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The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

4.04 · Rating details · 74,344 ratings · 1,778 reviews

Best known for the 1892 title story of this collection, a harrowing tale of a woman's descent into madness, Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote more than 200 other short stories. Seven of her finest are reprinted here.

Written from a feminist perspective, often focusing on the inferior status accorded to women by society, the tales include "turned," an ironic story w ...more

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Paperback, Dover Thrift Editions, 70 pages

Published July 11th 1997 by Dover Publications (first published 1892)

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Oct 18, 2018 JV (semi-hiatus) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 2018, shorts-and-anthologies, feminism, favourites, 5-star-reads

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a remarkable woman and utopian feminist ahead of her time. Powerful, thought-provoking, and profoundly illuminating, Gilman developed seven short feminist narratives that seek to empower women and minorities oppressed by our patriarchal society. Highly polemical, gripping, and infused with relevant themes, she deconstructs the ideological subversion of both genders against the status quo, promotes civil rights and economic independence, and confronts the notion of to ...more

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Jul 31, 2011 Shovelmonkey1 rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: people who want a brief taste of madness

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: 1001 books list and danielle23

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

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 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? ...more

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Oct 20, 2018 Beverly rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

So, so good, the belittling and infantilizing treatment of this poor woman, and her entrapment in the room with the yellow wallpaper by her physician husband is a case history in how to drive someone completely insane.

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Dec 06, 2015 BrokenTune rated it really liked it

Shelves: reviewed

"This wallpaper has a kind of subpattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then. But in the places where it isn’t faded and where the sun is just so—I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design."

Classic horror in small doses provided by an author I had not heard about but who is now someone I will seek out for other stories.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wallp "This wallpaper has a kind of subpattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then. But in the places where it isn’t faded and where the sun is just so—I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design."

Classic horror in small doses provided by an author I had not heard about but who is now someone I will seek out for other stories.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wallpaper tells the story of a woman who is incarcerated in her own house and basically confined to rest in a room without being allowed to do anything. No work, no mental diversion. All because her keepers - mainly her husband - believe this is what is best for her, even though he does not understand the reason for the woman's illness:

"John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him."

Over the three months (!) of her confinement, the woman has nothing to occupy her mind except for the room she is in and the wallpaper hanging in pieces:

"It is a 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, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls. The paint and paper look as if a boys’ school had used it. It is stripped off—the paper—in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin."

In fact, the description of the room strongly reminded me of Stefan Zweig's Chess Story, where a prisoner is held and where isolation, inactivity, and a bare room is used as a form of torture. In order to keep sane, the prisoner starts an imaginary chess game against himself, which he cannot win.
So, when reading The Yellow Wallpaper's first few chapters, I suspected that the story might reveal similar motives. As the paragraphs went on, however, I became less interested in the motives of the "carers" (or captors) and instead increasingly interested in the woman's identity. She is not named. Was she a person or was she a ghost?

For a story written in 1890, The Yellow Wallpaper packs a lot of punch. I had not expected that the story was not really written as a horror story, but was written as social commentary based on the author's own experience, which in fact just adds to its poignancy.
When Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote the The Yellow Wallpaper, she knew about suffering from post-natal depression and had first-hand experience of the then newly developed prescription on rest cures - a treatment consisted primarily in isolation, confinement to bed, dieting, electrotherapy and massage - because she had been a patient of the developer of said cure, Silas Weir Mitchell, who even gets a mention in The Yellow Wallpaper.

I guess, this is another instance where fiction and fact are inseparable, and where circumstances that once described the fate of real people will now pass as classic horror. ...more

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Dec 14, 2007 J.G. Keely rated it it was ok

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

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 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. ...more

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Oct 11, 2017 Apatt rated it it was amazing

Shelves: horror, short-stories, classics

“I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide--plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.”

...more

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Oct 06, 2017 Eliza rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-stars, original-idea, classics, fiction, mystery, short-story, reviewed, memorable-characters

Reread in October 2018

As always, amazing writing and stories that make you think. Gotta love Gilman, not only for her talent of writing, but her courage to write such feminist pieces during the 18th century.
_____________________________________________

5 STARS

I only had to read The Yellow Wallpaper for class, however, as soon as I read that short-story, I knew I would have to read her other stories. Gilman's writing is flawless. I honestly think Charlotte Perkins Gilman is my new favorite short-/>5 ...more

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Nov 14, 2017 Ron rated it really liked it

Shelves: anthology-collection, short-story

5 stars for The Yellow Wallpaper - Excellent short story. After looking into Gilman’s traumatic inspiration for writing it, I was wowed.

4 stars for the other stories included in this small book - all were good.

