The Yellow Wall Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gillman Characters - 1 Narrator - A young upper class mother, now undergoing care for depression. Highly imaginative, her doctors believe she has a “slight hysterical tendency” and that writing will excite her too much. Characters - 2 John - The narrator’s husband. John restricts her behavior as part of her treatment. He seems to love his wife, but he does not understand the negative effect his treatment has on her. Characters - 3 John’s sister acts as housekeeper for the couple. Her presence and her contentment with a domestic role intensify the narrator’s feelings of guilt over her own inability to act as a traditional wife and mother. Characters - 4 Mary - takes care of the narrator and John's baby. Her name is a possible allusion to the Virgin Mary. Mary Characters - 1 seems to the perfect mother to the narrator, intensifying her feeling of inadequacy. SETTING (TIME) · Late 19th century (a time period when women were oppressed, with few rights in society.) (PLACE) A rented country home, England TONE · The narrator is in a state of anxiety for much of the story, with flashes of sarcasm, anger and desperation. TENSE present tense Summary • The narrator, an unnamed woman, has recently had a child (and in modern terms is suffering from post-partum depression). Upon retreating to a mansion to vacation for the summer her husband, John, thinks it best to confine her to an upstairs room for her mental well-being. • She begins to believe that another woman is behind the wallpaper, attempting to break free. The narrator begins to tear down pieces of the yellow wallpaper to rescue this trapped woman. • The summer draws to an end. The narrator has locked herself in and is tearing the last of the wallpaper off the wall. John finds the key and enters the room to find his wife creeping around strangely. • He faints as she exclaims, "I've got out at last...And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!" The narrator, continues to creep her path around the room stepping over her incapacitated husband as if he wasn't even there. Gilman uses literary techniques such as metaphors and similes to make comparisons that link two unrelated ideas. “the pattern lolls like a broken neck…” “Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good…” The repetition of ‘personally’ shows us how strongly the woman feels about her ‘loving’ imprisonment. Narration – 1st person The protagonist’s own words and the quotes, dashes, parentheses and incomplete sentences make it feel like her personal thoughts. This helps the reader to enter into the lonely and misunderstood universe in which the main characters is living. • Mental Illness • Relationship between husband and wife (misguided ‘love’) • Oppression • Freedom of self expression Conflict Person vs Self Person vs Society Genre Gothic or Psychological Fiction