Analyse af 'The Yellow Wallpaper'

Charlotte Perkins Gillman (1860-1935) was an American feminist, sociologist and novelist. She was a role model for the future generation in a time where women didn’t have any rights. What is quite remarkable is that she has a mental illness like the narrator in the text “The Yellow Wallpaper” which was the most popular short story she wrote.

The Yellow Wallpaper is about a woman, her husband, John, and their child. The women, which is the narrator, remain nameless. They have come to a large house for their vacation. It seems that John thinks this will be good for the narrator, since she has a mental illness. The narrator wants to sleep downstairs but John feels that it’s best for her to sleep upstairs in a room with bars at the window. The room seems to be a former nursery. It has scratches on the floor and a repellent yellow wallpaper. John is a doctor and says she shouldn’t write anything. The narrator gets these visions where she sees a woman standing behind bars at the wallpaper. She tries to peal of the wallpaper to free the woman and success. At last she gets insane and becomes the woman. The husband, John, breaks into the locked room and pass out at the floor. So now she has to creep over him every time!