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The Yellow Wall-Paper and Other Stories

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Robert Shulman (Editor)

3.95 of 5 stars 3.95 · rating details · 34,783 ratings · 985 reviews

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was America's leading feminist intellectual of the early twentieth century. 'The Yellow Wall-Paper' and Other Stories makes available the fullest selection of her short fiction ever printed. In addition to her pioneering masterpiece, 'The Yellow Wall-Paper' (1890), which draws on her own experience of depression and insanity, this edition features...more

Paperback, 384 pages

Published November 19th 1998 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published 1892)

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Aug 01, 2011 Shovelmonkey1 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who want a brief taste of madness

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: 1001 books list and danielle23

Shelves: 1001-books, bookcrossing-books, read-in-2011

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Yup, that was me enjoying the spiralling descent into madness.

Ok all jokes aside, mental health is a serious issue and something which is more fragile than we realise - do not take it for granted people. We are lucky enough to live in a time when people recognise and understand depression and constructive, helpful treatments can be offered. Unfortunately for Charlotte Perkins Gilman, she inhabited the tail end of the Victoria...more Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Yup, that was me enjoying the spiralling descent into madness.

Ok all jokes aside, mental health is a serious issue and something which is more fragile than we realise - do not take it for granted people. We are lucky enough to live in a time when people recognise and understand depression and constructive, helpful treatments can be offered. Unfortunately for Charlotte Perkins Gilman, she inhabited the tail end of the Victorian Period when depression, post-natal or otherwise was a totally mysterious and misunderstood thing. A perfect Victorian solution to outward displays of "unusualness" was to put you in an assylum/prison/attic/foreign country (delete as viable depending on income and social status) and then just tell the neighbours that you were either indisposed for a reaaaaaaallllly long time, or that you were having a "little holiday". Similar to the little holiday you got sent on if you managed to get knocked up without having bagged yourself a husband first. Basically, you were disappeared for a while thus making everyone feel that society had been saved the awful sight of you making a show of yourself. Phew, well we wouldn't want to upset society now, heaven forbid!

The Yellow Wallpaper is Perkins Gilmans attempt to express the hopelessness of mental illness; effectively an invisible, inescapable cage around your mind (reflected by the imagery of the caged in woman locked behind the patterns in the wallpaper), which no one in the 1890s was capable of diagnosing correctly. Gilmans suffered from depression and so knew what she was writing about. I do always struggle with the idea of the self restraint which was exhibited by many of these women, the character in the Yellow Wallpaper included. If someone had repeatedly patronised me and told me that really there was nothing wrong with me apart from a mild case of nerves and the tendancy to be a bit hysterical, I'd have probably reacted by shouting

"HOW'S THIS FOR HYSTERICAL MOTHER F*CKER", before destroying all the furniture in the room. This snippet of text is short, sharp and truly sad with a suitably ambiguous ending, after all where does the madness end?(less)

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Dec 14, 2007 Keely rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, fiction, short-story, reviewed, gothic, american

Roland Barthes talked about 'writerly' and 'readerly' books. I've struggled for a long time, myself, in trying to come up for terms to talk about the differences between deliberate works and those which are too bumbling, too one-sided, or too ill-informed to make the reader think.

While The Yellow Wallpaper brings up interesting points, it does not really deal with them. The text has become part of the canon not for the ability of the author, which is on the more stimulating end of middling, but...more Roland Barthes talked about 'writerly' and 'readerly' books. I've struggled for a long time, myself, in trying to come up for terms to talk about the differences between deliberate works and those which are too bumbling, too one-sided, or too ill-informed to make the reader think.

While The Yellow Wallpaper brings up interesting points, it does not really deal with them. The text has become part of the canon not for the ability of the author, which is on the more stimulating end of middling, but because it works as a representational piece of a historical movement.

As early feminism, this work is an undeniable influence. It points out one of the most apparent symptoms of the double-standard implied by the term 'weaker sex'. However, Gilman tends to suggest more than she asks, thus tending toward propaganda.

