“The Yellow Wallpaper” was first published in The New England Magazine in January 1892.
I read this a while back in college. However, I never got around to posting a review. After hearing that John over at The Book Mine Set blog has been asked to resurrect Short Story Monday, I thought this would be a great way to begin participating.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote this in response to her personal experience with post-partum depression; this at a time when the phenomenon was attributed to a woman’s weak and nervous nature. Thus many times it was dismissed or overlooked, the woman left to deal with the devastating nature of this illness alone with no one to understand or console her.
The character in this story lets us know immediately her situation:
John is a physician, and perhaps…that is one reason I do not get well faster.
You see, he does not believe I am sick!
And what can one do?
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?
What is a woman to do in her age, with a husband entrenched in an establishment that believes her issues to be all in her head, curable with medication, fresh air, and a closely monitored existence. So much so, she is literally put into a room with barred windows, sparse furnishings, and not allowed company or an outlet such as keeping a journal, which she does of course, but secretively as her husband says it stimulates her imagination in a way that is detrimental to her health. In fact any stimulation, such as from visiting friends and family is too much for her.
She is told how to spend every hour of her day, what she should eat and drink and when. She is even told when to sleep and to nap.
So what is a woman to do under these circumstances?
Go mad, of course. And that is exactly what she does.
Gilman’s style of writing immediately draws you into this woman’s world, evoking sympathy and then horror as we watch her slowly descend into the deep dark abyss of her mind.
The catalyst for this journey is the yellow wallpaper that lines the walls of her room. It is this that becomes the focus of her imagination as all other outlets have been denied her.
The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.
You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back-somersault, and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream.
The stress of having her child, of being controlled so much so that she has no other way of coping – it is not allowed. She rebels as her imagination cannot be contained; not like her life. The only way to freedom is through abstract thought. She drives her imagination inward seeking, and then finding, a way to be free of all those constraints put upon her.
Just as with that wallpaper, what is seen on the surface of our ‘selves’ is merely decoration. It is what one finds underneath that matters. What is really hiding beneath that façade?
Tearing at that yellow wallpaper, the character hopes to find the woman she knows is trapped, and set her free. Eventually she succeeds. But as to what is truly freed, and how – I will leave that to you to find out for yourself.
The story is only 15 pages long and flows well enough that you should finish it very quickly.
I initially gave this story only 4 Stars, but as I re-read it, I became aware of so much more than I had originally given it credit for, thus I am going to upgrade this rating to 5 Stars.
