View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What does John promise the narrator?

2. Where does the narrator plan to go at nightfall, describing that it will be difficult to do?

3. Where does her shoulder “just” fit?

4. What does Jennie not realize that the narrator has?

5. Who does the narrator think she sees creeping outside her windows?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does John do when he sees the narrator creeping around the room?

2. What description is horrifying about the wallpaper?

3. At what point does this short story hit its climax?

4. What major life event has the narrator just endured?

5. How does the narrator think the “smooch” on the wall was created?

6. Why does the narrator think her husband was able to rent the summer house at such short notice?

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

8. How does the narrator describe the countryside?

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

Essay Topic 2

Describe John’s character. Does he change? Is John a round or flat character? Static or dynamic?

Essay Topic 3

The story is written in the first-person from the narrator who is suffering a mental illness. How does the narrator’s writing and style change as the story progresses? What, in the writing, is indicative that the narrator is not well?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 635 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample