The Yellow Wallpaper: By Charlotte Perkins Gilman - Illustrated

By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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 with a startling twist, in which a husband seduces and impregnates a naïve servant; "Cottagette," concerning the romance of a young artist and a man who's apparently too good to be true; "Mr. Peebles' Heart," a liberating tale of a fiftyish shopkeeper whose sister-in-law, a doctor, persuades him to take a solo trip to Europe, with revivifying results; "The Yellow Wallpaper"; and three other outstanding stories.
These charming tales are not only highly readable and full of humor and invention, but also offer ample food for thought about the social, economic, and personal relationship of men and women — and how they might be improved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: MVP
• Release date: Aug 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9782377931545

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) was an American author, feminist, and social reformer. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Gilman was raised by her mother after her father abandoned his family to poverty. A single mother, Mary Perkins struggled to provide for her son and daughter, frequently enlisting the help of her estranged husband’s aunts, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. These early experiences shaped Charlotte’s outlook on gender and society, inspiring numerous written works and a lifetime of activism. Gilman excelled in school as a youth and went on to study at the Rhode Island School of Design where, in 1879, she met a woman named Martha Luther. The two were involved romantically for the next few years until Luther married in 1881. Distraught, Gilman eventually married Charles Walter Stetson, a painter, in 1884, with whom she had one daughter. After Katharine’s birth, Gilman suffered an intense case of post-partum depression, an experience which inspired her landmark story “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1890). Gilman and Stetson divorced in 1894, after which Charlotte moved to California and became active in social reform. Gilman was a pioneer of the American feminist movement and an early advocate for women’s suffrage, divorce, and euthanasia. Her radical beliefs and controversial views on race—Gilman was known to support white supremacist ideologies—nearly consigned her work to history; at the time of her death none of her works remained in print. In the 1970s, however, the rise of second-wave feminism and its influence on literary scholarship revived her reputation, bringing her work back into publication.

Book preview

The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Published: 1892

           The Yellow Wallpaper

It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.

A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity—but that would be asking too much of fate!

Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.

Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.

John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.

John is a physician, and PERHAPS—(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)—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?

My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing.

So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to work until I am well again.

Personally, I disagree with their ideas.

Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.

But what

Reviews for The Yellow Wallpaper

[thewanderingjew_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

These stories are written in a different time frame, almost a century and a half ago, they are more literature than the made for TV tales turned out furiously on the computers of modern day authors, turned out with stories of violence and sex to attract an audience, rather than with interesting stories about life’s challenges. This collection of short stories was simply a pleasure to read. Each one, on its own, had a different theme about women. One story was about a misunderstood woman going mad after the birth of her child, when her hormones were batting each other around like baseballs.Another was about a young woman wronged, who haunts the dreams of those living in the home she once lived in with her fatherless child. The next is about a pampered woman who finds her own strength and grows independent. Then there is the story of a bitter, over zealous aunt who makes a deceitful bargain with her great nephews, only to be chastised by the minister for her duplicity.The selection of stories is wholesome. There is a mixture of the real with the mystic. There is no stupid sex or foul language. There is really no violence to speak of and there are happy endings, of a fairy tale nature, in some cases. They cover the gamut of women’s issues, career, emotion, freedom, purpose, love, marriage, divorce, devotion, loyalty, faithfulness, religion, responsibility, and even vengeance, but all of the stories are treated in such a way that they do not tax the reader, but rather they entertain perfectly with the style and the message.

[ihanson1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A frightening book on one woman's decent into madness. Wonderful commentary on the life of 19th century upper middle class women. I recommend this book regularly.

[cheryl_in_cc_nv · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Normally I have little attraction to or respect for Women's Studies" courses, and I'm troubled by some aspects of Feminism. But if this book were the primary text for a college class, I might just sign up.

What I found most interesting about this collection is that the title story is the earliest included. Gilman's later personal works were not so well-crafted. The classic story of madness is horrifying and powerful indeed, as are a couple of other 'gothic' stories including "The Giant Wistaria." Most of the rest of the many stories here are shorter and more didactic.

But, they are *all* worth reading. They show how a variety of different women, and groups of women, can make choices and make a difference, in their own lives and in society. Some are downright Utopian, many are *almost* implausibly idealistic. But all are inspirational and provocative.

Oh, but I should add, before you misunderstand... Gilman did not hate men. She hated the way some men dominate social structures in order to denigrate women, and there's strong evidence that she would have preferred the intimate company of women had that option been available to her. But men can appreciate this book, too.

There is one other category of works included here. Fascinatingly, Gilman did some experimental writing, crafting several stories 'in the style of' other well-known authors, including Alcott, Kipling, Twain, and Henry James. Those are impressive, and fun to read, too."

[zommbie1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Synopsis: A nameless narrator tells of a summer in a big house in the country where her physician husband has taken her on doctors orders in order for her nerves to get better (she is suffering from what we now know to be postpartum depression). The doctor has forbidden her (according with the thinking of the day) to have any form of mental stimulation, including writing. However, she manages to write in a journal and it is through this journal we, the readers, get to follow her journey into madness.My Thoughts: I skim-read this short story for my survery course last semester and really wanted to get back to it and read it properly. Having my seniors read it for their unit on poetry and texts seemed like a perfect time to do it. Then when the Women Unbound challenge was announced it seemed perfectly providential.I liked this story because it touches on something that is close to my heart, women's mental health. The story was written at the turn of the last century and it shows the vulnerability of women in a society that already saw them as weak and then compounded the problem by not acknowledging mental illness. Actually, they saw mental illness as something that could be overcome by not doing anything. And as can be seen by this story, this had dire consequences.Through the journal we get to follow the decent from a relatively mild form of postpartum depression into a raging psychosis. By infantilising his wife the husband and the doctors in the story isolate and compound the problem. By cutting off access to almost all of her friends and relatives the woman is left to ponder the pattern on the decaying wallpaper in the prison like nursery that her husband has designated as her room.I found this to be a fascinating story of the decent into mental illness and a powerful commentary on the time when it was written as well as giving an insight into the life of the author herself. A quick but powerful read I recommend to anyone!

[majesdane-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I think a lot of the "points" to these stories were over my head, given the discrepancy in time periods between when these were written and me reading them now in modern day. However!, I did enjoy reading all the short stories and really, I think that's all that matters.