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Ashley Harbold

Imaginative Literature

Skyler Sunday

Feb 22, 2021

The Dark Side of The Yellow Wallpaper

The short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Stetson, is a great example of

gothic literature and what it entails. The story focuses on a fictional approach to gothic literature

and this is very evident throughout the entire text. Though this passage is only ten pages, it does

an amazing job at including so many components of the gothic genre. The routes for gothic

literature are endless and they can create some amazing and intense reads. The overall gothic

genre is a very dark and even scary kind of literature. Components that can be involved in this

kind of literature or genre would be death, suspense, mystery, and maybe even a romance.

Reading a story or novel with these aspects combined can be very intriguing for the reader. In

addition to these factors, there can also be supernatural characters and things that would be

unexplainable in our world. While reading a gothic genre piece of literature, you often get caught

up this “reality” and you become one with the story.

While reading The Yellow Wallpaper, I felt like I was pulled in multiple directions at first

when it came to the genre. I could see the genre being a romance, a science fiction, or maybe

even a horror. Gothic literature seems to combine all these elements, and everything began to

make sense. Before reading this story, I did not even know that there was a way to combine all of

these genres into one. I think this genre provides so many opportunities for stories. Throughout

this short read, I was able to pick out many aspects of the text that lead me to see the gothic

genre that was there all along. One way I saw gothic literature in this piece was throughout the
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character John. From the beginning of this text, I got a weird feeling about him and could tell he

did not seem like a normal character, even before I really got into the meat of the story. John was

also constantly telling Jane what to do, because he claimed she was sick. He seemed to think that

he knew what was best and did not listen to the women when it came to how she felt. This never

sat well with me and he gave off a weird vibe. “Indeed, he started the habit by making me lie

down for an hour after each meal. It is a very bad habit I am convinced, for you see I don't sleep.

And that cultivates deceit, for I don't tell them I'm awake – oh no! The fact is I am getting a little

afraid of John. He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jennie has an inexplicable look” (pg.

653). Jane even starts to get weirded out and scared by John as the story progresses because he

acts very cryptic sometimes and often does not have explanations for his actions. He just tells

Jane the way it has to be, and she doesn’t fight back against his word. To Jane, fighting back is

not going to do anything since he does not listen to her. She knows that this is how it is and

knows he is not going to change. After reading this story all the way through, I think John is a

big component of the gothic genre in this text. He gives off a dark vibe and his character portrays

himself as a mystery to readers. John is a really good depiction of a gothic character through the

way he acts and treats other people. Overall, he is one of the reasons I was able to pick out this

particular genre.

The setting of this story also plays a big role in the gothic literature aspect of the text.

Right from the beginning, the reader is showed the setting of the story through the description

and word choice used by the author. “It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and

myself secure ancestral halls for the summer” (pg. 647). From here I could tell that this was

different than most texts. An ancestral hall is definitely an older kind of building, not usual for

today’s day and age. “A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and
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reach the height of romantic felicity- but that would be asking too much of fate! Still, I will

proudly declare that there is something queer about it. Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And

why have stood so long untenanted?” (pg. 648). This description gives the reader a really good

sense of the setting and gives a good visual to think about while reading. It is clear that this

setting is giving off an eerie, strange and secluded sense, much like the elements included in

gothic literature. Jane describing it as a haunted house and saying it is “cheaply”, showed me

there was going to be something different about this house, and this stayed with me while I read.

I think that the setting of a story plays a huge role in setting the stage for the reader and

developing the genre. Without an eerie and strange setting, I feel like defining this story as gothic

would have been a little more challenging since this is what the reader sees from the beginning

of the story.

