‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ Review: A Woman’s Descent into Madness

“The Yellow Wallpaper” (also written with a hyphen as “The Yellow Wall-Paper“) is a short story by feminist author Charlotte Perkins Gilman, originally published in The New England Magazine in January 1892. It follows a woman diagnosed with “temporary nervous depression” and “a slight hysterical tendency” who becomes obsessed with the wallpaper in her bedroom.

A powerful, surreal and haunting tale of male domination and early attitudes toward mental illness, the central themes stayed with me long after I finished the last page.

So, what does Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story tell us about women’s mental illness in 19th-century America? And how do those attitudes resonate with modern readers today? Let’s take a closer look.

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ Summary: A Haunting Tale of Power and Control

“The Yellow Wallpaper” follows an unnamed narrator and her physician husband, John, during a summer tenancy at an old ancestral mansion.

The trip is intended to help the narrator overcome her ‘temporary nervous depression,’ but her mental health soon deteriorates. Her husband refuses to consult her about her treatment, and she’s forced to remain in the house with nothing to do.

With no other distractions, she becomes hyper-fixated on the wallpaper in her bedroom. She thinks she sees a woman hiding behind it, eventually pulling off all the paper to free her.

Dark and surreal, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a captivating story with its roots in a terrifying reality for 19th-century women.

Books Like ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’

“The Yellow Wallpaper” reminded me of a few other stories. Here are my suggestions if you liked Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s seminal text.

Editorial Note: Check out our list of best novels about mental illness.

‘May’ by Ali Smith

Ali Smith’s “May,” part of her “The Whole Story and Other Stories” collection, is a short story about a woman who falls in love with a tree. It’s very surreal, with evocative descriptions that bring the tree to life. This style reminded me of “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Both texts have an odd, almost sad nature.

‘The Bell Jar’ by Sylvia Plath

“The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath is a feminist text about mental illness, treatment and misogyny, with a first-person narrator whose mental health starts to deteriorate.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s early work in feminist literature arguably created the foundation for later writers like Plath. I recommend checking out both texts.

Editorial Note: Read our full review of “The Bell Jar” here.

Audience and Genre: Is ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ a Horror Story?

It’s hard to define the genre of “The Yellow Wallpaper.” It is feminist literature and psychological fiction, but its surreal nature has also seen it classed as horror. Although the narrator seems to be hallucinating due to her mental illness, the story is still very creepy, with a classic horror setup.

I imagine “The Yellow Wallpaper” will resonate with women in particular. It will appeal to feminist readers who are interested in the gendered power dynamics of the 19th century, especially those between a woman and her doctor husband.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s other works also explore the role of women’s oppression, such as her novel, “Herland,” which centers on a female utopia destroyed by men.

Perspective: A First-Person Unreliable Narrator

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is told in first person, closely following the unnamed narrator’s experiences. She is writing secret journal entries, as her husband has banned her from writing or exerting herself in any way.

The story is written in the present tense. This gives the text an effective sense of immediacy, and it is a powerful tool for expressing the narrator’s consciousness. We can follow the events as they occur, much like the narrator herself.

The story follows just that one perspective, which gives us direct insight into the narrator’s mental illness. However, she is likely unreliable.

Although this isn’t a problem in itself, we should exercise some caution when judging her point of view. Like the narrator herself, we don’t know exactly what is happening as the story progresses.

Three Cs: Compelling, Clear, Concise

Editorial Note: We believe these three factors are important for evaluating general writing quality across every aspect of the book. Before you get into further analysis, here’s a quick breakdown to clarify how we’re using these words:

• Compelling: Does the author consistently write in a way that would make most readers emotionally invested in the book’s content?
• Clear: Are most sentences and parts of the book easy enough to read and understand?
• Concise: Are there sections or many sentences that could be cut? Does the book have pacing problems?

Compelling: A Story of Surrealism and Suspense

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short but compelling read. Despite the unusual story matter, I think the reader will really care about what happens to the characters.

The evocative descriptions and prose style are engaging, with short and blunt narration that builds suspense.

