The Yellow Wallpaper: a Study Guide (2024)

......."TheYellow Wallpaper" is a short story centering on the mental deteriorationof a young woman. The story is (1) a psychological study, (2) a Gothichorror tale, (3) a commentary on the inferior social status of women atthe end of the nineteenth century, and (4) a satire ridiculing the so-calledrest cure for persons suffering from depression and nervous disorders.
.......NewEngland Magazine published the story in January 1892 under Gilman'smarried name, Charlotte Perkins Stetson.

Setting

.......Theaction takes place in the late 1800s in an upstairs room of a mansion rentedfor the summer by the narrator and her husband.

Background

.......CharlottePerkins Gilman based her story on her own experience with a physician whotreated her for a nervous disorder, according to an article she wrote forthe October 1913 issue of The Forerunner. Here is the text of thatarticle, entitled "Why I Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper.' "

.......Manyand many a reader has asked [why I wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper]. When thestory first came out, in the New England Magazine about 1891, aBoston physician made protest in The Transcript. Such a story oughtnot to be written, he said; it was enough to drive anyone mad to read it.
.......Anotherphysician, in Kansas I think, wrote to say that it was the best descriptionof incipient insanity he had ever seen, and—beggingmy pardon—had I been there?
.......Nowthe story of the story is this:.......
Formany years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tendingto melancholia—and beyond. During about thethird year of this trouble I went, in devout faith and some faint stirof hope, to a noted specialist in nervous diseases, the best known in thecountry. This wise man put me to bed and applied the rest cure, to whicha still-good physique responded so promptly that he concluded there wasnothing much the matter with me, and sent me home with solemn advice to"live as domestic a life as far as possible," to "have but two hours' intellectuallife a day," and "never to touch pen, brush, or pencil again" as long asI lived. This was in 1887.
.......Iwent home and obeyed those directions for some three months, and came sonear the borderline of utter mental ruin that I could see over.
.......Then,using the remnants of intelligence that remained, and helped by a wisefriend, I cast the noted specialist's advice to the winds and went to workagain—work, the normal life of every humanbeing; work, in which is joy and growth and service, without which oneis a pauper and a parasite—ultimately recoveringsome measure of power.
.......Beingnaturally moved to rejoicing by this narrow escape, I wrote "The YellowWallpaper," with its embellishments and additions, to carry out the ideal(I never had hallucinations or objections to my mural decorations) andsent a copy to the physician who so nearly drove me mad. He never acknowledgedit.
.......Thelittle book is valued by alienists and as a good specimen of one kind ofliterature. It has, to my knowledge, saved one woman from a similar fate—soterrifying her family that they let her out into normal activity and sherecovered.
.......Butthe best result is this. Many years later I was told that the great specialisthad admitted to friends of his that he had altered his treatment of neurastheniasince reading "The Yellow Wallpaper."
.......Itwas not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being drivencrazy, and it worked. [You can access the article in its original formby clickinghere.]

To-day,the American woman is, to speak plainly, too often physically unfit forher duties as woman, and is perhaps of all civilized females the leastqualified to undertake those weightier tasks which tax so heavily the nervoussystem of man. She is not fairly up to what nature asks from her as wifeand mother. How will she sustain herself under the pressure of those yetmore exacting duties which nowadays she is eager to share with the man?
.......Whilemaking these stringent criticisms, I am anxious not to be misunderstood.The point which above all others I wish to make is this, that owing chieflyto peculiarities of climate, our growing girls are endowed with organizationsso highly sensitive and impressionable that we expose them to needlessdangers when we attempt to overtax them mentally. In any country the effectsof such a course must be evil, but in America I believe it to be most disastrous.(Wear and Tear, or Hints for the Overworked. 5th ed. Philadelphia:J.B. Lippincott, 1871.)

.......Thenarrator is in conflict with her husband, a physician, because of his limitationon her activity. She is also in conflict with herself, for she internalizesher frustrations rather than asserting herself and bringing them into theopen.

