‘The Yellow Wallpaper’: analysing character
I can analyse a writer's use of different voices in a narrative.
‘The Yellow Wallpaper’: analysing character
I can analyse a writer's use of different voices in a narrative.
Lesson details
Key learning points
- A first person narrator can often give the reader a unique insight into their personality, relationships and lifestyle.
- The narrator in 'The Yellow Wallpaper' is presented as silenced and powerless.
- The narrator exposes her husband as oppressive.
- Perkins Gilman employs many techniques to show the narrator's lack of agency.
- 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
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).
Video
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