Clear: An Insight into Mental Turmoil

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is written in a sporadic, often confusing way. This style appears to be a plot device to express the narrator’s inner turmoil. There is a significant change in tone and expression as she becomes more and more obsessed with the wallpaper.

For example, the quote “I kept still and watched the moonlight on that undulating wallpaper till I felt creepy” gives some idea of the compelling but complex nature of the text.

I found the story easy to follow, but some subtextual elements may need further research. It’s not always clear what is purely for plot and what represents a deeper contextual issue, such as women’s position in society.

Concise: A Very Short Story That Packs a Punch

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a very short story. My copy was only 15 pages. This brevity means it avoids falling into any common writing traps such as waffling or fluffy language.

The pacing was good, and the story successfully builds suspense to keep the reader interested from start to finish.

Character Development: A Patronizing Husband, a Mentally Ill Narrator and a Wallpaper That Comes Alive

The main characters in “The Yellow Wallpaper” are the unnamed narrator and her husband, John. There is also a nurse or nanny, Mary, and John’s sister, Jennie, whose role in the house seems to represent a 19th-century domestic ideal.

The narrator comes across as an obsessive and severely frustrated character. She wants a voice in her treatment — which she is denied — and she soon becomes fixated on the wallpaper in her bedroom.

Her symptoms suggest she has at least one mental illness. Phrases like “And yet I cannot be with him [the baby], it makes me so nervous” suggest she may be struggling with post-natal depression or anxiety. She clearly feels frustrated by her lack of exertion.

John, in comparison, comes across as logical and measured. He controls the narrator and treats her like a child, gaslighting her about her own health.

The narrator is a semi-autobiographical version of the author herself. She is a writer like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who was also subject to the ‘rest cure’ as a remedy for her symptoms of postpartum depression. Perkins believed women should have a voice in their own treatment. We can see this view in the relationship between the narrator and her husband.

Arguably, the woman behind the wallpaper is also a character. “It is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern.” She mirrors the narrator, a representation of women’s confinement to the domestic sphere.

The characters feel very unique, especially for the time. However, I can see that a modern reader might see them as falling into certain tropes, such as the subjugated woman and the oppressive husband. In 1892, this was a very radical text.

Story: Surreal But Compelling

I think most readers will find “The Yellow Wallpaper” an engaging and fast-paced read. It’s very short and uses suspense to keep the reader hooked. It also has a satisfying but slightly ambiguous ending.

However, some of the more surreal elements of the story may lose some readers, such as when the narrator describes the wallpaper at length.

For me, it was these strange elements that kept me invested in the narrator’s story. I was intrigued, and I wanted to see what would happen at the end.

Prose Style: The Power of Symbolism

The prose style of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is unique, even if the genre is a little hard to identify. The author uses the narrator to relate the plot to the reader, but it doesn’t feel like she is over-explaining or prioritizing ‘tell’ over ‘show.’

For example, John’s oppression is often subtle. The author shows that he controls the narrator without her having to actually come out and say it, using her prose to put forward radical ideas about women and men.

The text uses simple language, except in its descriptions of the wallpaper. For this, the author uses a good deal of imagery and symbolism to show the narrator’s obsessive nature.

She uses very evocative, often violent prose about the wallpaper – “It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream.” The reader, like the narrator, almost forgets that she’s describing wallpaper. This personification represents a real descent into madness.

Dialogue: Just Enough to Complement the Story

There isn’t a lot of dialogue in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” as the story is written as journal entries. Nonetheless, the dialogue between John and the narrator is telling.

It helps to build up his character into an oppressive, patronizing and controlling man. For example, “What is it, little girl?” shows how he belittles and infantilizes her.

The dialogue also supports the narrator’s suggestion that her opinions are being dismissed. For example, “She shall be as sick as she pleases!” He speaks to the narrator in third-person, as if she’s not even there.

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ Setting: The Perfect Setup For a Creepy Horror Story

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is set in a colonial American mansion. The narrator describes the house as haunted, using the line, “there is something strange about the house — I can feel it.”

