The Yellow Wall-Paper (Gilman)
Short Summary
A colonial mansion, late 19th century. A young woman moved into a rented summer house with her physician husband John, who prescribed her rest cure for nervous depression.
The couple occupied a former nursery with barred windows and yellow wallpaper that the narrator found repulsive. Despite her wishes to change rooms or remove the wallpaper, John insisted she stay there. Forbidden to work or write, she secretly kept a journal, documenting her growing obsession with the wallpaper's pattern. She began seeing a woman trapped behind it, creeping around and trying to escape.
As her mental state deteriorated, she became convinced that she and other women were trapped behind the wallpaper. On their last night in the house, she locked herself in the room and began tearing down the paper. When John finally broke in, he found her creeping around the room in circles.
I've got out at last, in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back! Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall.
Detailed Summary
Division of the summary into chapters is conditional.
Moving to the Colonial Mansion
A young woman and her physician husband John rented an ancestral hall for the summer. Though she found something strange about the property, particularly its low rental price and long vacancy, her husband dismissed her concerns with laughter.
John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.
The narrator suffered from what she believed was more than temporary nervous depression, but both her husband and her physician brother insisted nothing was seriously wrong with her. They prescribed rest, air, and exercise, forbidding her to work until she recovered. Though she disagreed, believing that stimulating work and social interaction would help, she had no choice but to follow their treatment plan.
If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?
Life in the New House
The couple occupied the nursery at the top of the house, a large, airy room with barred windows and rings in the walls. The narrator particularly disliked the room's yellow wallpaper, which featured a bizarre, sprawling pattern that seemed to commit every artistic sin. Despite her aversion to the wallpaper, John refused to change it, claiming she was letting it get the better of her.
The color is repelllent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.
The narrator continued to write in secret, though it exhausted her to be so sly. Mary took care of the baby, as the narrator's nervous condition prevented her from handling childcare duties. John's sister Jennie managed the household, watching over the narrator with excessive attention.
Obsession with the Wallpaper
As time passed, the narrator became increasingly fixated on the yellow wallpaper. She spent hours studying its chaotic patterns and discovered a strange sub-pattern visible only in certain lights. Eventually, she began to see a figure in the pattern - a woman stooping down and creeping behind the main design.
Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern.
Her mental state deteriorated as she became convinced that the wallpaper had a foul odor that permeated the house. She noticed a strange streak along the wall where the paper appeared to have been rubbed repeatedly. The narrator's behavior grew increasingly erratic, though she tried to hide it from John and Jennie. She began sleeping during the day and staying awake at night to watch the wallpaper, convinced that the woman trapped behind it was trying to break free.
Descent into Madness
The narrator's obsession with the wallpaper intensified. She became suspicious of both John and Jennie, believing they were also fascinated by the wallpaper but trying to hide it. She caught Jennie touching the wallpaper once, and though Jennie claimed she was only concerned about the yellow stains it left on their clothes, the narrator was convinced she was studying the pattern.
As their lease neared its end, the narrator's delusions grew stronger. She became convinced that there were many women trapped behind the pattern, all trying to break free. She began to see these women creeping around outside during the day, and believed she was one of them.
I don't like to look out of the windows even—there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did?
The Final Day
On their last day in the house, John was away in town. The narrator locked herself in the room and began tearing off the wallpaper, determined to free the woman trapped behind it. She sent Jennie away, claiming she would sleep until dinner. As she pulled off the paper, she imagined she was working together with the woman behind it.
When John returned, he found the door locked and had to search for the key outside. Upon entering, he discovered the room stripped of wallpaper and his wife creeping along the wall. She had come to believe she was the woman who had escaped from behind the pattern. When John fainted at the sight, she continued to creep around the room, forced to crawl over his unconscious body as she circled the walls.
The story revealed how the rest cure and enforced isolation, common treatments for women's 'nervous conditions' in the nineteenth century, could actually worsen mental health. Through the narrator's descent into madness, it illustrated the devastating effects of suppressing women's intellectual and creative needs while dismissing their concerns and autonomy.