The Yellow Wallpaper Questions and Answers
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  How do the symbols in "The Yellow Wallpaper" contribute to the intensification and/or resolution of the central conflict?
  The primary symbols in the story "The Yellow Wallpaper" are the wallpaper itself, the isolated country estate, and the empty room where the main character spends most of her day alone. They all...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What aspects of the setting in “The Yellow Wallpaper” seem to be symbols, and what do they symbolize?
  Various details in the setting of “The Yellow Wallpaper” serve as symbols that represent patriarchy, marriage, domesticity, and female entrapment in those traditional worlds. The story takes place...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What is the symbolism in "The Yellow Wallpaper"?
  The most significant symbol in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is contained within the title itself. As the story progresses, the wallpaper becomes a symbol of the narrator's mental illness. She strongly...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What can you infer about the narrator and her ideas about marriage based on her remarks?
  The narrator is trapped in a patriarchal marriage, in which her physician husband makes all the decisions for her and calls her a "silly goose" when she complains. However, we can infer that she...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Describe the characterization of John in "The Yellow Wallpaper."
  John's quite an ambiguous character, and this is what makes him so intriguing. As the narrator's husband and doctor, he thinks he's doing what's best for her. In actual fact, however, he's doing...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Why can’t the speaker be with her baby?
  In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator is a nameless woman who suffers from some kind of a mental illness, presumably depression. The author does not specify what kind of illness; all we know is...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What is it about the house, the grounds, and her room that upsets the narrator?
  The house upsets the narrator because it is someone else's ancestral hall, and she believes it to be "a haunted house." She thinks there is "something queer" about the house, though she cannot...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Why does Jane creep around her husband in "The Yellow Wallpaper"?
  Jane's husband is portrayed as an authoritative physician who is narrow-minded and a staunch proponent of Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell's "rest cure," which was designed to minimize distressing...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What kind of environment and experience does John seem to want to provide for the narrator? What kinds of restrictions does he apply to her activities?
  John is trying to completely isolate his wife. This is achieved first by bringing her to the estate in the first place, a decision she feels uncomfortable about, and then by choosing an upstairs...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Describe the character of John in "The Yellow Wallpaper." Does the narrator's view of him change over the course of the story? Explain.
  John is an esteemed physician and the narrator's husband who is an avid supporter of the "rest cure," which was designed to minimize distressing stimulation and promote physical health for women...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What is the theme of "The Yellow Wallpaper"?
  Stories tend to have multiple themes, and "The Yellow Wallpaper" is no exception. I would say that this short story largely revolves around two major themes which are intertwined together: it's an...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Give a description of John in "The Yellow Wallpaper." Why does the heroine say that his profession is "perhaps...one reason I do not get well faster?" How does the narrator view her husband? Does she agree with John's diagnosis and treatment? Who...
  The narrator of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story wants to believe in her husband's educated medical opinion. The reader meets John only through his wife's eyes. He seems genuinely concerned with...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What are the nature of motivations that direct the narrators course of action in "The Yellow Wallpaper"? What is the course of action?
  The narrator of this story is motivated by a belief that she is ill, that she is neither believed nor trusted either to express her own condition or participate in her treatment, and that the...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  "Mental illness in the story serves several functions: the first being a more historical insight into the way people with mental illness were treated in the time. The second is the way women with mental illness were specifically treated,...
  Gilman mentions a noted real neurologist (who we might call a psychiatrist) of the time, Weir Mitchell, in her short story. In general, she wanted to critique his notion of a rest cure, an accepted...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  How does mental illness function in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and why does it function that way?
  Mental illness is a driving force in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story in terms of both character and plot. Because it is a psychological study, these two aspects are closely interrelated. The...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  How and why does mental illness function in “The Yellow Wallpaper”?
  When one analyzes The Yellow Wallpaper, there is often immense focus given to the period in which the story is set and its treatment of women. Without such a focus on the feminist aspect of the...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Who else supports John's diagnosis?
  The narrator's husband, John, is a respected physician. So if he says that his wife is sick, then who is she to challenge his professional opinion? Although the narrator reveals a slight degree of...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Explain how the setting contributes to the woman's decline to insanity.
