Short Story Drama

The Yellow
Wallpaper
Author Year Published Original Language
Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1892 English

THEMES

The Idle Path

Set in the late 19th century on a remote country estate, “The Yellow Wallpaper”
shows one woman’s descent from depression into extreme crisis. The

to Insanity restrictions and inactivity prescribed to treat her actually lead to increasing
paranoia, wild imaginings, hallucinations, and finally mental breakdown.

Confinement Mental Illness

The narrator is restricted The narrator’s declining
by her surroundings mental condition has
and her husband, and internal and external
symbolically her thoughts origins and effects.
are confined by the
wallpaper’s pattern.

Women's Roles
As a woman, the narrator
lacks liberty, agency, and
meaningful work. The roles
of mother and homemaker
are taken on by others,
leaving her idle.

Symbols

The Yellow Wallpaper

by the Numbers

3
Miles from “ancestral
hall” to the nearest town
Yellow Wallpaper
Represents confinement as
it traps the narrator’s
thoughts

5 Moon
Symbolizes womanhood
Years Gilman spent and being mentally
lecturing on marriage, active at night
family, labor, and
ethics in the 1890s
Estate
Reflects and worsens the
narrator’s isolation and
1887 mental condition

Year Gilman had

postpartum
experiences that
inspired “The Yellow
Author
Wallpaper”
A feminist, lecturer, and writer,
Gilman experienced severe
postpartum depression during
1898 her marriage to artist Charles
Walter Stetson. Her experiences
D AW N Year Gilman published throughout this illness and her
Women and Economics need for meaningful work—rather CHARLOTTE PERKINS
to support women’s than inactivity—prompted the GILMAN
financial independence writing of “The Yellow Wallpaper.” 1860–1935

Main Characters

Narrator John
Woman deprived of meaningful Narrator’s well-meaning but
activity; in a state of psychosis condescending husband

Jennie Mary
John’s sister; helps take care Woman who cares for the
of domestic duties narrator’s baby

hen you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance
they suddenly commit suicide—plunge off at outrageous angles,
destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.
Narrator

Sources: Biography.com, Encyclopaedia Britannica,

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Harvard University,
"Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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