1."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."

In these three pages, the wallpaper seems to take on more and more prominence, in contrast to the "dead" paper the Narrator confides her thoughts to, in fact, it seems to have come alive.

Writer Umberto Eco said that a "good metaphor" is one which "like a good joke, offers a shortcut through the labyrinth of limitless semiosis."

Could the wallpaper in this story be a metaphor and symbolize something?

Does the wallpaper mirror the life of the Narrator in any way?

In what different ways might the wallpaper symbolize the Narrator's own life?

2. As the story progresses, the Narrator becomes more and more cut off from communication and social interaction with others. Even in communication with her own husband, she adopts a different voice than she does in her journal writing: she takes on a facade.

Why does she adopt this facade with her husband? What are the reasons she gives? Why does she feel this way?

Which seems more alive by Page 5, her own life or the wallpaper, and what does it mean that her own thoughts are on "dead paper," while so much lives and moves in the wallpaper?

3. "John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall."

Who is Weir Mitchell?

What is "delirium tremens?"

What is neurasthenia?

What is the state of medical practice when this story takes place?

What is the date this story supposedly takes place, anyway?

4. The story is full of fantastic, spooky, Gothic images which add wonderfully to the atmosphere of the piece, can you identify one that you thought particularly set the tone?

Here a curve “commits suicide,”which is an example of the literary device called personification, when something inanimate takes on human characteristics. Do you see any other examples of literary devices in the story?

5. “Ethically engaged fiction” raises important questions but does not undertake to suggest an answer. (www.ksu.edu/english...) Are there any questions nagging you in these chapters or coming chapters which the author does not answer?

6."I'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the wall-paper. Perhaps BECAUSE of the wall-paper!
It dwells in my mind so!"

Here, in Page 4, is a sudden change of attitude toward the room and the wall paper. What other changes in the narrator do you see? Can you identify what has caused these changes?

7. The structure of the journal is quite strange, and consists of many short sentences as paragraphs. When the structure changes and the paragraphs become longer and more intent, is the subject matter of those paragraphs more important, somehow?

8. Is an interest in wallpaper an acceptable thing for a woman to comment on (home decor)? Is that why she feels she can express her thoughts on that and hide, even to us, her real feelings behind a pattern? Or is she?

9. Is there a Protagonist as yet unnamed in the story? (YiLi>

10. Why does the Narrator become so irritated initally by the wallpaper?

11. "True Womanhood" was a cultural phenomenon and social force of the 1890's. What role does the enforcement of these values play in this story? (Kivo: The Yellow Wallpaper)

12. Read to the bottom of page 650, THAT is the equivalent of Page 5 in our own text.

Do you see any significance in where she has ended her sections?

Is anything at all different in the divisions?

Is each section a contained unit with a beginning middle and end? Or not?

Would you say that the last lines themselves before her lines of asterisks indicate anything in particular?

Do they tell a story in themselves?

If you do see changes in the Narrator or the tone in each individual unit, can you identify anything which seems to have triggered these changes?

Do you see any difference at all in Narrator in the beginning of each section and the end? (some of these issues, come from the www.ksu.edu/english site)

13. What is the implication of the phrase "sticketh closer than a brother?"