It may be easy to say this in retrospect when the question "is isolating women and preventing them from taking action really healthy?" was less obvious back then. However, I have always been reticent to rate a work more highly merely because it comes from a different age. Austen, the Brontes, Christina Rossetti, and Woolf all stand on their own merits, after all.

This symbolism by which this story operates is simplistic and repetitive. The opinions expressed are one-sided, leaving little room for interpretation. This is really the author's crime, as she has not tried to open the debate so much as close it, and in imagining her opinion to mark the final word on the matter, has doomed her work to become less and less relevant.

This is the perfect sort of story to teach those who are beginning literary critique, because it does not suggest questions to the reader, but answers. Instead of fostering thought, the work becomes a puzzle with a solution to be worked out, not unlike a math problem. This is useful for the reader trying to understand how texts can create meaning, but under more rigorous critique, it is not deep or varied enough to support more complex readings.

Unfortunately, this means it is also the sort of story that will be loved by people who would rather be answered than questioned. It may have provided something new and intriguing when it was first written, but as a narrow work based on a simplistic sociological concept, can no longer make that claim.

The story is also marked by early signs of the Gothic movement, and lying on the crux of that and Feminism, is not liable to be forgotten. The symbolism it uses is a combination of classical representations of sickness and metaphors of imprisonment. Sickness, imprisonment, and madness are the quintessential concepts explored by the Gothic writers, but this work is again quite narrow in its view. While the later movement was interested in this in the sense of existential alienation, this story is interested in those things not as a deeper psychological question, but as the allegorical state of woman.

Horror is partially defined by the insanity and utter loneliness lurking in everyone's heart, and is not quite so scary when the person is actually alone and mad. Though it does come from the imposition of another person's will, which is horrific, the husband has no desire to be cruel or to harm the woman, nor is such even hinted subconsciously. Of course, many modern feminists would cling to the notion that independent of a man's desire to aid, he can do only harm, making this work an excellent support to their politicized chauvinism.

I won't question the historical importance or influence of this work, but it is literarily very simple. A single page of paper accurately dating the writing of Shakespeare's Hamlet would also be historically important, but just because it is related to the threads of literary history does not mean it is fine literature.(less)

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Dec 06, 2010 Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

*PREFACE TO REVIEW: I have a soft spot for literature about descents into madness. I blame it on my mother taking me to see Lost Highway in the theater at a young and tender age. I also blame this film, to a larger extent, on my fashion sense from then to now. Which is to say, I blame my mom. Who is, in fact, more sane than most.*

Ah, suicide authors! You do know madness so!!! There have been a few times where I have personally thought that I was going off my rocker, but considering that I've yet...more *PREFACE TO REVIEW: I have a soft spot for literature about descents into madness. I blame it on my mother taking me to see Lost Highway in the theater at a young and tender age. I also blame this film, to a larger extent, on my fashion sense from then to now. Which is to say, I blame my mom. Who is, in fact, more sane than most.*

Ah, suicide authors! You do know madness so!!! There have been a few times where I have personally thought that I was going off my rocker, but considering that I've yet to seal my (nonexistent) children into a room so I can gas myself into the ever-receptive arms of Death...or shot myself when I found out I had cancer...or poisoned myself with CHLOROFORM when I found out I had cancer like Gilman did (I don't have cancer), then I guess I'm doing fine, and far from at risk of being a mad genius whose descriptive abilities concerning my slow backward crawl away from the really real realities of for real realness are the first step in accepting my problem, which would be (and is not) insanity. Well, you can't win 'em all, I guess. For example, my rational mind begs me to wonder why "in the hell" Gilman opted for chloroform. I mean if I were crazy (WHICH I'M NOT, YOU WILL RECALL), I could think of much more fashionable, delightful, actually-seeing-angels-and-heaven-on-your-way-out-of-this-mortal-coil-and-into-the-worm-farm ways to go. Just saying, you should always explore all of your options before making a firm decision on any matter...particularly those of notable importance.

