Focus Questions: "The Yellow Wall-Paper"

1. What sort of case can be made that the husband is really trying to drive his wife insane? Does he have any defenses to that charge?

2. In what ways does the image of the yellow wallpaper contribute to the story?

3. What does Gilman achieve by allowing the wife to tell her own story?

4. What is dramatic irony? Are there many instances of this form of irony in the short story?

5. Trace the progress through the story of the narrator's "temporary nervous depression."

6. Show that the short story can be read as a parable or allegory of the plight of women in a man's world.

7. Explain the relationship between the style of "The Yellow Wall-Paper"--the way the story is presented--and its content or meaning.

8. Does the short story as a whole endorse or undermine the attitude expressed by the narrator's husband: "[John] has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures"?