  The setting of "The Yellow Wallpaper" both reflects the narrator's mental isolation and plunges her further into her own world of mental struggles. Consider how the house's physical isolation is...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  How exactly does Gilman go about using an epistolary story to make the point that denying women their rights and humanity is dangerous to society, family life, and women?
  Gilman's use of the epistolary form means that the narrator is a first-person subjective one. The protagonist, a woman being treated for what we would now likely call postpartum depression, is...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  I would like to know how Gilman uses irony—both dramatic and situational irony—in order to explore the oppressive nature of gender roles in the Victorian Era in "The Yellow Wallpaper." I'm looking for both quotes and analysis on how exactly Gilman...
  Situational irony occurs when a situation or outcome is different from what a character (or characters) in a work of literature think it is or will be. Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Could it be argued that Gilman intentionally uses a gothic setting to mask the true feminist themes/intention of the story "The Yellow Wallpaper" due to fear of criticism and backlash amidst the first wave of feminism? Or was this fear of women...
  I don't think Gilman was trying to mask a feminist message under the Gothic genre. I believe this for several reasons. First, Gilman was not shy about expressing or living out her beliefs and was a...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What did the speaker do with the key to her room?
  On the day before the narrator moves out of the country estate, she begins tearing the yellow wallpaper from the walls in an attempt to free the trapped woman behind. At this point in the story,...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Why is the speaker’s bed nailed down?
  The speaker's bed is nailed down because she is not staying in the nursery of an old house, as she believes, but because she is staying in a room used to treat women who are suffering from...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  The narrator sees women creeping about and, in the final descent into madness, she is crawling around the baseboards. What is this symbolic of?
  The narrator of the story initially suffers from postpartum depression, which transforms into psychosis as a result of the unhealthy "rest cure." The narrator's husband does not recognize that the...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What do the narrator’s husband and brother think is wrong with her?
  Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is told in the first-person point of view from an unnamed narrator, a young woman suffering from an illness that no one in her life...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Who sees? Who is blind? Why? Compare one character’s insight to another character’s lack of understanding, either in the same text or through a comparative reading. What thematic purpose is served by the author presenting some characters as either...
  The narrator and her husband make an excellent duo for this question. The narrator likely suffers from postpartum depression, as evidenced by the baby who is also in the household and by her...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Analyze the tone in "The Yellow Wallpaper."
  “The Yellow Wallper,” a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is an early work of feminist literature that has some aspects of Gothic literature or horror. The tone of the story changes somewhat...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What is a psychoanalysis of the characters in "The Yellow Wallpaper"?
  The narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" likely suffers from postpartum psychosis. Beginning soon after the birth of a child, symptoms can include depression, hallucinations, severe confusion, and...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Regarding the cult of domesticity and the challenges facing women in the late nineteenth century, what examples from this work would be useful for an essay?
  The narrator’s husband and her brother, who are both doctors, believe women who are suffering from what was then referred to as hysteria should not work. In the case of the narrator, that work is...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Explain how the wallpaper confuses and disgusts the narrator.
  In the early part of the story, the first-person narrator expresses some concern about certain qualities of the small quarters she is occupying, including the wallpaper. However, she accepts the...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  How does "The Yellow Wallpaper" reveal how women were approached during the nineteenth century?
  The short story "Yellow Wallpaper" describes the immense amount of misogyny and condescension that women experienced during the nineteenth century. In the story, the narrator, after having her...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Discuss what you think the author is presenting in this story as what women need to be emotionally healthy. Show which passages make you think that.
  I think that what the author is saying is that women must be be listened to and respected by their menfolk in order to be emotionally healthy. It's notable in this regard that the narrator of the...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Provide an argument for how "The Yellow Wallpaper" should be interpreted. Include quotes.
  In Gilman’s story, the narrator confesses and repeatedly refers to the fact that her writing is a sort of forbidden journal—one which the narrator’s husband views as a “vicious influence” but she...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What causes the illness in "The Yellow Wallpaper"?
