Book Club Guide

The Yellow Wallpaper

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman · 1892 · Classics

Key themes

The rest cure and the medical control of women
Madness as the only escape from domesticity
The wallpaper as the narrator's unconscious — and her liberation

About this book

A woman recovering from a 'nervous condition' in a summer rental house is prescribed rest and forbidden from writing — and begins to fixate on the yellow wallpaper of her room, eventually believing a woman is trapped behind it. Gilman's semi-autobiographical short story is the foundational text of feminist literary criticism and one of the most-assigned texts in women's literature courses.

Published in 1892, The Yellow Wallpaper was largely ignored until its rediscovery by feminist literary critics in the 1970s. Gilman reportedly sent it to S. Weir Mitchell, the doctor who had prescribed her the rest cure.

Discussion questions

The narrator's husband John is also her doctor — and he is treating her for something he does not believe she has. How does Gilman develop this double authority — and what is she saying about the medical relationship to women's minds?
The narrator becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper. How does Gilman develop this obsession — and what does the woman behind the wallpaper represent?
The story is semi-autobiographical — Gilman was prescribed the rest cure by S. Weir Mitchell and wrote the story in response. How does knowing this change how you read it?
The ending is deliberately ambiguous. What has the narrator achieved — freedom, madness, or both simultaneously?
The Yellow Wallpaper is one of the most assigned short texts in American universities. What does it do in 3,000 words that longer novels about women's oppression cannot — and what does the brevity achieve?