A Study Guide for Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "Yellow Wallpaper"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "Yellow Wallpaper," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jun 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535843430

Book preview

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The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

1892

Introduction

The Yellow Wallpaper, first published in 1892 in the New England Magazine, is largely considered Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s best work of short fiction. The story is a first-person account of a young mother’s mental deterioration and is based on Gilman’s own experiences with postpartum depression. Like Gilman, the unnamed protagonist of the story is advised, based on medical theories of the time, to abstain from any and all physical activity and intellectual stimulation. She is not allowed to read, write, or even see her new baby. To carry out this treatments, the woman’s husband takes her to a country house where she is kept in a former nursery decorated with yellow