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The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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“The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a short story that portrays a very common view of nineteenth century culture and medicine. The story, written in classical fiction form, has a plot, setting, a cast of characters, and a point of view from which the story is told. The way in which the story is told, and the unexpected conclusion, are two of the main reasons why “The Yellow Wallpaper” is such an important piece of nineteenth century fiction. There are few characters in the story; however, each one plays a crucial role in allowing the reader to come to a deeper understanding of the meaning behind the story by allowing the reader insight into the mind of the narrator.
The two main characters, John, a physician, and his wife, are renting a beautiful, secluded estate for the summer. The first line of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” “it is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral homes for the summer” (Gilman 202), serves a dual purpose as it both introduces the setting of the story, as well as the story’s narrator. The narrator, John’s wife, suffers from what her husband believes is a “slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 202), and it is because of this tendency that he deciders to take her away for the summer with the hope that a change of scenery will help her recover.
John is a practical physician, a rational man, and a flat character who “has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly
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