In the house, the narrator is confined to just one room, where she soon becomes fixated on the wallpaper. She uses lines like “The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering, unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight” to build up a picture of the paper and its significance.

The author dedicates a lot of time to describing the setting of the story. This structure is because the wallpaper and the room it decorates are central to the narrator’s turmoil. The house, the bedroom and the wallpaper create a perfect setting for a surreal story.

Rhetoric: An Indictment of 19th-Century Doctors

In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman puts across a rhetoric against the male control of the medical profession during the late 19th century.

She depicts a woman who feels lost and unheard. She tries to speak to her husband about her treatment, but she is frequently ignored. As the story goes on, she doesn’t ‘get better’ and instead seems to get worse under John’s care.

It’s not just her husband she vilifies, but other doctors, too. This rhetoric is in keeping with the author’s own experiences of mental illness and her subjection to the ‘rest cure.’

Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses her story to look at how this woman’s mental illness is directly related to her lack of control, as well as her inability to do anything outside the home, as was the case for many women of the era.

Although the author herself experienced similar struggles to the narrator, it doesn’t feel like she awkwardly inserts her opinion into the story. The rhetoric works well alongside the narrator’s experiences in the text.

Cultural and Political Significance: Why We Dismiss the Conditions We Cannot See

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is one of the most famous early examples of this type of feminist text. The author shows the lack of control women had during the 19th century, even over their own bodies.

I think this is culturally and politically relevant even today. With a lack of research around women’s health, we see women being similarly belittled or patronized when it comes to their own well-being. The themes in “The Yellow Wallpaper” ring true in the refusal of the medical world — and society as a whole — to recognize women’s health conditions like endometriosis, for example.

Women’s pain is still not taken as seriously as it should be, in part due to this lack of research. For many years, the medical world has only studied men’s bodies and minds, which has led to a refusal to believe or correctly diagnose women’s health conditions. Because of the sexist idea of women being ‘hormonal,’ doctors often focus too much on hormone-related health issues, at the expense of missing other diagnoses.

In many cases, a woman may be diagnosed with hormonal issues or anxiety without any real effort to discover the root problem or provide her with the necessary treatment. It’s amazing, really, and very disappointing to see how relevant “The Yellow Wallpaper” still is for women of the 21st century.

The book also puts forward relevant ideas about the dismissal of mental health. “He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.” This line illustrates a disparaging attitude toward mental health that still feels very prevalent today, for both men and women.

Critiquing the Critics: Is ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ Too Confusing?

“The Yellow Wallpaper” has been held up by critics as a feminist text. The author uses her story to express a shocking reality for women stuck in the domestic sphere.

Browsing through public reader reviews, however, I was shocked to see that some people had a negative reaction to the story. They believed John was unfair to dismiss the narrator, and this is why they disliked the book.

While it is disturbing to see a woman ignored and belittled, I believe this mistreatment is the point of the story. It is a scathing look at women’s lack of control over their own health. It may be uncomfortable to read, but it’s an important text for that reason.

Other readers criticize the book for being too confusing. I think this critique is fair, especially considering the sporadic prose style and the surreal nature of the text.

I was aware of the historical and literary context surrounding the story before I started to read it, so perhaps some themes may be a little harder to grapple with if you come to the book purely for pleasure.

Book Aesthetic: The Wallpaper Takes Center Stage

Although “The Yellow Wallpaper” was first published in a magazine, it has since been published alone and alongside other short stories by the same author.

Most covers of the book feature the same close-up image of yellow wallpaper on a wall, including my 2018 copy. This aesthetic demonstrates the importance of the wallpaper in the story and its significance to both the narrator and the plot.

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ Book vs. Movies and Stageplays: Why So Many Film Adaptations?

There are at least five film adaptations of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” as well as plenty of stage plays, student productions and audio performances.

In 1977, Marie Ashton adapted the story into a 14-minute film. This adaptation is one of the most truthful to the book. It’s short, but it accurately portrays the narrator’s attempts to advocate for her own health.

