The Yellow WallPaperBy Gaston Posse, Salvador Castagnino, Matias Giambruni and Juan Stordeur

The story begins with the narrator and her husband John are renting a beautiful, estate for the summer. The narrator suffers from what her husband believes is a temporary nervous depression. He orders her to rest as much as possible, and picks a room in the house for the two of them. The narrator feels really uncomfortable with the estate, but obeys her husband’s decision for the two of them to stay there. She also obeys him when he chooses the room on the top floor instead of another one that she prefers. Since her husband is a doctor, he wins all their arguments. Also the narrator would like to spend her time writing, but her husband, brother, and the rest of her family think this is a terrible idea. So the narrator is living in a house in which she feels uncomfortable, in a room she hasn’t picked out, and is forbidden to do the only activity she enjoys. Although all these things, she becomes absolutely obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in her room. She begins fanatically tracing the pattern of the wallpaper and soon becomes convinced that there is a woman trapped within the paper. Before the narrator is due to depart the house, she decides that she must free the trapped woman by stripping the wallpaper off. When her husband comes into the room, the narrator declares that she is now free. Furthermore, seeing his wife creeping around the room peeling the paper off the walls, he faints.

VocabularyTonic: a medicine that helps with our body's strength.

Fancy: think about something, imagine.

Congenial: suitable to your needs.

Flamboyant: tending to attract the attention.

Lurid: shining with an unnatural glow.

AtrociousNo : in bad conditions.

Vocabulary

Whim: an odd idea.

Riotous: that grow in extreme abundance.

Loll: hang loosely.

Querulous: all the time complaining

Misconstrue: interpret in a wrong way

Debase: making something impure

Vocabulary

Physician: doctor.

Sly: mischievous

Draught: current of air.

Stripped off: removed

Stir: move

Gothic Elements

- Isolated Mansion: As any other gothic novel, the story is set in the narrator's mansion by her own.

- Supernatural Presence: The yellow wallpaper, besides a simple decoration, has its supernatural qualities too, like having a pattern that moves and having a woman inside of it.

- Insane Character: Our narrator is isolated from society and is only able to communicate to people that she fears, John and his sister. As any sick person that is alone all the time, she ends up mad.

- Mystery: There is a mystery towards the wallpaper and what it is its relation to John and his sister, the woman that seems to be trapped inside of it and why our narrator has such a strong fascination for it.

TONE: IRONIC, UNCERTAIN

Characters

● The narrator: married to john, and already a mother, the narrator is a woman which is undergoing a case of depression. She is imaginative and a has hysterical tendencies

● John: The narrator´s husband. He is loving and caring for his wife. He is a physician, and restricts her movement around the house to help her treatment. He is also a very fancy man

● Jennie: John´s sister. She is also loving and caring, like his brother. She acts as her housekeeper, to help her while she undergoes her treatment

Themes

The theme of this story is the madness that grows inside the narrator as the story progresses. This madness is created by the confined environment in which she is put in, and how this makes her lose her sanity. What is most important about this is that since this is first person story, we can see her insanity from her own eyes.