New
New
Year 11
AQA

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’: analysing character

I can analyse a writer's use of different voices in a narrative.

New
New
Year 11
AQA

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’: analysing character

I can analyse a writer's use of different voices in a narrative.

Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. A first person narrator can often give the reader a unique insight into their personality, relationships and lifestyle.
  2. The narrator in 'The Yellow Wallpaper' is presented as silenced and powerless.
  3. The narrator exposes her husband as oppressive.
  4. Perkins Gilman employs many techniques to show the narrator's lack of agency.
  5. It could be argued that that narrator has agency since everything we learn is filtered through her consciousness.

Common misconception

Pupils may be used to encountering a detached third person narrator thus expecting most narrators to be trustworthy and reliable.

When a writer chooses to write a story from a characters' perspective, we have to consider that each character is fallible or unreliable. Thus, we have to re-filter (through our own consciousness) the information we get from a first person narrator.

Keywords

  • Dismissive - treating someone as if they are unworthy of consideration

  • Agency - the ability to take action or choose which action to take

  • Futility - pointlessness or uselessness

In Learning Cycle 1, you may want to spend some time unpicking how naïve pupils think the narrator is. For example, does she say her husband is "loving" because she genuinely thinks this or is she somewhat censoring herself in case her manuscript is discovered?
Teacher tip

Equipment

You will need access to the opening of 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman for this lesson which is available in the additional materials.

Content guidance

  • Depiction or discussion of discriminatory behaviour
  • Depiction or discussion of sensitive content
  • Depiction or discussion of sexual violence

Supervision

Adult supervision required

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2024), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

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6 Questions

Q1.
What does 'hysterical' mean?
getting angry easily
constantly changing your mind
Correct answer: affected by wild, uncontrolled emotion
Q2.
What does it mean if we have a first person narrator?
we are given an objective viewpoint
Correct answer: everything we are told is filtered through their consciousness
we can trust what they tell us
Q3.
What does the word 'lurid' mean?
decaying
too sweet
Correct answer: too brightly coloured
Q4.
What might dismissive behaviour look like?
listening to someone carefully
giving someone a hug
Correct answer: not acknowledging someone's point of view
Q5.
What is agency?
Correct answer: the ability to take action or choose an action
the amount of money you make
what people are remembered for
Q6.
How might someone show their agency?
Correct answer: choosing which university to study at
doing what they are told to do by their friends
doing something as directed by their horoscope

6 Questions

Q1.
Who narrates 'The Yellow Wallpaper'?
a man named John
a woman named Lily
Correct answer: an unnamed woman
John and Lily's child
Q2.
What is particularly concerning the narrator in 'The Yellow Wallpaper'?
her husband's behaviour
Correct answer: the wallpaper in the room she is staying in
the fact the house has been declared haunted
Q3.
What does dismissive mean?
listening carefully to others' viewpoints
aggressively disagreeing with others' viewpoints
Correct answer: not considering others' viewpoints
Q4.
What is true of the narrator and her husband's relationship in 'The Yellow Wallpaper'?
The narrator's voice is valued in the relationship.
The narrator has most control in the relationship.
Correct answer: The narrator's husband, John, has control in the relationship.
Q5.
What does the narrator of 'The Yellow Wallpaper' implicitly tell us about her husband?
Correct answer: he is patronising
he is a physician
he is loving
he is clueless
Q6.
What might show the narrator's lack of agency in 'The Yellow Wallpaper'?
She gives her opinion on her condition.
She tells us her husband is "loving and careful".
Correct answer: She repeats "what is one to do?"

Additional material

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