The Yellow Wallpaper is a well-written and I'm sure at the time quite shocking and groundbreaking feminist rebel-yell. The title story is the bestestest one...it concerns a crazy bitch who goes all crazy like women tend to do (KIDDING, GOODREADS TROLLS! KEEP YOUR CORSETS ON AND CHILL, BABY GIRLS!) The description of the narrator's break with reality is beautifully constructed, exploring the process of "reasoning" that leads a crazy person to firmly believe that they are not crazy, because they've been so gall-darn "rational" the whole time (as you will recall, I myself am not crazy. Trust me, I've thought it through). The rest of the stories present powerful critiques of male/female power dynamics, as well as female/female dynamics from the most sincere to the most socially fabricated, destructive and (sadly) often digested. It says to the readers (consider the audience...1890's folks) "How about NOT THAT. Have you ever considered NOT THAT? Maybe that is a poisonous thought-pattern worthy of, perhaps, a consideration of exploring whatever is NOT THAT." A message worth hearing, and which left its mark on perceptions of gender and identity from 1892 forward. You can't really criticize something like that, can you?

A CRITICISM: There is one story in the book called "Turned" which tells of a married couple and their adopted-from-the-streets-mega-hot-girl-daughter-figure. *SPOILER ALERT* Daddy-figure knocks her up. Mommy Dearest finds out, and is a whee bit upset. Here is this girl that she had saved from a life of poverty, personally educated, fed, clothed, the WORKS...all of this only to find out that the ungrateful little brat doll has been fucking your husband? WTF!!?!?!, you say! Yeah, that's right. It's called righteous vindication, and she deserved to experience and work through every bit of her initial feelings of anger. THEY WERE WELL DESERVED. However, Gilman's perspective is that the only person who has done anything wrong is the father-figure. I know, you may be thinking "I smell a Humbert Humbert," but let me fill you in on a little detail. The character being presented as a victim of the savageries of *the male sex* so to speak is 18 years old. Not 12. Not 14. Not 5. She is EIGHTEEN. They say that thirty is the new twenty, which would lead me to believe that in 1892, this poor, innocent "victim" was approaching her 30's as far as everyone else was concerned. Despite this fact, the mother changes her mind, puts on her man-hater suit, and takes the young WOMAN away and raises the child with her, abandoning the man to dwell in his regret without giving him a single opportunity to be involved in the life of his child. This rubbed me the wrong way, and it is my one truly deep gripe with this book. It just seemed so, forgive me but...femi-nazi. Pardon the cliche, but they say "it takes two to tango" for a reason, people.

In short, read it. It only takes an hour or two. And never assume you can get away with cheating (especially if you're living it up in the pre-birth control days, thankyouverymuch Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the ensuing feminists you directly inspired). This ramble is over.

(less)

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Nov 14, 2012 Zaki rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A very sad tale about a woman who stares at her yellow wallpaper and gets so irritated and frustrated, that after a while she rips it off the wall.

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Aug 06, 2011 Gloria Mundi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: gender, creeptastic, insane-in-the-membrane, 1001-books, unreliable-narrator, broken-doll-stories

This is a short story about a woman's descent into madness and I have just the t-shirt slogan for the protagonist:

EXCUSE ME. I HAVE TO GO AND MAKE A SCENE.

Because that's what I wanted her to do throughout, but we cannot really expect that from a genteel 19th century lady and that is when the story was written. So does that mean that it is now outdated and irrelevant to us emancipated 21st century women?

Personally, I have gone through a period in my life when I took some pretty heavy drugs, staye...more

11 likes · like · see review

Feb 02, 2010 The Chaotic Reader rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: anthologies, short-stories, essays, classics

I added this to my TBR list because The Yellow Wallpaper is on the 1001 Books list and it looked interesting. I was surprised, and a little disappointed, that that particular story is so short. I wanted more of the drama and horror of a mind slipping into psychosis but thinking that everything's actually getting better. Come to think of it, maybe it's a good thing that she kept the story brief.

Gilman was a feminist and a socialist and she wrote her stories and essays for the purpose of presentin...more

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Lana Dan wrote: "Danielle "The Book Huntress" wrote: "So, do you think the room was haunted, or that the narrator was mentally ill?"

Given the tone of Gilma...more
Feb 03, 2010 07:19pm

Billie Mulcahy I read this book for a psych class quite a few years ago. We were supposed to give her a psych diagnosis. I really couldn't identify with Charlotte, p...more
Feb 03, 2010 10:55pm

Oct 11, 2012 Safae rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 100, 1001, english

Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I've learned form wiki that charlotte committed suicide after finding out she had cancer , and that she had a lot of periods of depression especially after giving birth just like in this book , so the resemblance is there because this story is a semi autobiography of the author
this story is basically happening in one specific room , the narrator had initially insisted on taking the room downstairs but her husband was persistent on taking the one upstairs ,which made he...more

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Apr 15, 2008 Nikki Nielsen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone looking to be educated on the misconceptions of postpartum depression

Recommended to Nikki by: My client left it for me to read while I was house/dog sitting f

This is a story written in the 1800's by a woman thought to have a 'nervous condition', surely all in her head. She desperately longs to write but her husband and doctor forbid it. This story is compiled of the journal entries she sneaks while they aren't watching.

She is told to put being sick right out of her head. She is in a room with dreadful yellow wallpaper that she studies night and day, until she sees things that aren't really there. She begs her husband to take her away and is told to...more

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Aug 20, 2007 Bailey added it · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone who thinks wearing a corset is a good idea.

I first read the Yellow Wallpaper as a moderately young person, when I was more concerned with being a young quasi-socialite than actually dissecting literature to learn something about how to best live my life as an intelligent person. I thought of school as the time between weekends, and the class-to-class routine as an overly respite for afternoon fun. I found, upon re-reading, that this story can teach me about how we can choose our own perception. Somewhere between moving into the former ch...more I first read the Yellow Wallpaper as a moderately young person, when I was more concerned with being a young quasi-socialite than actually dissecting literature to learn something about how to best live my life as an intelligent person. I thought of school as the time between weekends, and the class-to-class routine as an overly respite for afternoon fun. I found, upon re-reading, that this story can teach me about how we can choose our own perception. Somewhere between moving into the former children's nursery for better air circulation and being called 'my little pet' as a term of endearment, our dear protagonist developed a case of 'the nerves' that meant she can't keep reality and dream separate. Much like my desire (still!) to live for the weekends, our narrator lives for the darkness, when her newfound reality comes alive and tantalizes her senses. The night time, and the curiosity surrounding what was hidden in the wallpaper gave her an outlet for her imagination where her daytime identity would not. During the day, she despised that paper as much as she was fascinated at night. This woman was suffering before she arrived at this country home because she had no mode of expression!! I find it interesting how women, in general, can have love-hate relationships with so much in their lives- their hips, mothers, tan lines, career opportunities, our intelligence- and so often we direct that loathing towards ourselves and become unable to progress towards our better selves. The same facets of our lives that we agonize over and dwell on endlessly will command our attention as soon as our guard is down. This book encapsulates that compulsion to me. Rather than deny that attention during the waking hours, I seek fulfill the urge to follow my heart, regardless of the time of day. I am trying to learn, from this story, that rather than carry on like a stifled corseted housewife in a Victorian attic, I should seek to be full of wanderlust, curiosity and expression all the time, not only during the weekends. (less)

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Sep 28, 2007 Lori rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Like anyone who's ever taken a Womens' Studies course, I read The Yellow Wallpaper for a class. I felt completely insane during the time I was reading it.

