The Yellow Wallpaper Questions and Answers

The Yellow Wallpaper Study Tools

Take a quiz Ask a question Start an essay

The Yellow Wallpaper

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," John's fainting and the narrator's creeping symbolize the culmination of the narrator's mental breakdown and the complete reversal of traditional gender roles. John's...

8 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

The narrator's room in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is described as a former nursery with barred windows, a heavy bed nailed down, and a distinct yellow wallpaper that she finds repellent. The wallpaper's...

4 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," Gothic elements such as the eerie setting, the descent into madness, and the oppressive atmosphere heighten the story's psychological tension. These elements underscore the...

3 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator is depicted as unreliable due to her deteriorating mental state, exacerbated by the "rest cure" prescribed by her husband. Her...

8 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

The significance of the name "Jane" in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is often interpreted as the narrator's true identity. In the story, the name appears near the end, suggesting a moment of...

2 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

"The Yellow Wallpaper" and "The Story of an Hour" both explore themes of female oppression, but they differ in their protagonists' responses. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator descends into...

15 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the baby, while not greatly detailed, holds significant symbolic value. The protagonist is separated from her child, who is cared for by a nanny. This separation emphasizes...

4 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

The narrator's tone in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is one of increasing desperation and madness, established through literary elements such as vivid imagery, fragmented sentence structure, and a...

7 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

From the upstairs windows in "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator sees a garden, a bay, and a shaded lane, all representing what she emotionally lacks: peace, stability, and social connection. These...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," the setting is central to the story's themes and the protagonist's mental decline. The story takes place in an isolated, dilapidated mansion...

5 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

At the end of "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator breaks with reality, realizing that she is the trapped woman she believes she has seen in the wallpaper in her room. When her husband enters the...

3 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator suffers from postpartum depression, exacerbated by the "rest cure" prescribed by her husband and doctors, who dismiss her concerns. This lack of agency and...

17 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

The sentence that implies the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is unreliable is (d). This sentence describes seeing a "strange, provoking, formless sort of figure" behind the wallpaper's design,...

2 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

What is ironic about the ending of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is that it's the narrator who is supposed to be hysterical, yet her husband is the one who faints. Throughout the story, he has been the...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," ethos is illustrated through John's authority as a physician, which conflicts with Jane's perspective and challenges his credibility. Jane's brother, also a doctor,...

2 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

This quotation from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s novella The Yellow Wallpaper epitomizes the author’s ornately descriptive writing style concerning the story’s primary object: the deteriorating yellow...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," direct characterization includes the narrator explicitly stating her need for social interaction and her dissatisfaction with her husband's care. Indirect characterization...

3 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

This quote highlights the narrator's growing madness and frustration in "The Yellow Wallpaper." She identifies with the woman trapped behind the wallpaper's "bars," symbolizing her own imprisonment...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

The narrator of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" is depicted as tormented, sluggish, and resilient, reflecting her mental instability and sensitivity. Her journal entries reveal a...

3 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

"The Yellow Wallpaper" reflects Marxist theory by illustrating the narrator's dependency on her husband, mirroring how capitalist societies render women powerless by denying them property and...

3 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

John and his wife, the story's narrator, are living in the colonial mansion so that the wife can recover from postpartum depression. All we learn of the history of the house is that it has been empty...

4 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

Conflict resolution in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is achieved through the protagonist's descent into madness. As her mental state deteriorates, she tears down the wallpaper, symbolically freeing herself...

4 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

To write a response to "The Yellow Wallpaper," consider exploring critical approaches such as feminist theory, which examines the story as a critique of the oppression of women, or psychoanalytic...

4 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

The narrators in "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Yellow Wallpaper" share similarities, such as being mentally ill and unaware of their illness's extent. Both stories focus on psychological states,...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

The narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" describes the smell of the wallpaper as a yellow smell. There's a strange odor pervading the house, and she can't quite put her finger on what it is. But...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

"The Yellow Wallpaper" employs several key literary devices, including epistolary style, irony, and an unreliable narrator. The story is presented through Jane's journal entries, showcasing her...

