writings fights with male medical institutions “trying to silence a Woman”. Gilman’s works challenge the female social role in the patriarchal medical discourse, showing women to “silent, powerless, and passive” creatures who refuse treatment. Even before the publication of her works, between 1840 and 1890, women were actively positioned as painful and weaker creatures than men. During this period, it was a misconception that “hysteria” (a disease that, according to the stereotype, is more common in women) is the result of too extensive education. It was believed that women who studied at home or in college, excessively stimulated their brains and, therefore, fell ill with hysteria. In fact, many of the diseases attributed to women were seen due to the patient’s loss of self-control. Doctors argued that a doctor should “talk in an authoritative tone” and that a “recovered” woman was “submissive, obedient, quiet and, above all, subordinate to the will and decisions of the doctor”. A hysterical woman is one who craves for power, and, in order to recover, must obey the doctor, whose task is to suppress the desires of the patient. Women were often prescribed bed rest – a form of treatment that was supposed to “tame” them and create the effect of a prison. Such methods were a way to discourage women from rebelliousness and make them conform to social roles. In his works, Gilman stresses that the harm caused to women by such treatment leads to the loss of her own voice. Paula Treyhler explains: “In this story, a public and powerful diagnosis is voiced … This is a man’s voice … that controls a woman narrator and dictates how she should perceive the world and talk about it.” The latent function of the diagnosis is to empower the male voice and weaken the female patients. The story-teller in The Yellow Wallpaper is forbidden to participate in her own treatment or diagnosis, and she has to completely obey the doctor, and her husband tells in this particular story. A male voice has the power to control a woman and decides how she can perceive the world and talk about it.

Main part. 3rd paragraph. Other Interpretations of The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper is sometimes referred to as an example of Gothic literature on the treatment of madness and fatigue. Alan Ryan, for example, wrote about the story: “Absolutely, regardless of who created it, it is one of the most beautiful and most powerful horror stories ever written. Perhaps this is a ghost story.” Howard Phillips Lovecraft, the pioneer of the horror genre, writes in his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927): The Story Yellow Wallpaper rises to the level of classics, finely painting a picture of madness that creeps on a woman living in a monstrously smoky room where madness was locked up.”

Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz in the book “Not a Minute of Rest: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the creation of the Yellow Wallpaper” concludes that “this story was a cry from the heart to [the first husband Gilman, artist Charles Walter] Stetson and protesting against the traditional marriage he demanded. Gilman tried to dismiss the charge in order to protect her daughter Catherine and her stepmother, Gilman Grace Channing’s girlfriend.

Anglican Archbishop Peter Karnley used the story as an example and metaphor for the position of women in the church when he read a sermon before the ordination of the first women priests in Australia on March 7, 1992 (St. George’s Cathedral in Perth).

Sari Edelstein argued that The Yellow Wallpaper is an allegory of Gilman’s hatred of incipient yellow journalism. By writing an essay for The Forerunner in November 1909, Gilman made it clear that she wanted the press to be more insightful and not rely on hyperbolic stories and flashy headlines. Gilman often faced scandals in the media and resented about newspaper sensations. The link between the narrator and the wallpaper in the storyline resembles Gilman’s relationship with the press. The narrator describes the wallpaper as having “extended bright patterns that artistically depict every sin”. Edelstein argues that, given Gilman’s disgust at the yellow press, this can also be viewed as a description of the tabloids of the time.

Paula A. Treyhler, in The Escape from Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in Yellow Wallpaper, focuses on the relationship between the woman and the letter depicted in the story. Instead of viewing the text from the point of view of feminism, seeing the wallpaper as something like “… a pattern underlying sexual inequality, external manifestation of neurasthenia, an unconscious narrator, the fate of a narrator in patriarchy,” Treyhler explains that wallpaper can symbolize the realization discourse and the alienation of the narrator from the world, where she previously could somehow express herself. Treyhler shows that, thanks to the discussion about the language and the letter, Charlotte Perkins Gilman in his story challenges “… the sentence imposed by the device of the patriarchal language.” Although Treyhler considers strictly feminist interpretations legitimate, she writes that wallpaper can be understood as female language and discourse, and a woman found on wallpaper can be “… representation of women, possible only after women have the right to speak.” In her opinion, the text reveals traces of a new struggle – between two forms of writing: the first is the old and the traditional, the other is new and exciting. This is confirmed by the fact that John, the husband of the storyteller, does not like his wife writing anything, so the diary containing this story is kept secret and, therefore, is known only to the storyteller and readers. On closer examination, it turns out that as the contact between the narrator and the wallpaper increases, her speech also increases, as she increasingly writes about frustration and despair.

The first mention of this story I met in the TV series “American horror story” a few years ago. But I read it only now. The mood was on a mystical story, but everything turned out to be completely different, but no less terrible. The doctor and his young wife come to a rented house, where they intend to spend the next three months. A woman suffers from a nervous disease and from not being listened to, not being taken seriously, and not wanting to listen to any of her wishes. The husband tries to show care in his understanding and probably wants to cope with his wife’s neurosis with means that were considered effective in the nineteenth century – he tries to provide her with peace, prescribes to lie down, eat and take vitamins, limits communication (even nurses), point blank without noticing that all this leads to a fatal outcome.

A woman plunges headlong into an obsessive idea of ​​yellow wallpaper that annoys her from the very first day of her stay in the house and this completely drives her crazy. Some details made me think that it’s not the madness of the main character, but a certain mystical power that hides in this room and this wallpaper – in the end, even earlier, there were bars on the previous residents from the windows, bitten furniture and ragged wallpaper … (remember what happened to the main character at the end).