Then I came across "Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, and she says this "But the best result is this. Many years later I was told that the great specialist had admitted to friends of his that he had altered his treatment of neurasthenia since reading The Yellow Wallpaper. It was not intended to drive people crazy,...more

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Jan 23, 2012 Jeanette rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: all-fiction, classics, four-star-fiction, four-star-nonfiction, journalism-essays, short-stories

Perkins was a bold, outspoken, extremely intelligent early feminist. We really do stand on the shoulders of these courageous women. This is a collection of short stories, excerpts from her novel, and excerpts from some of her nonfiction feminist social commentary.
I didn't care much for The Yellow Wallpaper story, but everything else in the book is excellent. I know The Yellow Wallpaper is considered some sort of classic, but I really wasn't impressed. It's only 18 pages, so worth the read for c...more

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Sep 07, 2009 Madeline rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: assigned-reading, the-list

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 18, 2012 Will rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 20, 2011 .þµŋψà. [Punya Reviews...] rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics-fiction-poetry-nonfiction, favorites

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This review is not exactly a ‘review’ in that sense, rather my analysis from my MA dissertation on The Yellow Wallpaper (only). I loved it; it made me sad and depressed, still I loved it. CPG was an extraordinary writer. I hope to read more of her works soon. I've mentioned the page numbers of the lines I’ve quoted/referred to. I used this same edition from Bantam so they should be the same. The reference to Conrad Shumaker’s ‘colored belief’ is taken from his journal “Too Terribly Good to Be Pr...more

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Feb 27, 2011 Fiona rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american-literature, classic-fiction, female-writers-fiction, feminist-reads, short-stories, 52-book-challenge-for-2011

Inspired. Chilling. Alarmingly realistic. Witty. Devastating. Dark. Empowering. Radical. Outstanding. Classic.

Although I read and reviewed the novella Herland during the autumn of last year it was indeed the title story in this collection which led me to the literary door of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

I am not really very sure whether I would have prefered to have read these works first. I was beginning to feel a little ashamed at just how long The Yellow Wallpaper had been decorating my bookcase...more

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Jan 03, 2008 Steven rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001, womenareamystery

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I was initially exposed to this book from goodreads 1001 books to read forum highlighting quick reads on that list. I read this book in one quick sitting and I was frankly astounded. The book is told from a first person narrative where a Victorian era woman likely suffering from post-partum depression is prescribed bed rest. She grows slowly insane focusing on the yellow wallpaper in her room where she is convinced she sees in the wallpaper a pattern of a woman stuck behind bars. Great ideas pre...more

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Nov 20, 2008 Kristin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Charlotte Perkins Gilman (July 3, 1860 – August 17, 1935) was a prominent American novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and non fiction, and a lecturer for social reform. She was a utopian feminist during a time when her accomplishments were exceptional for women, and she served as a role model for future generations of feminists because of her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle. Her best remembered work today is her semi-autobiographical short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper", which she wrot...more

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Aug 05, 2011 Emily O rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Emily by: ENG 252 (American Lit Post-1800s)

Shelves: american-lit, feminism-and-politics, short-stories, women-authors, college

This story is amazing in every sense of the word. Gilman did a great job with characterization. The narrator has a very distinct voice and feels very real from the beginning. The epistolary format of the story actually helps both with the characterization and with the pacing of the story. Since the narrator's voice is the only voice we get, we get to know her very well. But, the one-sided story also leaves many questions, especially because our narrator is nowhere near reliable. Poe himself coul...more

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Feb 02, 2008 Crystal rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-it

I have actually read this story on more than one occasion, finding something new each time.

This is supposedly a true story, telling how Charlotte Perkins Gilman went crazy due to being confined in the typical manner a woman was kept in her time. She was moved away from family and friends to a country house where they thought the air would help her. She was forbidden to write or do anything not seen as "womanly duties" so started seeing bars on the walls in her bedroom and a person, or shadow, st...more

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Mar 24, 2007 Wyatt rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: feminists

As a collection, I had to keep reminding myself that she wrote this in the 1890's, when feminism was pretty revolutionary. Without that time frame it comes off as preachy and predictable. It reads less like a series of short stories and more like an instruction manual: this is how a strong woman should act, this is how a decent guy should act, this is how women should react to adversity. One cool part is a lot of the stories use houses as a main character. The sense of the home has a lot to do w...more

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Apr 22, 2009 Cheryl apple rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a story of a woman going mad, it's pretty interesting how she describes her thoughts, mainly about the "yellow wallpaper" that seems to come alive to her! Really a good, quick, read.

