45 Brightest The Yellow Wallpaper Topics

When it is a literary analysis essay, students often appeal to one of the most famous works of American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is a short story that depicts the problem of women in the US in the 19th century. Students who want to find one of the best topics to write about ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ can get inspiration from the 45 ideas presented in the next listing.

The Yellow Wallpaper essay questions

1. What is the significance of the narrative structure in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ and how does it impact the reader’s understanding?
2. How does the theme of confinement contribute to developing the protagonist’s character in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’?
3. How is postpartum depression portrayed in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ and how is it relevant to contemporary discussions on mental health?
4. What is the husband’s role in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ and how does he influence the protagonist?
5. What is the significance of the journal as a literary device in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’?
6. How does the room’s setting in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ shape the protagonist’s experiences?
7. What is the role of the protagonist’s imagination in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ and how does it contribute to exploring the story’s themes?
8. How do the supernatural elements influence the story’s overall theme, and how do they impact the narrative?
9. What is the significance of the house as a setting in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’?
10. How can we analyze the relationship between the protagonist’s creativity and mental instability?

Symbols and metaphors in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ essay topics

1. What is the yellow wallpaper’s meaning in the eponymous short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman?
2. What is the main symbol of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’?
3. How does the short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ demonstrate the protagonist’s mental health development from sane to insane from her seeing the yellow wallpaper?
4. Explain the metaphor that the author uses: “And those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one place where two breaths didn’t match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other. I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before.” What do you think the author means in this description?
5. Why does the protagonist in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ pay so much attention to the pattern? Is it really different as she sees, or is it repeatable?
6. How does the Gothic setting of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ indicate the protagonist’s doomed fate?
7. What role does Jane play in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’? Why does she have a name and the protagonist doesn’t?
8. What does the yellow color mean in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’? Analyze the symbolism of the yellow wallpaper and the main character’s isolation.

Topics for ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ about the narrator’s voice

1. Did the woman from ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ become insane because of loneliness and see her life in yellow wallpaper patterns as a result?
2. How does the protagonist of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ change throughout the story?
3. Why does the narrator in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ say concerning her writing that “the effort is getting to be greater than the relief”? What does she mean? Why doesn’t writing help her?
4. What is the narrator’s problem in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’? Why have others diagnosed her own evaluation of her situation in a broader contextual sense by considering how societal expectations or cultural conventions contribute to her mental and physical state?
5. Is the narrator also a character in the story? Which perspective is the narrator?
6. What tone or attitude does the narrator have toward the characters or the story’s subject? What purpose does the manner serve?
7. What values and ideas did the narrator express in the story?
8. Does the narrator show any bias or sympathy to one or more characters? How are these feelings changed during the story?

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Feminism topics in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’

1. Liberation of women in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’
2. Comparison between ‘A Rose for Emily’ and ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’
3. Did the woman from the short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ have a mental illness, or was it implanted by her husband?
4. How does the story of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ show male control over women in society?
5. Why does the author’s husband John have such strong control over her?
6. What does the pattern of paper mean to the protagonist of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’?
7. The feminist interpretation of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’
8. ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is a story of women’s liberation in the 19th century. Which literary devices did the author use to address the problem of women in society?
9. Why is the main character of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ trying to escape her husband? What does it have to do with gender or power?
10. Why does the woman from ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ not have a name? What did the author mean by it?
11. The oppression of women in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’
12. Do Gilman and Chopin have the same views on marriage and the role of a woman from ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ and ‘The Story of an Hour’?
13. Compare both ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and ‘Sweat’ by Zora Neale Hurston, where the women protagonists are consigned to subordinate positions in society and are put upon by their significant others, John and Sykes.
14. Why does conflict within the story from ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ illustrate larger social and cultural conflicts such as women’s humiliation?

Analysis essay topics on ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’

1. Define a universal truth in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’
2. What is the central theme in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’? How does the author’s voice represent it?
3. Analyze John’s character from ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’ Can you define him as a villain or hero?
4. How do settings play a role as a self-contained participant of the short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’?
5. Could the author, on whose behalf the story was told, be considered insane?
6. How do George Bernard Shaw in ‘Pygmalion’ and Charlotte Perkins Gilman in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ show people are suffering to achieve freedom and public recognition?
7. Provide a literary analysis on the short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ as if John told the story.
8. Analyze the semantic and narrative structure of the short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’
9. Describe the literary context that plays on stereotypes people had about women like the protagonist of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’
10. How do you think Mrs. Mallard in Chopin’s ‘The Story of an Hour,’ Daisy in Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby,’ and Alice Waythorn in Wharton’s ‘The Other Two’ would respond to the narrator in Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’?
11. Historical criticism on ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ and ‘The Story of an Hour.’
12. What is the central conflict in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’? Is it a struggle within a person, between people, or between a person and culture or environment? What minor conflicts occur?
13. How did the author describe the characters, settings, or events? How do metaphor, simile, and personification, for instance, establish tone or cause to understand things in a way that literal descriptions would not?
14. Track how the story’s physical settings, the particular place, and the time of day impact the narrator’s mood and establish atmosphere.
15. Can modern readers easily relate to the characters from ‘The Story of an Hour’ and understand their conflicts, or do they require background or historical explanations?

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ main problems

• Mental illness. The protagonist of the story is suffering from a mental illness, which is believed to be postpartum depression or a form of hysteria. Her condition deteriorates further due to the restrictive treatment she receives, from being confined in a room and deprived of engaging in any meaningful activities.
• Gender roles and patriarchy. Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper” story, gender roles are intricately examined and how they can be perpetuated in a patriarchal society. The protagonist’s husband—a physician—emphasizes this further when he disregards her feelings and thoughts with an air of superiority; ultimately resulting in her uprooted sense of powerlessness and entrapment.
• The treatment of women in medicine. This narrative showcases just how unfairly women were treated in the medical field during the nineteenth century. The protagonist is given a rest cure, which was advised to most female patients then, regardless of its lack of true scientific backing and potential damage.
• The suppression of creativity and self-expression. The protagonist’s mental state is progressively deteriorating due to her lack of creative activities and the discouragement of self-expression. She has been forbidden from writing or engaging in any intellectual pursuits, which only further hinders her emotional wellbeing.
• The stigma surrounding mental illness. The narrative also tackles the enormous stigma surrounding mental illness, particularly among women. Dishearteningly, her husband and brother – both medical doctors – disregard her condition as mere hysteria rather than taking it seriously.

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