Setting and Plot in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story that explores the submissive role of women in marriage as well as the need for self-expression. The setting of the tale, which is told through the narrator's private journal, contributes to the narrator's internal conflicts, as it prevents her from escaping them. Set in the late 19th century, the narrator is suffering from post-partum depression following the birth of her child. She is cared for by her husband, John, who is also conveniently her doctor. Through her journal, she documents the controlling nature of her husband, who keeps her isolated from the world so that her condition will improve. However, her disconnection from the real world only drives her closer to insanity.

In the story's time period, it was typical for women to be treated like children by their husbands. The narrator exhibits this each time she confronts John about the approach to her medical treatment. In response, he calls her “little girl” (322), or “his blessed little goose” (318). One time in particular, the narrator says, “And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and read to me till it tired my head” (321). This is certainly how one would treat their child, not their wife. This is further demonstrated when John insists the narrator stay in the upstairs nursery.

In this era it was also expected for women to obey their husbands without question. Although she desires to keep a journal to help relieve some of her stress, she knows her husband forbids it: “There comes John, and I must put this away – he hates to have me write a word” (317). She is cautious of her emotions around her husband, being careful to not show emotions around him or anyone else. “I take pains to control myself – before him, at least,” she says, “and that makes me very tired” (317).

Since scientific and medical knowledge was limited in the 19th century, and John is a medical authority, the narrator doesn't dare question her husband's medical advice, although she admits to disagreeing with his ideas. “So I take phosphates or phosphites – whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to 'work' until I am well again,” she says (316). It is obvious that she doesn't have much faith in any of these treatments, but is still expected to follow not only the doctor's – but her husband's – orders.

The room containing the yellow wallpaper, where John insists the narrator stay to rest, causes her to lose her sanity. It is a large upstairs room, which John boasts as being big and airy. First a nursery, then a playroom and gymnasium, the room reminds the narrator of all of the things she cannot have. Because it was a nursery and playroom, it is a constant reminder that she cannot be with her newborn baby. The fact that it was a gymnasium reminds her of fun, entertaining activities that she cannot participate in.

There are two windows in the room. One looks to the garden and derelict greenhouses and the other to the bay and a private wharf. These views only remind the narrator of the places she cannot go. Also, she describes the house as “A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate,” which leads the reader to believe it is in the south, perhaps on a plantation (316). The story also takes place during the Fourth of July. This information proves that the narrator is trapped inside during the beautiful summer months in a gorgeous area of the country, when getting outside for some excitement would seem to be particularly therapeutic. Furthermore, she claims the house is nearly three miles from town. Getting outside from time to time wouldn't have burdened the narrator or anyone else, but John insisted she stay inside and rest.

The room itself has bars on the window, which were probably initially installed to keep children safe. The narrator, though, sees them as the gates of her prison. While she is disgusted by the horrible yellow wallpaper, the pattern on it is the most mentally stimulating thing in the room. Therefore, it is not surprising when her focus on it turns into an obsession. The setting of the story directly contributes to the plot action, which develops as the narrator watches the wallpaper come to life. As the narrator perceives the wallpaper to become more and more bizarre, she becomes further and further detached from reality.

First, the narrator sees no design in the wallpaper. It was “one of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin,” with “lame uncertain curves” (317). She is mostly annoyed by the pattern and the fact that John won't let her tear down the paper. He thinks the fact that it irks her will do her some good. Later on, though, she starts to notice a pattern of a “broken neck and two bulbous eyes” emerging in the print. “I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before...” she now says (319). As the story progresses, she begins to see a sub-pattern in the wallpaper. “I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure,” she says, “that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design” (319). The narrator actually admits to becoming more child-like in her obsession with the wallpaper: “I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store” (319). She becomes the child John has created.

The story climaxes when the narrator notices a difference in the wallpaper during the day and at night. At night, the shape she's been focusing on becomes a woman trapped behind bars, but “by daylight she is subdued, quiet.” “I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still,” the narrator writes. “It is so puzzling. It keeps me quiet by the hour” (323). She assumes that the pattern is keeping the woman prisoner by day, until, one day, while looking out the window, she sees the woman “creeping” around the garden. She knows it is the woman in the wallpaper, because she says “she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight” (325). However, the narrator goes on to admit her similarity with the woman, admitting that she, too, creeps around in the daytime: “I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. I can't do it at night, for I know John would suspect something at once” (325).

As the narrator becomes more mentally unstable, she realizes that she must “free” the woman trapped in the wallpaper at night. When she begins tearing down the wallpaper, her character begins to merge with that of the woman she sees trapped: “I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper” (326). She further characterizes this figment of her imagination by working with her to tear down the bars. When the paper is torn down, the narrator looks out the window and remarks, “...there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did?” (327) At this point, she has become the woman in the wallpaper, as she directly refers to herself as the woman who escaped. But although the other women are “creeping” on the lawn, she suddenly finds the confinement of the room more comfortable, and begins crawling around the perimeter with her shoulder to the “smooch” on the wall. When her husband faints after seeing her mental state, she continues “creeping” around the room, crawling right over top of him each time she passes.

Setting is the literary device which drives Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The confinement of the narrator to the upstairs room explores the roles of women in marriage and society, as well as the importance of self-expression and social interaction. The yellow wallpaper in the room feeds the narrator's understimulated mind. She is rarely permitted visits with other people and is not even allowed to keep a private journal. She enters the story with many negative feelings regarding her husband's treatment of her, and the yellow wallpaper gives her something to focus on while pondering her situation. All the while, she becomes more obsessed, more manic, and more desperate for an escape.


Work Cited
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper. The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter and Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2006. 316-327.