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Jan 22, 2009 Holly rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dailylit

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 19, 2008 justme rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A definite classic for any noir fiction fan. This short story follows a woman's descent into madness and also sheds some light on the relationship and treatment of women and illness during that century.

The story is written in first person, in what reads like a personal diary of sorts, by a woman who has been locked up in an old nursery on the top floor of her home by the advice of her doctor husband, who insists that she isn't sick but needs rest and is just being "silly." She starts to become o...more

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Apr 16, 2013 Jenny Lloyd rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: feminist

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story which vividly portrays a woman's descent into madness. The unhappy character was driven mad by those who claimed to be trying to help her to be 'well', most especially her husband. Being 'well' meant being 'happy' with her mundane, miserable and restricted life. She begins to see a woman trapped inside the yellow wallpaper of the room in which she is confined. The woman trapped behind the wallpaper being an mental extension of her own trapped self.
Like 'The...more

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Apr 01, 2013 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: general-fiction, mysteries-and-such, favorites

Much has been made of the "historical significance" of this short story and quite frankly, to me it matters not a whit; what does matter is the clarity and lucidity of the prose, in delightful counterpoint to the substance of the tale. The story, after all, leads us into a descent into madness, and very few have described it as eloquently as Gilman.

Ostensibly, we are dealing with madness, of course; but perhaps more importantly we are dealing with the cages that women have lived in for centurie...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Mandi Jane rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, classics, mental-illness-and-addiction, feminism, 1001-books-read

This review contains spoilers.

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story about an unnamed woman who has been diagnosed with 'temporary nervous depression with a slight hysterical tendency' after the birth of her first child (so we can assume that it's post-natal depression).

The narrator is confined to bed-rest (read: imprisoned) in her upstairs bedroom at the recommendation of her physician husband, John. She's forbidden to read, write, interact with her child, or leave her room. Good thing too, bec...more

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Nov 06, 2012 Kiri rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a thought-provoking little book, which contains five short stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I first encountered Gilman by reading Herland, but I think I'd recommend this book instead as an introduction to her views. The eponymous story is a disturbing, distressing, enthralling tale of a woman's descent into madness, imposed by the views of the day about what is "good for" a woman's nerves. "When I Was a Witch" falls a bit more on the amusing side, exploring what might happen if you s...more

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Oct 07, 2012 Bobolina rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Through this wallpaper, the woman regains interest in life, in trying to discover the mystery of it and in resolving its patterns. Seeing the yellow wallpaper is the first step towards recognizing her problem, which is imprisonment. She becomes obsessed with its unidentified pattern, imagining a woman trapped between the bars of a prison, and tries to free that woman in an attempt to free her self! When, at last, she takes the decision and starts peeling the paper from the wall to take the woman...more

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Jun 10, 2012 Val rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is one of my favorite (long) short stories to teach in high school. Though my Monday book reviews normally focus on full-length books, this short story is a great work to study as a horror writer. Gilman wrote the story as a result of her own mental breakdown. It was written in the late 1800′s when things like depression and postpartum depression were not understood. A popular cure was known as “the rest cure.” Women were given a strict schedule, mostly consisting of rest away from family a...more This is one of my favorite (long) short stories to teach in high school. Though my Monday book reviews normally focus on full-length books, this short story is a great work to study as a horror writer. Gilman wrote the story as a result of her own mental breakdown. It was written in the late 1800′s when things like depression and postpartum depression were not understood. A popular cure was known as “the rest cure.” Women were given a strict schedule, mostly consisting of rest away from family and familiar surroundings, but also containing a detailed schedule of food and drink, rest, mild activities. Even the women’s sexual activities were sometimes scheduled and enforced.

Gilman wrote this story to show the world that “the rest cure” was actually doing more damage than good. In the story, a woman slowly loses her mind while forced to spend three months in a house that her husband (a doctor) rented to allow her sufficient rest to overcome her mental ailments. During her time in the house, the woman is denied visits to family, mental or physical stimulation, and the freedom to discuss her feelings.