  The narrator is initially suffering from postpartum depression, which typically includes mood swings, increased anxiety, and difficulty sleeping after a woman gives birth. However, the narrator's...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Please evaluate this thesis statement for a literary analysis essay of "The Yellow Wallpaper": "The setting of this story forms the backdrop for the symbolism, where the main character describes the mental plight of being confined while battling...
  "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the best known story by the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, originally published in 1892. In terms of your thesis statement, I think it could use a little more...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  In "The Yellow Wallpaper," much of the language used to describe the narrator's experience has both a denotative and connotative function. How do the meanings of such words and phrases as "yellow," "creeping," "immovable bed," and, "outside...
  The word "yellow" never really has a positive connotation in this story. The narrator describes the wallpaper as a "smouldering, unclean yellow" that revolts her. Yellow is sometimes associated...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  How does the syntax of the sentences both mirror the pattern on the wallpaper and suggest the narrators agitation? "I lie here on this great immovable bed-it is nailed down, I believe-and follow the pattern about by the hour. it is as good as...
  Syntax refers to sentence structure and word order. Any deviation from a typical sentence structure can give us clues about the speaker's state of mind. Twice in these sentences, the first and the...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Analyze the following Quotation fromCharlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper”: ”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...
  The narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" imagines or creates a scenario that is emblematic of gender issues as they existed at the time (the late-nineteenth century). In analyzing this excerpt, we...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Is the main theme (the oppression of gender roles) relevant to modern days? Why or why not?
  Gender figures into John’s oppression of his wife in several different ways. While “The Yellow Wallpaper” can be understood as primarily detailing a highly unequal relationship between two...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Discuss the importance of writing in the woman’s life in Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
  The narrator of the story enjoys writing, and she is willing to disobey her husband and brother—both doctors—in order to engage in this activity. She says, I did write for a while in spite of...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Discuss the role of women in the short stories “Cat in the Rain” and “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
  In both "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "Cat in the Rain," the role of women is to be patronized, neglected, and ignored. Both women are lonely and unhappy, a state of affairs which, in each case, is at...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What should we make of the weird ending of "The Yellow Wallpaper"?
  The story's end is indeed ambiguous and puts the onus on the reader to interpret possible meanings. A way to read the story overall is that a woman has been infantilized, closed into a converted...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What is the story "The Yellow Wallpaper" about, and what is the theme?
  This story is about a woman who has just had a baby, and she seems to be suffering from what we would call postpartum depression. However, this is not a diagnosis that existed in the...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  Is "The Yellow Wallpaper" literary or commercial? Defend your argument.
  Discerning whether Charlotte Perkins Gilman's groundbreaking short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a commercial or literary piece is an interesting question. When Gilman wrote the story and had it...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What is the narrative structure of "The Yellow Wallpaper"?
  Narrative structure refers to how a text is organized. This story is structured chronologically, which means that it moves in order of time from the first event that is described by the narrator,...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  How does the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" try to break free from conventional notions of femininity and female domesticity?
  I'm not sure that the narrator actively tries to break free from conventional ideas about femininity and female domesticity, but she clearly chafes against these restraints. She is aware that her...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What are some different ways the narrator tries to break free from the oppressive female domain she occupies?
  The narrator feels confined physically and emotionally. The two are related as a result of her husband's behavior: He aims to control her because of his perception of what marriage entails. As a...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What is the author trying to convey about being human in "The Yellow Wallpaper"?
  The narrator of the story, Jane, has been diagnosed with "nervous depression." Her husband, John, is also her physician and prescribes her a treatment plan in which she is confined to one room and...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” why does the narrator say: "what can one do?"? How does that statement represent her state of mind?
  At the beginning of "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator writes that her husband, John, is "practical in the extreme." He laughs at her concerns about the house they have taken for the summer, and...

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• The Yellow Wallpaper
  What's the message of "The Yellow Wallpaper"?
  There are at least a couple of equally important messages in "The Yellow Wallpaper," but one key takeaway is that women deserve a voice in their marriages and particularly in matters involving...

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