Immediately after reading the story, I wanted to blame the husband for everything, who did not listen to his wife, but after some arguments, my opinion changed. We should also take into account the medicine of the 19th century. John, as a doctor, was confident in the effectiveness of the technique, he in every possible way took care of his wife, worried for her. Wikipedia says that the story is viewed as an important early work of American feminist literature, that the woman behind the wallpaper personifies the oppressed position of women at that time. But the story is only on behalf of the wife, the narrator, i.e. on the one hand, and it is really a pity for her, but I cannot blame her husband, because he did his best to recover her.

The room in which she lived, in fact, was very strange: bars on the windows, torn wallpaper, a bed with numerous teeth marks, mounts on the walls. Dual feeling – on the one hand, it could be a room in which mentally ill people were kept, and on the other, in fact, a nursery, which was converted into a gymnasium. But changing the room would still not have solved all the problems of the narrator.

The Yellow Wallpaper: Study Guide

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892. The story is attributed to the Gothic horror genre. Still, it looks like the author herself never meant for it to be interpreted that way. Gilman aimed for a realistic description of the later proven to be inadequate “rest cure.” That was a standard method of treating mental breakdown at the author’s time. Today, the story retains its relevance and serves to draw attention to many contemporary phenomena.

The Yellow Wallpaper study guide prepared by our editorial team is an extensive collection of materials necessary for understanding the most famous short story by Gilman. Along with the summary and analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper , you’ll find here short reviews of the key themes, symbols, and literary devices used in the story. There are descriptions of all the characters as well.

💁 All You Need to Know about The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper is autobiographical to some extent. An intelligent and sensitive female writer is trying to recover from a nervous breakdown she suffered after giving birth. She secretly writes an account of her lonely day-to-day existence in a rental house. The yellow wallpaper in one of the rooms captures her imagination to the point of complete fixation.

The Yellow Wallpaper is a diary of a woman who is suffering from postpartum depression . She is prescribed the so-called “rest cure.” That leads to her confinement in a limited space with little to no social contact. Having nothing better to do, she fixates on the abhorrent yellow wallpaper in her room and loses her mind.

The Yellow Wallpaper was published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine . The 19th century is considered to be the time of enlightenment and innovation. Still, much was underdeveloped and misunderstood. One of the under-researched things was the physical and mental health of women. The tragedy of an incorrect treatment is illustrated in the story.

Why is The Yellow Wallpaper autobiographical? Gilman comments on it in Why I Wrote ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ . There she discloses how her mental health was once in jeopardy . The poor treatment was prescribed to her by a “noted specialist in nervous diseases, the best known in the country.” Only after ditching the procedures was she able to recover.

🗺️ The Yellow Wallpaper Study Guide: Navigation

A short summary of the story with pictures that contains the key events of The Yellow Wallpaper .

Summary & Analysis

The detailed summary and analysis of the short story. Active characters and themes.

The Yellow Wallpaper ’s narrator, John, Mary, Jennie, and the Woman – all the characters of the short story described on one page.

Themes & Symbols

The key symbols and themes in The Yellow Wallpaper : freedom of expression, mental illness, and family.

• Quotes Explained

All the important quotations from The Yellow Wallpaper explained on one page.

• Essay Examples

A collection of ideas for your essay on The Yellow Wallpaper : 100% free research paper and essay examples.

• Essay Topics

An extensive list of essay topics on the short story: themes, characters, literary analysis, & more.

Author's Biography

A timeline and a biography of a famous American writer and activist.

Questions & Answers

An extensive list of answers to the most pressing questions about the story.

🔑 The Yellow Wallpaper: Facts

📚 the yellow wallpaper: historical context.

In 1913, the article “ Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper ” was published. It was inspired by the so-called “rest cure” that the doctors applied to treat Gilman’s postpartum melancholy. In 1886, soon after her daughter was born, she was stricken by severe depression.

In her biography, Gilman described her “unbearable inner misery”. The state only worsened with the presence of her baby and husband. Just like the novella’s narrator, Gilman was prescribed the “ rest cure .” She followed all the instructions of her physicians, avoiding any physical and mental activities. However, this treatment didn’t help. It even made her condition worse, leading her to a nervous breakdown.

However, this is something more than a personal story. It’s impossible to analyze the novella without addressing The Yellow Wallpaper ’s historical context. The short story was published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine. At the time, the female part of the population still had neither the right to vote nor the right to be independent financially. The novella tells us a lot about the gender roles typical for late 19th-century America .

A scientist was the symbol of the era of breakthroughs. He (for it was always a man) was a pragmatic and learned individual who disregarded any nonsense or weirdness. What he did not understand, he shoved away and out of sight.

Men were the earners. They were also those who commanded the social lives of their families. Women were regarded as soft and vulnerable creatures doomed to conduct home lifestyles. Considered to be inferior to men, many women were denied the recognition for the fruits of their mental labor. The traditional female role was that of a wife, a mother, a servant. On the one hand, the upper-class women were pictured as being frail both physically and mentally. They were advised against straining their fragile minds lest they suffer inevitable physical and mental complications. On the other hand, working-class women were subjected to the same level of strain and hardship in work as their male counterparts. Only they were paid less. On the whole, women were in a very unfair position , where their judgment was wrong a priori. Of course, it was reflected in the medical sphere, too. Gilman portrays this side in her short story. This is what forms The Yellow Wallpaper ’s historical context.

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Study Guide Menu

• Summary & Analysis
• Themes & Symbols
• Questions & Answers
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Biography
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Imagery in The Yellow Wallpaper

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