Questions to answer for “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Directions: After you read the story, answer the following questions on a sheet of notebook paper. Be prepared to discuss this story next class. Please turn in the story, this sheet, and your answers at the end of the period. Please don’t write on this sheet or the story; this allows me to save paper.
1. At the story’s beginning, John recommends idleness and isolation as remedies for the narrator’s “nervous depression.” She thinks a little work and company would do her some good. Who is right? What does this say about the medical treatment of the times?
2. Both of the narrator’s doctors are men. What does their attitude say about the male view of the psychological needs of women?
3. How does her attitude toward the wallpaper change? What does she think of it? What does it come to represent?
4. Why should she be fascinated by the wallpaper?
5. When does the narrator come to realize that she has difficulty in thinking straight?
6. Toward the middle of the story, John tells his wife that she is improving. Is he sincere? Why does he tell her of the improvement? Are his motives selfless?
7. Sigmund Freud believed that one’s fantasies had meaning. Is there any reason the narrator should hallucinate the figure she sees?
Questions to answer for “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Directions: After you read the story, answer the following questions on a sheet of notebook paper. Be prepared to discuss this story next class. Please turn in the story, this sheet, and your answers at the end of the period. Please don’t write on this sheet or the story; this allows me to save paper.
1. At the story’s beginning, John recommends idleness and isolation as remedies for the narrator’s “nervous depression.” She thinks a little work and company would do her some good. Who is right? What does this say about the medical treatment of the times?
2. Both of the narrator’s doctors are men. What does their attitude say about the male view of the psychological needs of women?
3. How does her attitude toward the wallpaper change? What does she think of it? What does it come to represent?
4. Why should she be fascinated by the wallpaper?
5. When does the narrator come to realize that she has difficulty in thinking straight?
6. Toward the middle of the story, John tells his wife that she is improving. Is he sincere? Why does he tell her of the improvement? Are his motives selfless?
7. Sigmund Freud believed that one’s fantasies had meaning. Is there any reason the narrator should hallucinate the figure she sees?