Charlotte Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper
Study Questions
Gilman’s autobiographical novella has the ability, as an English critic put it, to “chill the blood.” We must read it (1) as a text documenting the prevalence and one form of treatment for the disease called “neurasthenic,” or nervousness, brought on in the medical lore of the time by the fast pace of modern life—fast trains, whizzing machines, clacking telegraphs, clicking stock tickers—all exhausting a person’s supply of nervous energy; (2) as a feminist commentary on the dependency of infantilized Victorian wives; and (3) as a cultural history of upper middle class professional life. Bear in mind that neurasthenia was widely diagnosed in the U.S. until the 1920s, in both men and women. For men the cure was entirely different, calling in most cases for robust exercise in the out-of-doors and for living what Teddy Roosevelt called the “strenuous life.” Reading this story, let’s think about the following:
1. What apparently brought on Charlotte’s illness? When did it strike? Who was treating her, and for what? What sort of cure was prescribed? How did her husband mediate between her and her doctor?
2. Why did John take his ailing wife to the country? What sort of house did they let? What is significant about Charlotte being assigned a former nursery with bars on the windows for her bedroom? How did the wallpaper seem to her at first? How did she respond to the cure prescribed for her? What happened when she broke the rules?
3. What was John’s profession? Specifically, what sort of medicine did he practice? Where? How did he view his wife’s role and duties? Was he a kind man? Did he love Charlotte? What kinds of names did he have for her? Did he “listen?”
4. John’s sister tells us much about the kind of life available at the turn of the century to unmarried women. What role did Mary play in the household? Did she resent Charlotte? What do you see in her folding of the linens?
5. How did Charlotte interact with her baby? Who provided the baby’s care?
6. How did Charlotte get on with her mother-in-law? Why did Charlotte break down when John’s mother came to lunch?
7. What was happening to the gardener’s daughter that Charlotte saw through the window?
8. As time passed, how did Charlotte come to feel about the wallpaper? What did she see in it? What did she do when John was away?
9. How do you react to the final scene? What had happened to Charlotte?
10. Do you find this story believable? Why or why not? Are there illnesses today that remind you of neurasthenia? What do we call them? Are any of them “women’s diseases?” How are they treated now? What does this tell us about changes in medicine?