Another gothic aspect in The Yellow Wallpaper would be the room itself. The color of the

wallpaper is a huge part of this story, when I think of yellow, I think of bright and vivid colors,

maybe even happiness. Though this wallpaper is yellow, the story progresses and we can see that

this normally happy color is not the case here at all for this room. Jane does not see the yellow

wallpaper in this kind of light. “The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean

yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places,

a sickly sulphur tint in others” (pg. 649). Not only is the color of the wallpaper off putting to her,

the pattern of the wallpaper is grotesque as well. Throughout the development of this text, the

pattern on the wallpaper is something that the reader engages with and tries to figure out. “There

is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you

upside down. I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and

down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one
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place where two breaths didn't match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher

than the other. I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know

how much expression they have” (pg. 649-650). After reading this part of the story, I

immediately knew there was something mystical and unusual about this wallpaper. The creepy

and dark sides of gothic literature were coming out in this story and becoming more evident to

the reader. The final way that the wallpaper is portrayed a gothic aspect to the story would be

through what Jane was seeing in the wallpaper. It wasn’t just the pattern, and the color, but also

when Jane would lay awake at night, she would watch this wallpaper move. “The front pattern

does move - and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! Sometimes I think there are a great

many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling

shakes it all over. Then in the very ' bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she

just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard. And she is all the time trying to climb through.

But nobody could climb through that pattern - it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many

heads. They get through, and then the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside down and

makes their eyes white! If those heads were covered or taken off it would not be half so bad” (pg.

654). This is a clear indicator that the story has a lot of madness and even a horror aspect. This

yellow wallpaper that you would think would be nice, pretty, and harmless, is actually a prison to

a woman in the wallpaper. Jane describes how the woman shakes the bars and attempts to climb

through, but ultimately cannot. This a dark side of the genre again coming out and being very

apparent.

Reading this passage made gothic literature come alive for me. The components of

darkness, an eerie sense, horror, and mystery were really major in The Yellow Wallpaper. Not

only was the character John a huge part of the gothic feeling in this reading, but also something
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as simple as the wallpaper. The wallpaper does not seem like it would be a large aspect of a text,

but in this text, it meant everything. It came alive and made the story dark and unknown to the

reader. I think the use of something other than a character to make the story seem dark is

something that really made the genre really work well. The author chose to use the wallpaper and

I think having an inanimate thing become animate is very gothic. Jane describes the wallpaper as

something that is supposed to be inanimate, and it is acting like it is not. Having this description

of the wallpaper made the genre advance and become more prevalent to the reader. This then

shows the aspect of gothic literature where abnormal things do indeed happen in the story. It is

one thing to have a bizarre, creepy character, but to also have something that is lifeless come

alive and act almost haunting, is what made the story and the genre.

Behind gothic literature, I think there is a deeper meaning than what is first seen. As

shown throughout this text, the genre develops through the course of the story. Like I said

earlier, at first, I was confused of what the genre could be. I saw a lot of aspects to the story and

could see it taking many pathways to other genres, but as I read more and more of the story, the

genre began to develop. When you first start out reading, it seems as though John may be the

factor for determining the genre, and though he is a big part of this genre, I think the genre is

more uncovered once we get to the wallpaper. Not only did this genre play a role in the

development of the story, it also played a role in the overall tone of the story. The atmosphere in

the story leans more towards the mystery and horror part of gothic literature once the wallpaper

becomes prevalent in the text. Without this major piece of the story, I would argue that the genre

of the story would be very different.

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Revisions:

All revisions are highlighted

In the first paragraph I made a few grammatical changes and fixed a few words that I thought
didn’t fit well with the sentence. I made these changes, so it read nicer and sounded more
professional. While I was reading the second paragraph, I found a few small errors to fix and I
also added in a few extra sentences. I added these sentences to add more clarification to why
John is a big part of the gothic genre in this story. The last sentence of the paragraph was added
to bring about a better closure to these thoughts and wrap up this element of my analysis. At the
end of paragraph three I didn’t think that I wrote enough on my first draft, so I added another
sentence or two talking about the importance of setting in a story. I wanted to make the
importance of setting clear and tie that back to the gothic genre in The Yellow Wallpaper. I chose
to reword the highlighted sentence in the fourth paragraph, so it made more sense to the reader. I
didn’t like the way it read before. In the rest of my genre analysis, I did not find any major things
to change so I made a few word choice changes and added in some better sounding sentences to
really wrap up this paper.