In the story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a colonial house drives the narrator to insanity. Gilman's story starts with a loving husband rescuing his wife from nervous prostration by isolating her in a colonial homestead. As a well-known physician the husband believes the setting and isolation will better his wife so she can return to her newborn child. Unfortunately the setting and the isolation makes the situation worse and the narrator is driven to insanity quicker. In this story Charlotte Gilman describes how the setting contributes to the narrator's end. .
As the narrator begins with her adventure she describes the house as a beautiful place. She describes, "It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village (Gilman 274)." She narrates that this place makes her think of English places that someone would read about because, "there is hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for gardeners and people (274)." As the narrator continues she next describes how there is a delicious garden that is large and shady that has box-bordered paths and is lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them. Next an important aspect that the narrator gives to the reader is she does not like the bedroom her husband chose for them. She describes that she wanted a room that was downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window in an old-fashion setting. Her husband explains that all the rooms down stairs were unexcitable because they only have one window and not enough room to fit two beds. The room he chooses for her was upstairs and was, "big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, the windows barred for little children, and there are ring and things in the wall (275).