Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute Home Gothic and the Female Voice: Examining Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" by
Lisa Galullo Contents of Curriculum Unit 99.01.07: Introduction Summary of "The Yellow Wallpaper" Contexts ... To Guide Entry Introduction As urban schools attempt to expand the list of multicultural readings assigned to high school students, women writers are often still excluded from the curriculum. The unit, "Gothic and the Female Voice: Examining Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper" is intended for a college preparatory English class that focuses on American Literature in its historical context. The unit will follow one on Edgar Allan Poe's stories and poetry. While I plan to use the unit with a class of sophomores, it is easily adaptable to any secondary level English class. Lastly, a story like "The Yellow Wallpaper," which raises questions more than provides answers, is a teacher's favorite for any literature class. The story provides a literature class with endless issues for discussion, areas for debate and topics for writing practice. Summary of "The Yellow Wallpaper" In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator suffers from a nervous condition, and her husband, who was a doctor, recommends that she recuperate in solitude. He has forbidden her to write, because he insists it is too taxing, so she writes her journal in secret. She sleeps in a large room she believes was once a nursery. The room contains a bed, barred windows and ugly yellow wallpaper. The woman slowly becomes obsessed with the hideous wallpaper. She stares at the pattern and eventually decides that it depicts a woman trapped behind bars. Ultimately, she locks herself in the room and starts to peel the paper off the walls. She begins to think that she is a part of the wallpaper pattern and crawls along the floor following the pattern. Her husband returns home to find her crawling along the floor. He faints across her path, and she continues to crawl over him. | |
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