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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. What does John make the narrator drink as a cure?

2. What does the narrator say it looks like the bed has been through?

3. What figure becomes very clear in moonlight, clearer than before: “plain as can be.”

4. What holiday passes while the family is staying at the country house?

5. What does John promise the narrator?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the narrator initially describe the wallpaper?

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

3. How does the narrator initially explain her condition?

4. What’s illuminating about the conversation between John and the narrator on page 110? What is his tone with her? How does he treat her?

5. How has the major life event that the narrator recently endured affected her mental health?

6. Why is the narrator glad that she is in the nursery and not the baby?

7. What does what John calls the narrator in the middle of the nightsuggest about their relationship?

8. Where does the narrator think she sees the woman in the wallpaper?

9. The narrator says that she watches the paper always. What does this increasing obsession suggest about the narrator?

10. Who is Weir Mitchell?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The narrator states that she will not jump out of the window lest it be misconstrued. Why is she more concerned about her reputation rather than the fact that if she jumped out the window she would be severely injured or killed? What does this suggest?

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

“I wonder if they all came out of the wallpaper as I did?” This quote appears at the end of the story. What does it suggest? What does the narrator believe has happened?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 618 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample