The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story by American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature for its illustration of the attitudes towards mental and physical health of women in the 19th century. Narrated in the first person the story is a collection of journal entries written by a woman whose physician husband (John) has rented an old mansion for the summer. Forgoing other rooms in the house the couple moves into the upstairs nursery. As a form of treatment the unnamed woman is forbidden from working or writing and is encouraged to eat well and get plenty of air so she can recuperate from what he calls a temporary nervous depression “ a slight hysterical tendency a diagnosis common to women during that period.