Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• The Yellow Wallpaper

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Biography

• Though she is best known for her short story "The
  Yellow Wallpaper," Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a
  novelist, poet, lecturer, social commentator, and
  journalist with a major influence on countless
  women past and present.

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Bio

• Born Charlotte Anna Perkins on July 3, 1860, in
  Hartford, Connecticut, Gilman was the great-niece
  of 19th-century writer Harriet Beecher Stowe
  (author of Uncle Tom's Cabin).
• After two of Gilman's siblings died, her mother
  was told not to have any other children. Gilman's
  father soon left the family, perhaps from fear of
  killing his wife in childbirth.

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Bio

• Gilman attended college, but dropped out and
  married artist Charles Walter Stetson.
• In 1885, the couple had a daughter, but Gilman
  had developed neurasthenia, an emotional disorder
  characterized by fatigue and depression.
• Doctor Silas Weir Mitchell's unsuccessful
  prescription of a "rest cure" in 1887 prompted
  Gilman to write "The Yellow Wallpaper," a
  harrowing tale of a neurasthenic woman's growing
  insanity and feminist awareness.
• Gilman later divorced her husband and earned a
  living by writing.

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Bio

• Gilman continued writing after her happy
  remarriage to her cousin George Houghton Gilman
  in 1900.
• In 1932, she learned she had incurable breast
  cancer.
• Wanting to be in charge of her own death, she
  committed suicide with an overdose of chloroform
  on August 17, 1935.

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Major Themes inThe Yellow Wallpaper

• Female Imprisonment
• In "The Yellow Wallpaper," wallpaper, a usually
  feminine, floral decoration on the interior of
  walls, is a symbol of female imprisonment.
• When John curbs her creativity and writing, the
  narrator takes it upon herself to make some sense
  of the wallpaper.

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Sunlight as oppressive, moonlight as liberating

• Sunlight is associated with John's ordered,
  dominating schedule he prescribes something for
  the narrator for every waking hour while he goes
  about his daily rounds.
• More importantly, the mind roams free at night,
  as in during dreams. It is always by moonlight, a
  traditional symbol of femininity, that the
  narrator understands more about the figure
  trapped within the wallpaper.

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Aesthetic changes through insanity

• The narrator's tone changes from naïve and
  depressed to paranoid and excited, and as she
  grows insane, her sentences reflect the state of
  her mind.
• Much like the chaotic pattern in the wallpaper,
  the sentences get choppy and confusing, grafting
  together disconnected one-line comments.

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Characters inThe Yellow Wallpaper

• Narrator The narrator (whose name we learn at
  the end is Jane) is married to John and dominated
  by him.
• As she recuperates with neurasthenia in a room in
  a rented mansion, he does not allow her to do
  anything but rest, and especially forbids her
  from the creative work of writing.
• She eventually goes completely crazy.

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Characters

• John John, a doctor, is married to the narrator,
  but he treats her more like an infant. He
  frequently refers to her with the diminutive tag
  of "'little,'" and acts as if she cannot make any
  decisions on her own.
• Modeled on Silas Weir Mitchell, the doctor who
  prescribed Gilman an ineffective "rest cure" in
  1887, John forbids the narrator from working on
  anything creative while she recovers.
• He believes in a strict divide between men and
  women.

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Characters

• Woman in the wallpaper Although the narrator
  eventually believes she sees many women in the
  yellow wallpaper, she centers on one. The woman
  appears trapped within the bar-like pattern of
  the wallpaper, and she shakes the pattern as she
  tries to break out (and eventually succeeds).
• The woman's habit of "creeping" about suggests
  that she, and other early feminists, must hide in
  the shadows for now while they plot their
  strategy, but soon will be able to stand tall.

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Characters

• Jennie John's sister, Jennie is a perfect and
  enthusiastic housekeeper who wants nothing else
  out of life.
• Mary The nanny, Mary takes care of the narrator
  and John's baby. With her name a possible
  allusion to the Virgin Mary, Mary is the perfect
  mother-surrogate for the narrator.

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Definitions

• Felicity great happiness
• Fancy think ( I fancy it a good idea) or like (I
  fancy him)
• Atrocious revolting
• Impertinence rudeness
• Querulous always complaining