7 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator's initial situation involves being confined to a room in an old estate rented by her husband for the summer. She is subjected to the "rest cure" for her...

3 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

The main character in "The Yellow Wallpaper" develops into a dynamic, round character through her descent into madness. Initially, she appears as a reliable narrator with mild animosity towards her...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the word "yellow" evolves from implying disease and decay, contrasting typical associations with happiness. "Creeping" initially describes the woman in the wallpaper but...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

Both "The Yellow Wallpaper" and A Doll's House explore women's roles and their treatment by controlling husbands. In both, the husbands infantilize their wives with pet names. Nora, from A Doll's...

7 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is often associated with psychological realism and Gothic literature rather than strictly Realism or Naturalism. While it depicts everyday...

2 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

The changes in the wallpaper are a reflection of the emotional state of the woman, which is why the "strange" change to the yellow wallpaper can be interpreted as a sign that she is mentally ill. The...

2 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

The narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" suffers from postpartum depression, which is exacerbated by the rest cure prescribed by her husband. She uses personification to describe the wallpaper,...

3 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses the yellow wallpaper as a powerful symbol of the narrator's mental deterioration and societal oppression. The wallpaper reflects her...

33 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is primarily aimed at the male establishment, including doctors and husbands, who dictated women's healthcare without considering their voices. The...

2 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

Meaningful and interesting quotes from "The Yellow Wallpaper" include: "I sometimes fancy that in my condition, if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus," reflecting the narrator's...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

"The Yellow Wallpaper" and "Trifles" both explore themes of repression, the treatment of women, and alienation. The protagonists, an unnamed narrator and Mrs. Wright, suffer from oppressive...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

The narrator describes the house as a "colonial mansion" and "hereditary estate," evoking a sense of grandeur and history, suggesting it is more imposing and significant than expected. These terms,...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

John won't renovate the house or replace the wallpaper in "The Yellow Wallpaper" because that would run counter to his belief that the narrator's apparent illness is all in her own head. He thinks...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

"The Yellow Wallpaper" could end with the narrator escaping her husband's control by fleeing the house or having her husband, John, enter her delusional state, giving her power over him. For "The...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

The narrator describes the smell of the wallpaper as "creeping" because it permeates the entire house and clings to her clothes and hair. This pervasive odor becomes particularly noticeable after wet...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator's husband refers to her as a "blessed little goose" and a "little girl." These terms reflect his patronizing attitude, treating her as a child rather than...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

"The Yellow Wallpaper" is an example of cultural modernism.

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

Both "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "The Cask of Amontillado" feature unreliable narrators, creating ambiguity about the truth of their accounts. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator's descent into...

2 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

The narrator is disturbed by the house because it feels like a "haunted house" and is unusually cheap to rent. She dislikes the bedroom due to its "repellant" yellow wallpaper and features suggesting...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

Katherine Mansfield’s "Bliss" and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s "The Yellow Wallpaper" both deal primarily with gender identity. Similarities include female, upper-middle class protagonists who...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

Gilman does not explicitly suggest that John and his wife are sexually inactive or that John is having affairs. The story highlights a lack of communication and emotional disconnect between the...

1 educator answer

The Yellow Wallpaper

"The Yellow Wallpaper" is not a ghost story because it does not have supernatural elements. Instead, it is concerned solely with the real world. The narrator's insanity is not caused by a...

2 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

The first-person point of view in "The Yellow Wallpaper" allows readers to intimately experience the protagonist's descent into madness. It provides direct insight into her thoughts and feelings,...

2 educator answers

The Yellow Wallpaper

Specific details that stand out and literary devices that invite attention in this passage from “The Yellow Wallpaper” include personification, imagery, and gothic conventions. The passage raises...

1 educator answer