The most spooky, captivating, and awesome element of the story is its first-person point of view. The narrator is writing the account in her journal, something she must do only when no one else is around. Her journal begins with descriptions of mundane trivialities, but it becomes increasingly more disturbing. The narrator is locked in the nursery on the top floor of the house. The room’s most distinguishing feature is its yellow wallpaper, which features a dizzyingly-horrendous pattern. In the wallpaper, the narrator begins to see manifestations of her own self—a woman trapped and trying to get out.

From a writer’s point of view, Gilman’s use of first-person point of view can be used to study the building of suspense. Gilman provided just enough details for us to put together the pieces of the narrator’s growing madness (and its causes) without over-explaining and thus ruining the suspense. Gilman packs this short story with content, and I suggest reading it more than once—after learning the ending, you’ll pick up more and more details each time.

A final interesting note: Gilman admitted to writing the story for the purpose of informing the world of the dangers of “the rest cure.” In her day, she received evidence that she had saved at least one woman’s life as a result of the story, and at least one doctor modified his treatment after reading her story. It just goes to show the power of words, and the reason I continue to write.(less)

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Feb 17, 2012 Gwen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: feminists, fans of period literature, gothic horror fans(title story only)

Shelves: 1000-book-challenge, literary-spinach

I've seen recommendations that I read The Yellow Wallpaper from 3 different sources within the past month. So I decided to give it a try and quite liked it. I'd give the title story 4 stars. Afterward, I felt I should check out some of her other work.

There is more than one collection of her short stories featuring The Yellow Wallpaper in the title. I went with the one that was available from my library's online service. I'm really not sure if this is the worst one, but I don't feel that the othe...more I've seen recommendations that I read The Yellow Wallpaper from 3 different sources within the past month. So I decided to give it a try and quite liked it. I'd give the title story 4 stars. Afterward, I felt I should check out some of her other work.

There is more than one collection of her short stories featuring The Yellow Wallpaper in the title. I went with the one that was available from my library's online service. I'm really not sure if this is the worst one, but I don't feel that the other stories in this collection were chosen because they were the best, either. The quality of the writing varies greatly with each story.

One issue with most of them is uneven pacing, stories that end abruptly, barely giving the reader time to take in what they have just read (the first time this happened, I was halfway through reading the next story before I realized why the characters were different), one story that ended in a long poem without much other resolution for the antagonist, and so on.

Another issue is how when Gilman has a moral point to make, she makes it with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. You know exactly how she feels about bad book illustrators, the treatment of horses in the city, etc. from her heavy-handed disapproval, and sometimes she sounds rather like an opinionated old aunt. I realize I might be overcritical on this point, as there is around a century between her and I, the reader, but persuasive story writing works best when the points being made are subtle and the story rings true to the reader, and I found myself fighting against what she was trying to say at times because all subtlety was lost.

I also find it puzzling why almost every story in the book is framed as a romance story in some way. Even a story about the safety issues of fenders on American vehicles (An Offender) was framed as a dialogue between a divorced wife and her estranged husband who wanted her to take him back. The device made sense when she was writing about gender politics, but I believe there were only two or three stories in the entire collection that didn't use a love story as a frame, and I started to find the repetition kind of boring.

There were a few fun moments, like when the main character in When I Was a Witch started wishing things to be different in the city and one of her granted wishes was newspaper articles that were color-coded based on the honesty of the articles. And there were some glimpses at what business and everyday life was like at the turn of the 20th century in stories like Martha's Mother, The Cottagette, and Making a Living. The prose was occasionally quite good, but overall too uneven for me to praise or enjoy it as a whole.

I do at least recommend The Yellow Wallpaper . It is available for free online or for download at Project Gutenburg if you'd like to read it without bothering to read her other fiction.(less)

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About Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent American sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and non fiction, and a lecturer for social reform. She was a utopian feminist during a time when her accomplishments were exceptional for women, and she served as a role model for future generations of feminists because of her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle. Her best remembered work today i...more

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Herland, The Yellow Wall-Paper, and Selected Writings

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“It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight.” — 21 people liked it

“I'm sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition.” — 18 people liked it

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