Charlotte Perkins GILMAN : The yellow wall-paper

"The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.'

Written with barely controlled fury after she was confined to her room for 'nerves' and forbidden to write, Gilman's pioneering feminist horror story scandalized nineteenth-century readers with its portrayal of a woman who loses her mind because she has literally nothing to do.

Also contains The Rocking-Chair and Old Water.

The Yellow wall-paper is a very short story that you can read in less than an hour, but it's a story well worth reading anyway.

I think the first time I heard about it was watching one of Kate's videos but I'm not sure which one. She praised it so much that I had to give it a try. It's easy to find it for free on the net, so I read it on my kindle, but have just ordered the Penguin little black classic. (I will add a review of the other two stories on this post when I'm done.)

What struck me most reading this was how that nameless character was trying to communicate with her husband but the husband, no matter how much he seemed to love her, wouldn't listen because he knew better - he was a physician, a man of science, in an era who thought men knew all about women, their nerves and hysteria. That poor woman was just suffering from post-natal depression but the only treatment that prevailed in those days was to lock the young mother up with nothing at all to distract her. Imagine lying on your bed for days, weeks, maybe months, only looking at the ceiling or through the window ! Or, in this case, studying that ugly yellow wallpaper. Basically, this can drive you completely crazy in record time.

 

The worse is that it really happened to the author, who didn't even have the authorisation to write. Charlotte Perkins Gilman seems to have led a very interesting and unconventional life, even her death. After reading this, I would really love to read her autobiography and other writings.

I highly recommend reading this text - and it won't take you long...