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Aug 29, 2012 David Schaafsma rated it really liked it

Shelves: eng-240-spr-17, fiction-19th-century, madness-psychi-supernat-faith-proje, feminism

The Yellow Wallpaper, first published in 1992, is now a staple of middle and high school English classes and college (Gender and )Women’s Studies programs, linked to Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Ibsen’s The Doll House and similar texts reflecting on the damage patriarchy does to society, especially to women. Gilman wrote a lot of fiction, and also Women and Economics, was a friend of feminist and social reformer Jane Addams, and was increasingly a feminist critic of society.

Gilman al ...more

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Dec 06, 2017 jv poore rated it really liked it

Shelves: own-it, short-stories

I read The Yellow Wallpaper in my 8th grade Literature class and I was a bit blown away. Parts of this short story have stuck with me since. So, when I spotted this tiny tome for only fifty cents, I had to have it.

The title story was every bit as eerie-creepy-quirky as I remember, but I had missed the stunningly superb writing. I'm so pleased that I revisited this! I thoroughly enjoyed the following stories as well.

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Jun 03, 2018 Diane rated it really liked it

Shelves: short-stories, classics

"The Yellow Wallpaper" is a powerful short story about a woman going mad, in part because she's not allowed to do anything. Gilman did a beautiful job showing how frustrating it was when the woman's concerns weren't taken seriously, both by her husband and by others. The story is written as an argument against restricting women from activities — commanding them to "rest" isn't always restful; it's maddening.

I first read this story in high school, but I'm quite certain I didn't really ...more

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Dec 06, 2010 Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it liked it

Shelves: literature, usa

*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 (non *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.

...more

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Jan 28, 2018 Celia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018-read, 1001-challenge, classics, kindle, 2018-caz

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent American feminist, sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform.

In her lifetime, she wrote over 200 short stories. 7 of them are included here.

The Yellow Wallpaper. I could have never imagined that a story describing wallpaper could be so engrossing. The descriptions, however, depict a woman going deeper and deeper into mad ...more

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Jul 06, 2011 Gloria Mundi rated it really liked it

Shelves: creeptastic, curiouser-and-curiouser, insane-in-the-membrane, 1001-books, gothika, short-stories, gender, 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/>EXCUSE ...more

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Nov 20, 2016 Olivier Delaye rated it really liked it

This well-written story about a depressed and possibly deranged woman who is convinced that the wallpaper of her bedroom is haunted/possessed/inhabited reminded me of China Mieville’s Details, which appears in his short story collection Looking for Jake. In both, the devil is indeed in the details…

OLIVIER DELAYE
Author of the SEBASTEN OF ATLANTIS series

The Forgotten Goddess (Sebasten of Atlantis, #1) by Olivier Delaye

...more

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Feb 02, 2011 Zaki rated it really liked it

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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Dec 22, 2015 Mary rated it really liked it

Shelves: creepy, madness, classics, short-story

I read this short story a few months ago on someone's recommendation when I said that the tile design at a hotel was driving me insane.

In retrospect, the tile was fine.

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Feb 12, 2018 Lorraine rated it really liked it

I loved this collection of stories. My favorite was ‘Martha’s Mother’. I read it twice in a row with a mighty laugh at the end. Most made me SO HAPPY and grateful that I, as a woman, didn’t live in these earlier times. ‘The Wisteria Vine’ is one story I’d like to read around a camp fire or darkened fireplace on Halloween night. I love the author’s writing style. In most cases she brings you along slowly, building each story, then hits it out of the park sometimes abruptly at the end. 👍👍

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Jul 14, 2010 Fiona rated it it was amazing

Shelves: female-writers, fiction, 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 and so turned ...more

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Jan 08, 2017 Punya Gupta rated it it was amazing

Shelves: my-favourites, short-stories, wehmut, short-wonder

The Yellow Wallpaper is a chilling and brilliant short story of 6000 words by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Written in 1892 it is one of the first pieces of feminist literature available.
The story chronicles the descent of a woman into madness after she's kept under house arrest by her husband given her early signs of depression and anxiety.

This book was written in a conservative era where in women were not allowed to read and write and voice their opinions.

W ...more

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Aug 20, 2007 Bailey added it

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 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. ...more

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Sep 28, 2007 Lori rated it it was ok

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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Jun 10, 2012 Val rated it it was amazing

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 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. ...more

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Oct 19, 2018 Anne ✨ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mental-health, classics, short-story-essay, feminism, horror

A super quick read at only 70 pages or so, this is a collection of seven short stories written in 1892 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a utopian feminist ahead of her time. The themes are as relevant today as back then. The Yellow Wallpaper is the most popular, and has a mildly suspenseful feel. The others had quite a bit of humor, attitude, and an outspokenness on gender issues that would have been surprising for the times.