Characters

Narrator(Jane): A young woman suffering from a nervous disorder because she hasno outlet for her active and highly creative mind. Near the end of thestory, she speaks of a woman named Jane in an apparent reference to herself.
John:Narrator's husband, a physician. He prescribes rest therapy for his wifeeven though it is inactivity that unnerves her. He forbids her to engagein any kind of activity, including her favorite pastime, writing. Unfortunately,she follows his orders without protest.
Narrator'sBrother: He supports John in his approach to the narrator's treatment.
Jennie:John's sister, the housekeeper.
Baby:Child of the narrator and John.
Mary:Baby's nanny.
Henry,Julia: Relatives of the narrator and John.
Mother,Nellie, Children: Characters whom the narrator mentions withoutproviding additional information. Presumably, "Mother" is her own mother.

Pointof View

.......Gilmanpresents the story as diary entries (first-person point of view) by thenarrator. She describes her husband as kind and loving. However, her mentalstate and easygoing nature may be clouding her perception in this regard.

PlotSummary
ByMichael J. Cummings.
.
........"Thereis something strange about the house—I can feel it,” says the narrator,a young woman.
........However,for her, this strangeness—this spookiness—only adds to the appeal of theplace, an ancestral hall that she and her husband, John, decided to rentfor the summer. John, a physician, does not share his wife's fanciful notions.As a man of science, he is practical and down to earth. The mansion isjust another house. There are no ghosts; it is not haunted. He agreed tosojourn at the dwelling only because his wife needs rest to relieve her“temporary nervous depression."
........Situatedthree miles from the village, the house sits well back from the road behindhedges, walls, and gates. It has a garden with paths running through arborscovered with grapes. The mansion has been unoccupied for years, supposedlybecause of legal problems involving heirs and coheirs.
........Althoughthe look and feel of the house excite the narrator, she does not like theroom her husband selected for them. She wanted one downstairs that openedonto a large porch, but he told her they should occupy the nursery at thetop of the house so she could take advantage of air blowing into the largeroom, which is quite large and has windows all around.
........Apparently,the nursery had at one time been converted into a gymnasium and playroom,the narrator says, “for the windows are barred for little children, andthere are rings and things in the walls.” Much of the wallpaper is tornoff, but there are patches of it here and there. It has a gaudy designand an ugly color: “a smouldering unclean yellow” with “dull yet luridorange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.”
........Shewrites down her impressions on the first day of their occupation of thehouse, but she puts her work away when she sees her husband coming. Heforbids her to write because he thinks it overtaxes her. So does her brother,who is also a physician.
........Twoweeks pass. She sits at a nursery window with a desire to write but notthe strength. Her husband is away most of the time to attend patients.He really does not know how much she suffers, she thinks.
........“Nobodywould believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able,—to dressand entertain, and order things.”
........Sheis happy that Mary is there to care for the baby. She herself is too distraughtto look after the child.
........Thewallpaper continues to bother her. Early in their stay, John was goingto have new wallpaper put up. However, he decided against this idea inthe belief that she would only turn her attention to another irritant,such as the barred windows or her heavy bed. She accepts his opinion andthinks, “ I'm really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horridpaper.”
........Fromone of its windows, she can see the garden. From another, she can see thebay and the lane that leads to the estate's wharf. When she tells Johnthat she imagines seeing all sorts of visitors walking on the lane andthe grounds, he tells her to avoid doing so. Such thoughts can unduly exciteher, he says. Nevertheless, she yearns for companionship. When she getswell, he says, they will invite Cousin Henry and Julie for an extendedvisit.
........Meanwhile,the wallpaper is really getting to her. She decides to write.
........“Thereis a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and twobulbous eyes stare at you upside down,” she notes. “I never saw so muchexpression in an inanimate thing before. . . .”
........Theroom itself bears evidence of the mischief that the children committedagainst it, she says. And the floor is “scratched and gouged and splintered,the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed. . . looks as if it had been through the wars.”
........Whenshe spots John's sister, the housekeeper, approaching, she puts away herwriting. Like John, the woman believes that the narrator's writing makesher sick. Or so the narrator says.
