The Yellow Wallpaper

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wallpaper: Genre 1 key example

First Entry
Explanation and Analysis:

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is considered gothic fiction because it contains defining elements of the genre, including an eerie setting, a tormentor, and the supernatural. The story takes place in a haunting ancestral estate that immediately unnerves Jane, as is clear in her first diary entry:

A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house [...] the place has been empty for years. That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don't care—there is something strange about the house—I can feel it.

Ninth Entry
Explanation and Analysis:

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is considered gothic fiction because it contains defining elements of the genre, including an eerie setting, a tormentor, and the supernatural. The story takes place in a haunting ancestral estate that immediately unnerves Jane, as is clear in her first diary entry:

A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house [...] the place has been empty for years. That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don't care—there is something strange about the house—I can feel it.

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