In 1989, John Clive went on to adapt the film, this time as a feature-length TV movie. It depicts the narrator’s isolation and slow descent into madness. However, it changes the plot in a few places.

Logan Thomas’s 2011 movie also moves away from the traditional plot of “The Yellow Wallpaper.” It has very little in common with the original, using the premise of the book to create a supernatural horror story.

In 2016, Kourosh Ahari released a more faithful adaptation of “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The film uses a 1950s setting, which fits with the themes of male domination and women’s confinement to the domestic sphere. It has positive ratings from viewers, and does a good job of representing one woman’s inner turmoil.

In 2021, director K Pontuti released her adaptation of “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Starring Alexandra Loreth and Joe Mullins, the film creates a more realistic psychological horror story for fans of the book.

However, this list is by no means exhaustive. There’s also John McCarty’s 2009 short film “Confinement,” based on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, and a 2022 academic dramatization by the Northeast Georgia History Center.

Stage Adaptations of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’

There are also numerous stage adaptations of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” including Nightwood Theatre’s production in 1981, Rummage Theatre’s 2014 play “Behind the Wallpaper,” and an opera from 2023 by British composer Dani Howard.

It’s fascinating to see how these stageplays use the text as the jumping-off point for new forms of expression. Musician Hardy Fox even used “The Yellow Wallpaper” to inspire music for his album, “Wallpaper,” in which he reverses the roles played by the narrator and her husband.

All of this production begs the question: Why this story? Why has this text catalyzed so much creative investment? It’s all down to the enduring, relevant nature of the text.

The story may be short, but it’s complex. It’s about women’s oppression and mental health, with surreal, supernatural elements. This combination provides a rich tapestry of themes for filmmakers and directors to explore.

This versatility also explains why not all of these adaptations are true to the book. Instead many film and stage adaptations have used “The Yellow Wallpaper” as an opportunity to explore a diverse range of subjects.

Reviewer’s Personal Opinion: A Strange, Scary and Powerful Story That Resonated With Me as a Feminist

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a shocking, scary and thoughtful story that’s stayed with me ever since I first read it. On the surface, a story about a woman who becomes obsessed with wallpaper sounds very odd. However, I found myself captivated by the narrator’s struggles.

I love first-person narration and unreliable, flawed characters. I’ve always been a big fan of feminist literature in any form.

I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on the gendered implications of asylum admission during the 19th and 20th centuries, so I’ve spent a good deal of time reading case studies about women like the narrator of this story.

It was fascinating to follow a fictionalized feminist text about the same subject, and it’s a story that still feels all too relevant today.

For that reason, it made me feel sad at times. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is not always an easy read. It forced me to think about the reality of women’s lives in 19th-century America.

I recommend “The Yellow Wallpaper” for readers who like “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath and “Wide Sargasso Sea” by Jean Rhys.

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ Review: A Haunting Look at One Woman’s Mental Unravelling

For some, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story of a spirit haunting a mansion. For me, it’s a powerful tale of one woman’s oppression in 19th-century America.

The prose style and literary devices work well to build suspense, with evocative imagery and a good use of dialogue, rhetoric and psychological fiction tropes throughout.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman perfectly captures the feeling of being dismissed that many women face, using her own experiences to inform the text.

Overall, I’ve chosen to give the story 4 out of 5 stars. I can see how it may be a little confusing in places, especially for first-time readers who aren’t aware of the historical or social context. This idea is backed by public readers.

Still, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a nuanced and haunting look at a descent into madness. It’s well worth a read for feminist readers and those interested in early attitudes to mental health.

Buying and Rental Options

E-Commerce Text and Audio Purchases

• Amazon
• eBay

E-Commerce Audio Only

• Audible

Physical Location Purchase and Rental Options

You can buy “The Yellow Wallpaper” from most major stores and independent bookshops. You can also borrow the story from your public library.

You may find the story published alongside other short stories by the same author, such as “Three Thanksgivings” and “Turned.”

Digital Rental Options

You can borrow a digital version of “The Yellow Wallpaper” from many major public libraries. Because the story is so short, you may also be able to download the full book from a site like Project Gutenberg.