........Timepasses. The narrator writes that she and John "had mother and Nellie andthe children" for a week over the Fourth of July holiday. Exhausted afterentertaining them, the narrator says her husband is going to get her anappointment with Weir Mitchell, MD—a famous neurologist—if she does notsoon improve. She opposes the idea, saying Mitchell's approach to medicineis just like her husband's and her brother's.
........Afterspending so much time alone in her room, the narrator writes that she isbeginning to like her room “in spite of the wallpaper” or because of it.She finds herself studying its pattern while lying on the bed. To helpher get over her malady, John gives her cod liver oil, tonics, rare meat,ale, and wine. She now says she would like to visit her cousin Henry andJulia, but John won't hear of it. She ends up crying.
........“Itis getting to be a great effort for me to think straight.,” she says. “Justthis nervous weakness I suppose.”
........Oneday, he carries her upstairs and puts her in bed, then reads to her. Hetells her that she is his comfort and that she must get well for his sake.One thing that comforts her is that her baby is well and does not haveto occupy the nursery and see the wallpaper. In its pattern, the narratornow begins to see a woman “creeping about.”
........Onenight while John is sleeping in his bed, she gets up to feel the wallpaperto see whether it is moving. When her husband awakens moments later, sheasks him whether they can return home. He opposes the idea, saying theirsojourn will end in just three weeks. Besides, their house is undergoingrepairs at the moment. Of course, he would return if she were not gettingwell. But, he says, she is improving.
........“Youare gaining flesh and color, your appetite is better, I feel really mucheasier about you," he says.
........Thewallpaper begins to irritate her again. The pattern changes depending onwhether sunlight or moonlight is striking it. In the moonlight—or by candlelight,lamplight, or twilight—the pattern forms bars. The woman behind the patternis becoming easier to see.
........Thenarrator has noticed strange behavior in her husband lately, as well asin Jennie. Perhaps the wallpaper is causing it. Both of them are payingmore attention to it, and Jennie even once placed a hand on it. When thenarrator asks her why she felt the wallpaper, Jennie says she was simplychecking for the source of yellow stains on the clothes of the narratorand those of her husband. In a sharp voice, she tells the narrator to bemore careful.
........Butthe narrator thinks Jennie is just making an excuse. Because of the attentionshe thinks her husband and Jennie are giving the wallpaper, says the narrator,she now has something to look forward to—their behavior—and even has abetter appetite.
........Duringthe day, the narrator continues to analyze the pattern of the wallpaper.As for the color, she thinks it the oddest shade of yellow she has everseen. It makes her think of yellow objects, “not beautiful ones like buttercups,but old foul, bad yellow things.” She also begins to take more notice ofits smell, which spreads throughout the house and even into her hair. Thedamp weather lately makes it all the worse. She notices a streak on itthat runs around the room.
........Eventually,she discovers that the woman in the wallpaper shakes it and attempts toclimb through the pattern. Apparently, she sometimes succeeds, for thenarrator can see her on the grounds. When a carriage approaches, she hidesin foliage.
........Thevacation is nearing its end. While John is staying in town overnight, thenarrator sees, by moonlight, the woman in the wallpaper shake the bars.The narrator goes to help her. By morning, she and the imprisoned womanhave torn away a good deal of the paper. When Jennie enters the room andlooks at the wall, the narrator tells her, “I did it out of pure spiteat the vicious thing.” Jennie says she wouldn't have minded doing it herself.She also warns the narrator not to tire herself.
........Workersclear the room of the belongings of the narrator and her husband. She andJohn will sleep downstairs and in the morning take the boat home. Afterthe room is empty—except for the bed—the narrator wishes to be alone inthe room. So she locks the door and throws the key into a path in frontof the house. Then the narrator begins ripping off the wallpaper. Out ofa window, she sees creeping women and writes, “I wonder if they all comeout of that wallpaper as I did? I suppose I shall have to get back behindthe pattern when it comes night, and that is hard!”
........Whenthe narrator hears John at the door, she tells him the key is outside,under a plantain leaf near the steps. After he retrieves it and enters,he sees her creeping around. She says, "I've got out at last in spite ofyou and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put meback!"
........Inthe last paragraph of the story, she says, “Now why should that man havefainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I hadto creep over him every time!"

