Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper (First Published 1892)
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1952
A massive amount is owed to the Gutenberg Project for now providing over 60,000 free eBooks. The Yellow Wallpaper marks one of the many culturally significant texts that now exists for free. Traffic to the site has more than doubled during the pandemic and there are thousands of instant classics that are available in numerous formats. (I would recommend! Other posts will continue to utilize eBooks available.)
“It is the strangest yellow, that wallpaper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw – not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old, foul, bad yellow things.”
The Yellow Wallpaper is seen as a significant work culturally. It is commonly seen as an important piece of feminist work. The abstract structure of the story offer numerous places of possible analysis with the most common perspective highlighting critiques of an oppressive patriarchy. Ultimately the story could have been significantly longer with much of the situation ignored to succinctly cover the internal thinking and experience of the narrator. As a secret diary, The Yellow Wallpaper is written from a perspective of the wife limited by the patriarchal attitudes of her husband. The husband, John, who also happens to be a doctor is shown to consistently minimize the feeling and expression of his wife. In addition, much of the actual discontent is explained away by hysteric episodes. This makes the work a microcosm for the treatment of women at the time.
Gilman was an activist for women’s rights and the situation described above acted as a form of her advocacy. The Yellow Wallpaper was a result of her own experiences and the fashion in which the patriarchal attitudes shaped treatment of women’s mental health. When the couple move to the mansion in the story it is part of the narrators rehabilitation. It is a clever critique of treatment of mental health treatment. The narrator is confined to a room and it is fascinating to consider the parallels to attitudes on mental health in the modern day. While it is now common knowledge that exercise, exposure to the outdoors and an active lifestyle can help with depression the opposite was often recommended for women at the time due to the strong patriarchal attitudes.
“If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency – what is one to do?”
The Yellow Wallpaper offers a feminist critique of patriarchal attitudes as well as targeting the treatment of mental health. A great short story it is pertinent even in the modern day and highlights the potential consequences of isolation. The titular yellow wallpaper becomes part of the narrators visions as she largely remains confined to a single room. The patterns come alive and three months of isolation and confinement take their toll. The possibility for analysis of the narrator’s connection with the woman in the wallpaper is huge along with her gradual estrangement with her husband. The narrator longs for freedom not only from the room but also her husbands control. The ending is moderately confusing but the message of the story is much easier to follow.
As an engaging short story, it has been adapted in multiple fashions. As a free resource that would not take long to read it should be on the list of books to read. The messages remain pertinent and as a secret diary form of narrative it offers a unique and interesting perspective. I was glad to find this story and along with the significant background on Gilman’s motives and history the story takes on even more importance. This is still a powerful feminist critique of patriarchal attitudes embedded in an interesting story that as suggested also points to the treatment of mental health.
The Weekly Book Report 