Setting, which can refer to both time and place, can be an important element to close read in any work of literature, but this is especially true of gothic stories,
which often rely heavily on setting to establish a particular mood and illustrate specific themes. Both Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and
Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” take place inside a house, and almost entirely within one room of that house. In your paper, focus on “The Yellow
Wallpaper” and analyze the setting of the nursery or the farmhouse kitchen, respectively, in light of the entire text. What is the role or the importance of the
setting in the short story? How does the setting serve as a means of establishing the text’s gothic themes and broader social message?
In addition to working closely with your primary source (i.e. the short story) to answer the above questions, you should also cite from at least two of the
assigned secondary sources:
“What is American Gothic” by Allan Lloyd-Smith
“Setting” by Kelly Mays
“Female Gothic: Then and Now” by Andrew Smith and Diana Wallace