Oppression

.......Inthe nineteenth century, males dominated the workplace and the home. Therole of a typical wife was to bear her husband's children and comply withhis wishes in domestic affairs. She would cook, keep house, and managesocial events in support of her husband. Wealthy men often hired servantsto perform those chores, allowing the women to supervise the help. Societyin general—and a husband in particular—generally frowned on a wife's attemptto become the equal of her husband in decision-making; for her to entertainnotions of pursuing a professional career, such as law or medicine, wasout of the question. Sometimes a husband even discouraged a spouse's pursuitof an avocation, as in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” in which John disapprovesof his wife's desire to write because, he says, writing might aggravateher illness.
.......Buthe is her illness—that is, his control of her life depresses her and fraysher nerves. "I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him theother day," she writes in her diary," and tell him how I wish he wouldlet me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia. But he said I wasn'table to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not makeout a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished."
.......Johnmay mean well and is probably not aware of his deleterious effect on hiswife; nevertheless, it is he who is the problem. For her part, the narratoralso may be unaware of the real cause of her illness. Like other womenof her day, she simply follows her husband's dictates. In doing so, shestifles her positive qualities—her lively imagination, her creativity.So she remains confined to a room studying the ugly wallpaper and imaginingshe sees a woman behind the pattern. She is that woman, of course, imprisonedbehind the arabesque pattern, which represents the male attitudes and societaltraditions that prevent women from participating fully in society and itschallenges.

BadMedicine

.......Inactivityproved to be the wrong therapy for the narrator and the wrong therapy forCharlotte Perkins Gilman in real life. Gilman wrote her story in part todevelop this theme, which she refers to early in the story, saying, "Johnis a physician, and perhaps . . . that is one reason I do not get wellfaster."
Formore information about Gilman's treatment, see Background.

The climax occurs when thenarrator liberates the woman (herself) from the wallpaper while at thesame time completing her descent into insanity. She is free at last tocontrol her own destiny but lacks a rational mind to pursue it. Her husbandfaints at the sight of her.

GothicOvertones

.......Perkinsestablishes a Gothic atmosphere early in the story to prepare the way forthe narrator's eerie adventures with the wallpaper and her descent intoinsanity. Note, for example, the emphasis on the isolation of the house:"It is quite alone standing well back from the road, quite three milesfrom the village." Note also that all the greenhouses are broken, a spookyforeshadowing of the narrator's breakdown. Then there is the mysterious"legal trouble . . . something about the heirs and coheirs." Thenarrator concludes, "There is something strange about the house—I can feelit." The narrator later discovers that her room has barred windows, tornwallpaper, and a nailed-down bed, all of which suggest that the nurserymay have been used to house an insane person, à la the mad womanin the attic in Jane Eyre.

Symbolism

Examples of symbolsin the story are the following:

Nursery: The nurserysymbolizes the way John treats his wife—like a child incapable of makingher own decisions.
Wallpaper: The wallpaperrepresents the barrier that the male-dominated society has erected againstwomen.
Yellow: The sicklycolor symbolizes the mental state of the narrator, as well as the blandnessof the life she leads.
Garden: The gardenrepresents the development and growth denied to the narrator by her husbandand by social standards and expectations.
Greenhouses: Theyare all broken, just as the narrator's desire to flourish as a writer isbroken by her husband.

Figuresof Speech

.......Followingare examples of figures of speech in the story. (For definitions of figuresof speech, click here.)

Alliteration

withwindowsthat look all ways
The paintand paperlook as if a boys' school had used it. It is stripped off—the paperin great patches all around the headof my bed. . . .
The color is repellent,almost revolting; a smoulderingunclean yellow, strangely faded bythe slow-turning sunlight.
It is a dull yet lurid orangein some places, a sicklysulphurtint in others.

Personally,I disagree with their ideas.
Personally,I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, woulddo me good.

Idon't know why I should write this.
Idon't want to.
Idon't feel able.

Although John isa physician, his wife's condition worsens under his care.

Although the narrator thinksat times that her mental health is improving, it is worsening. For example,after seeing the woman behind the wallpaper, she says, " I'm feeling everso much better! I don't sleep much at night, for it is so interesting towatch developments; but I sleep a good deal in the daytime."

You think you havemastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns aback somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks youdown, and tramples upon you.
Comparison of the wallpaperdesign to a person or another creature

One of those sprawlingflamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.
Comparison of the wallpaperpattern to a person. (Only a human being can commit a sin.)

when you follow the lameuncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide—
Comparison of the wallpapercurves to persons. (Only human beings can commit suicide.)

I remember whata kindly wink the knobs of our big, old bureau used to have, and therewas one chair that always seemed like a strong friend.
Comparison of the chairto a human being

1....Thenarrator follows her husband's directives even though she apparently realizesthat she needs increased mental, social, and other forms of activity, asthe following passage indicates.

Personally, I disagreewith their [her husband's and her brother's] ideas.
Personally, I believe thatcongenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.
But what is one to do?