1.3.

9 Practice: Complete Your Assignment Practice

English 9 Sem 1 Name:
Date:

Write a two-paragraph objective summary of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow

Wallpaper." Identify a theme of the story and explore how characterization and
setting develop that theme. One paragraph will be about character and the other
paragraph will be about setting, but both paragraphs must be about the same theme.

Your story should include the following elements:

● Two paragraphs, each about a different detail (character or setting) that shows
the theme

● Objective summaries that emphasize details related to each paragraph topic

● Clear, formal, academic language that shows your professionalism

You should have completed a draft of this assignment in the activity before this one.
If you haven't done so, go back and complete that activity now.

Ask yourself these questions as you revise:

● Did I write two paragraphs about a theme in Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"?

● Did I use one paragraph to describe how the main character's development
contributed to the theme?

● Did I use the other paragraph to describe how the setting contributed to the
theme?

● Did I maintain a formal style and an objective tone?

Use this rubric to determine how well you're meeting the criteria for the assignment.
Two major themes of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman are the
treatment of mental illness and the oppressive nature of gender roles.

The story follows the narrator’s growing and accelerating descent into madness,
foreshadowed by her worsening paranoia and obsession with the pattern of the
yellow wallpaper. However, it also explores the ways her husband John’s attempted
treatment exacerbates her decline. He is motivated purely by practicalities,
prescribing self-control, and cautioning against anything he perceives as indulging
his wife’s dangerous hysteria. His refusal to acknowledge his wife’s concerns about
her mental state as legitimate, listen to her various requests; about leaving the
house, their choice of room, her journalism or, most importantly, the wallpaper,
ultimately contributes to her downfall.

Alongside its examination of mental illness, The Yellow Wallpaper offers a judgment
of traditional gender roles. John is practically minded, rational, protective, and the
decision-maker in the couple. He infantilizes his wife, treating her as a child and
brushing off her complaints. His wife is restricted to the house, not allowed to work
or write, and regarded by her husband as fragile, emotional, and self-indulgent. The
narrator’s urgent desire to free the mysterious figure of a woman trapped behind the
yellow wallpaper, and to hide her existence from John, leads to her delirious final
breakdown as she tears the paper, creeping around the room and over her husband,
who, in a reversal of their traditional roles as strong protector and fragile child, has
fainted in shock at the sight of his wife.
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1.3.9 Practice: Complete Your Assignment