The Yellow Wallpaper | The Yellow Wallpaper

At a glance:

Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
First Published: 1892
Type of Work: Novella
Type of Plot: Social criticism
Time of Work: The late nineteenth century
Setting: New England
Principal Characters: The narrator, John, Jennie, Weir Mitchell
Genres: Psychological fiction, Social realism, Short fiction, Women’s literature
Subjects: Husbands, United States or Americans, Wives, Power, personal or social, Sexism, Gender roles, Psychology or psychologists, Nineteenth century, Marriage, Doctors, New England, Mental illness, Reality, Feminism, Women’s issues, Oppression, Women, Imagination, Depression, mental
Locales: East (U.S.), New England

The structure of The Yellow Wallpaper creates a sense of immediacy and intimacy. The story is written in a journal-style, first-person narrative which includes nine short entries, each entry indicated by a small space between it and the last. The journal entries span three months during which John attempts to cure his wife’s “nervous condition” through the rest cure of Weir Mitchell, which assumes that intellectual stimulation damages a woman physically and psychologically. In the beginning of the story, the narrator appears sane and believable,...

The Yellow Wallpaper | The Yellow Wallpaper

At a glance:

Form and Content

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