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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Fill in the blank: As she is peeling the wallpaper off, she thinks that the pattern of heads and bulbous eyes are “shrieking with _________”?

2. Where doesn’t the narrator want to go at the end of the story?

3. Which room does the narrator’s husband choose for her room?

4. Who does John ask to give a report about the narrator’s wellbeing?

5. When the narrator makes the plan to get off the wallpaper before John notices, how long do they have left at the house?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is the narrator’s behavior changing because of her obsession?

2. What does the fact that the narrator says John “pretended to be living and kind” suggest about the narrator’s condition?

3. Why is the narrator afraid of being sent to Weir Mitchell?

4. Why doesn’t the narrator want others to touch the wallpaper?

5. The narrator considers burning the house down to “reach the smell.” What does this say about her condition?

6. Why does John refuse to repaper the nursery after initially agreeing?

7. What does this quote suggest: “It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please.”

8. Why does the narrator say John “pretended to be loving and kind”?

9. Who does the narrator want to help save the woman in the wallpaper?

10. What doesn’t the narrator mind about the nursery at first?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The narrator describes the wallpaper many times. What does the repetition in description suggest?

Essay Topic 2

How does the narrator change throughout the story? What moments in the story are indicative of a change?

Essay Topic 3

Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote this story in 1887, after suffering from depression. A doctor had instructed her to rest and not work, which she believed made her condition much worse. She wrote The Yellow Wallpaper as a way to speak out against the common treatment of what was then called "nervous conditions." The extreme rest therapy that John forces on the narrator gives an interesting look at the treatment of mental illness in the late 19th Century. How is postpartum depression viewed today compared to Gilman’s representation in 1887?

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