“The Yellow Wallpaper” Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1899)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman ~ 1860 – 1935 Feminist Social reformer Sociologist Novelist Lecturer

To guide your reading… 1)As you read, underline the description of the wallpaper. You can revisit this later. 2) Ask yourself about the narrator’s relationship with her role in the home, level of power, and with her husband? – Does she seem to agree or disagree with her position? – What power does she take over her situation and her course of treatment?

Homework: A one or two paragraph response. In a paragraph or two, trace the evolution of the wallpaper and describe how it works as a symbol to support a bigger theme in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Please effectively use at least one specific from the text (yes, a quote).

Charlotte Perkins Quote It is not that women are really smaller-minded, weaker-minded, more timid and vacillating, but that whosoever, man or woman, lives always in a small, dark place, is always guarded, protected, directed and restrained, will become inevitably narrowed and weakened by it. The woman is narrowed by the home and the man is narrowed by the woman.

Charlotte Perkins Quote (#2) It is the duty of youth to bring fresh new powers to bear on Social progress. Each generation of young people should be to the world like a vast reserve force to a tired army. They should lift the world forward. That is what they are for.