Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphosis”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892)
Public domain version: Wikisource

Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphosis” (1915)
Edition used: Norton. Public domain version: Wikisource.

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Faculty: Jill Fellows
Lecture date: February 25, 2013
Theme: Monster in the Mirror

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• Madness and Monsters
  0:11
• Yellow Wallpaper
  10:29
• Setting
  10:51
• Marriage
  15:49
• Illness
  18:38
• Wallpaper
  31:26
• Metamorphosis
  40:29
• Setting
  45:38
• Family
  51:16
• Communication
  1:02:51
• Change
  1:05:49
• Illness
  1:14:17

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1. Consider the role of rooms in “The Metamorphosis” or “The Yellow Wallpaper.” You might focus on one of the following concepts: alienation, framing, deterioration, interiority, perspective, security, domesticity, stasis.
2. Consider the portrayal of gender and/or sexuality in “The Metamorphosis” or “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
3. Discuss what happens to narration (how the tale is told) in “The Metamorphosis” or “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
4. What is the role of norms in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Metamorphosis”?
5. Is “The Yellow Wallpaper” a feminist short story? What would it mean to say that it is?
6. Compare Gregor’s fixation (in “The Metamorphosis”) with the picture of the woman in furs to the narrator’s obsession with the wallpaper in “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

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