Foreshadowing In The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Do not hide who you are or you might go crazy. This is a common theme in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In this story, a man named John takes his wife to an abandoned mental institution with the hope of curing her postpartum depression. The institution is three miles out of town and she believes that it is an upscale estate. John plans to spend three months in the institution. He brings her to a room with yellow wallpaper, a bed that is nailed to the ground, and barred windows. As the days progress the narrator is not allowed to write and she grows to hate the yellow wallpaper. She is disturbed by the paper and wants to tear it down, but does not have the nerve to tell him. She stews and grows fascinated with the wallpaper. Jennie comes to help with taking care of the narrator. She eventually starts to see a woman

She decides that it would be the best to rip down the wallpaper to free the woman so she tears most of it off and creeps around her room. She fully loses her sanity. The ending of “The Yellow Wallpaper” should not have been a surprise because of the foreshadowing: descriptions of the room’s destruction, references to the narrator’s mental condition, and her changing attitude toward the wallpaper. One way the author foreshadows that the narrator is becoming mentally unstable is by describing the room’s deteriorating condition. Toward the beginning of the story the narrator feels as if the room is “a big, airy room.. with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore” (par. 31). At this point in the story, her mental stability is quite stable and not trapped yet. She also felt that it was a “comfortable room as anyone would wish” (par.55). She felt comfortable because she was not isolated long enough for her mental health to deteriorate. While the narrator is examining the room,