Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Yellow Wallpaper

Questions for Discussion – Answered by Shaurya Leekha

1. Why are they living in this colonial mansion? What is its history? Does the heroine feel
comfortable in the house?

- They have rented a mansion for the summer so that she can recover from a tendency to be hysterical.

- No one has lived in the mansion recently which adds to the eeriness.

- Even though the narrator doesn’t believe that she is actually ill, John believes she is and prescribes the
“rest cure” treatment. She is confined to bed rest in a former nursery room and is not allowed to
work or write.

- The room has yellow wallpaper which has a hideous, chaotic pattern. The narrator complains
about the the wallpaper, but John refuses to change rooms, saying that the nursery is the best
place for her recovery.

- The narrator appreciates some aspects of the house, but dislikes the nursery where she is ``forced to
stay.

2. How about John? Why does the narrator say his profession is "perhaps . . . one reason I
```````do not get well faster? Who else supports John's diagnosis?

- A physician.

- He doesn’t see anything physically wrong with her, so he doesn’t take her condition seriously.

- The narrator’s brother, also a physician feels that she should practice the rest cure.

- John's inability to understand his own wife drives her to insanity.

3. What clue does the narrator's repeated lament, "what can one do?" give us about her
personality? What conflicting emotions is she having toward her husband, her condition, and the
mansion?

- The narrator feels victimized and forces to conform to her husband's view of the "helpless `````````
female"

- She is given no stake in her own condition

- She feels pressured to relent to her husband's will.

- The narrator questions her husband's reasons and motivations for how she is treated.

- Consequently, the narrator feels lost and emotionally drowning in the mansion.
4. What's the narrator's initial reaction and description of the wallpaper? How does her description of
the wallpaper change?

- The changing description of the wallpaper depicts the stages of the narrator's illness.

- Initially she didn't like the wallpaper, but it wasn't really a big deal, since it just wasn't something she
would have chosen herself.

- As the novel progresses, she begins to pick at the wallpaper and cite the different aspects that she
doesn't like.

- Later, it becomes and obsession, and she picks at the design as if it's her life.

- She sees a woman trapped there in the same way she feels trapped.

5. Who is Jennie? What's her function?

- John’s sister

- She acts as a housekeeper for the couple

6. By the Fourth of July, what does the narrator admit about the wallpaper? What clues does Gilman
give about the narrator's state?

- She is beginning to make out a more ordered sub-pattern beneath the outer layer, similar to the bars
of a cage.

- The hazy shape beneath the pattern also begins to solidify, and she can now identify it as a woman
who is “stooping down and creeping” behind the main pattern.

- The author suggests that the narrator's emotional state seems to be disintegrating every time her
husband opens his mouth.

- The narrator is terrified of the prospect of being sent to Weir Mitchell because she has heard that he is
the same as John, only more so.

7. How does the narrator try to reach out to her husband? Is this her last contact with sanity? Do you
think John has no comprehension of the seriousness of her illness?

- She tries to keep her inner feelings inside

- She tries to hide her sickness and tries to make those around her think she is doing better in order to
keep them happy.

- It is not her last contact with sanity

- She was already ill to begin with, so I think when her husband faints, it becomes a sort of role reversal
with fainting being seen as a weak and womanly attribute at those times.

- John doesn’t understand his own wife, which also contributes to driving her to insanity.
8. Why change the point of view from 1st person to 2nd person?

- It represents the narrator's mental breakdown

- She figuratively and literally looses her mind in the wallpaper, which results in the extinguishing of her
identity, therefore changing the point of view.

9. By the final section of the story, what is the narrator's relationship to her husband? To Jennie? To
the wallpaper?

- By the final section the narrator has finally gone against the conventions of the time.

- She has unleashed the women from the wallpaper and therefore, has taken a step towards male-
female equality.

- The wallpaper has helped the narrator in realizing her role within the male/female dynamic she is living
in -- and that her "sickness" is a result from her lack of independence.

10. What is the central irony of the story?

- Medical treatment is prescribed by physicians to better a person's physical and mental health.

- However the treatment that the narrator receives has the opposite impact, making the narrator's
condition significantly worse.

11. The Yellow Wallpaper has been described as belonging to the gothic genre of literature. Below are
some elements often found in gothic novels. How many of these can you identify in Gilman’s story
and how have they been adapted?

- Setting: secluded mansion - Imprisonment: Isolation in a room not allowed

to do much
- Insanity: Jane goes mad - A helpless woman: Jane

- A powerful, tyrannical male: John - The supernatural: People creeping inside wall

- Psychological torment: Jane’s Isolation

12. Contrast the omniscient narrator in Lamb to the Slaughter with the unreliable 1st person narrator
in The Yellow Wallpaper.

- In Lamb to the slaughter, the narrator is an all-knowing outsider who can enter the minds of more
than one of the character.

- In the Yellow Wallpaper it is quite difficult to trust the narrator as she has different views on everything