My favorites were:
The Yellow Wallpaper (mental illness & the 'resti/>The ...more

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Oct 16, 2018 Tara♥ {MindforBooks} rated it it was amazing

Shelves: reviewed, 2018-shorties

Well holy shit!!

I was looking for some little horrors to keep me occupied while awaiting an email from a friend with their book. I was told to give this a go. It both scared the crap out of me and made me livid.

Well it scared the crap out of me while reading it and then made me angry when I read more about Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

This story was written after she was put on the 'rest-cure' after giving birth to her daughter. Who would like to know what the 'rest-cure' entailed of?

Well holy shit!!

I was looking for some little horrors to keep me occupied while awaiting an email from a friend with their book. I was told to give this a go. It both scared the crap out of me and made me livid.

Well it scared the crap out of me while reading it and then made me angry when I read more about Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

This story was written after she was put on the 'rest-cure' after giving birth to her daughter. Who would like to know what the 'rest-cure' entailed of?

In 1892, feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman published "The Yellow Wallpaper", a horror short story based on her experience when placed under the rest cure from Dr. Silas W. Mitchell himself. She wasn't allowed to write in a journal, paint a picture, or release her imagination in any way, though she was artistically inclined. If she ever felt ill, she was simply told to return to bed. Her specific instructions from Dr. Mitchell were to "Live as domestic a life as possible. Have your child with you all the time... Lie down an hour after each meal. Have but two hours' intellectual life a day. And never touch pen, brush or pencil as long as you live."Gilman abided by Mitchell's instructions for several months before practically losing control of her sanity.

And what type of people were typically given this oh so wonderful and helpful cure? Why women of course!!! We are the hysterical and weaker sex after all.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was certainly a women born before her time. She sent a copy of 'The Yellow Wallpaper' to Dr. Mitchell after it was published. She also mentions him by name in the story and throws massive shade at him which makes me think she was all kinds of awesome.

This is certainly a powerful insight into a time when women had such little autonomy over their own bodies that it's terrifying to think about and why I think this works so well as a horror story. It's also important to keep in mind that there are still places in the world where women still don't have autonomy over their own bodies, my own country being one such place until very recently. ...more

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Jan 16, 2019 Kelly ... rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1001-books, american-lit, classics, read-in-2019

What an incredible collection of stories! All were beautifully written. Some were sweet and a bit romantic. Some ended abruptly making me want a sequel. But it is the title story I loved most. It felt a bit like an Edgar Allen Poe story. I was reminded especially of The Cask of Amontillado, which I have always found the most shocking, scary, and realistic of his tales. It was horror in the modern sense, but was so much scarier than anything modern because it was believable.

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Jul 31, 2011 Amy Neftzger rated it it was amazing

This is a short but well written literary piece in which a woman goes insane. The woman has been prescribed a cure of doing nothing (complete rest). What I really like about this story is that you can't really tell if the woman was ill to begin with or if the "cure" actually caused the insanity. There are also a number of themes woven into this story, such as that of creativity vs rationality (she's a writer and her husband is a physician) as well as the theme of the domestic role as a prison (d ...more

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Sep 07, 2009 Madeline rated it really liked it

Shelves: the-list, assigned-reading

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

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Oct 14, 2010 Peter Derk rated it it was ok

Charlotte Perkins Gilman would be 158 years old this July. Which got me thinking about her classic tale, “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

If you were an English major in college, I’d wager you’ve read this story no less than three times.

Professor types love this thing. It’s feminist literature. It’s transgressive, but in a way that’s safe to discuss in classrooms. Hell, it even fits in with medical stuff. You can find a digitized copy of the story on the National Library of Medicin ...more

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Oct 31, 2018 Candace rated it it was amazing

I read this story during my college days. It sticks with you because of its haunting writing and viewpoint. Excellent read!

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topics	posts	views	last activity
Reading 1001: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman	5	22	Jan 18, 2019 05:04PM
Old Books, New Re...: August 2012 - The Yellow Wallpaper	24	97	Dec 16, 2017 01:47PM
Around the Year i...: The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman	1	12	Sep 04, 2017 10:50AM
The Gothic Novel ...: The Yellow Wallpaper	54	17	Jul 10, 2017 05:09PM
History in Vogue: The Yellow Wallpaper	2	7	Apr 03, 2017 10:56PM
Play Book Tag: The Yellow Wallpaper 2 stars	5	24	Apr 07, 2016 06:48PM

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About Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman, also known as Charlotte Perkins Stetson, was a prominent American sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, 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 li ...more