Charlotte Perkins Gillmore "The yellow wallpaper"

Question 1

What is the wallpaper acting as?

Answer 1

-an escape from her own bigger problem

Question 2

What is being oppressed?

Answer 2

her creativity is being oppressed by society, her husband and her life

Question 3

Why does she stop writing?

Answer 3

because her sister-in-law who also represents oppressors in society

Question 4

What happens when she tries to analyze the wallpaper?

Answer 4

• she begins to lose hope in herself and her creativity
• begins to blame herself for her weakness, but in reality, society pushes this weakness upon her through repression/oppression

Question 5

What does the woman behind the wallpaper represent?

Answer 5

• represents her and her thoughts
• At last, she pulls the wall paper away → she was trapped by her creativity and personality but at last, she learned how to escape
• Her husband (men) and housekeeper (society) kept her trapped
• When they were removed, she was able to escape

Question 6

How was the wallpaper a symbol for her struggles?

Answer 6

• the woman that is hiding behind the wallpaper represents her subconscious.
• all of her efforts and thoughts are put into trying to help this woman escape.
• she becomes consumed with the woman who is trapped, making it her life goal to set her free, and in turn, setting herself free as well.

Question 7

What is the outcome for women when they are controlled to that extent? What is the illness that men blamed this on, how was it healed?

Answer 7

• their mental sanity is at risk, they lose all independent thought and begin to believe that they are unable to think or make decisions for themselves.
• men blamed this on hysteria, any women that was driven mad due to men owning them was labelled as hysteric
• the only way that hysteria could be healed was to rest and to have constant careful attention (this made it worse for the woman)

Question 8

“But in the places where it isn’t faded and where the sun is just so – I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design”

Explain the significance of this quote.

Answer 8

• Shows the vicious influence that the wallpaper had on her life.
• the wallpaper mocks her, showing that she is trapped
• idk bullshit this

Question 9

How does the text within the text relate to all women in society?

Answer 9

• men projecting this fragile view upon women, and how they don’t take us seriously
• women always exist behind men, the revelations about how women are always hidden, we don’t blame men, we blame the entire system and scaffold

Question 10

How could this text relate to indigenous women?

Answer 10

indigenous women are trapped behind the gov of canada, so they try to pull down the wallpaper, simultaneously pulling down the structure

Question 11

What do “the creeping women” symbolize?

Answer 11

they symbolize society and its surveillance over women.

- The woman becomes too scared to stay awake in the daylight hours, avoiding “the creeping women”