Summary:

The Yellow Wallpaper is a 6,000-word short story by the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine. It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the 19th century toward women's physical and mental health. The story details the unreliable narrator's descent into madness. Her antagonist husband, John, believes that it is in Jane's best interest to go on a rest cure after the birth of their child. The family goes to spend the summer at a colonial mansion. She is confined to an upstairs room that she assumes was once a nursery, as the windows are barred, the wallpaper has been torn, and the floor is scratched. However, she comes to suspect that another woman was once confined here against her will.