The Yellow Wallpaper

By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A woman and her husband rent a summer house, but what should be a restful getaway turns into a suffocating psychological battle. This chilling account of postpartum depression and a husband’s controlling behavior in the guise of treatment will leave you breathless.

This Inwood Commons Modern Edition updates

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inwood Commons Publishing
• Release date: Mar 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9780997818734

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in 1860 in Connecticut. Her father left when she was young and Gilman spent the rest of her childhood in poverty. As an adult she took classes at the Rhode Island School of Design and supported herself financially as a tutor, painter and artist. She had a short marriage with an artist and suffered serious postnatal depression after the birth of their daughter. In 1888 Gilman moved to California, where she became involved in feminist organizations. In California, she was inspired to write and she published The Yellow Wallpaper in The New England Magazine in 1892. In later life she was diagnosed with breast cancer and died by suicide in 1935.

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THE YELLOW WALLPAPER

Inwood Commons Modern Editions

The Inwood Commons Modern Editions gently update out-of-copyright texts by women and people of color for modern readers. Texts are edited for clarity, ease of reading, social mores, and currency values to help you connect to the writer’s message. Correct spellings are used throughout. Best of all, the original texts are included in appendices, so that you may read either or both. Some editions also include essays by scholars to explain context and highlight ideas.

The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Inwood Commons Modern Edition

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Publisher: Wendy Fuller

Contents

The Yellow Wallpaper 1

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper 25

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Hearing of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., January 28, 1896 27

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wall-paper 31

National Endowment for the Humanities

Trapped and Silenced: Claustrophobic Fear in The Yellow Wallpaper 35

WANG Fanghui

The Yellow Wallpaper 45

Giovanna Tallone

Appendix A

The Yellow Wall-paper (Original) 55

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Appendix B

Hearing of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., January 28, 1896 (Original) 79

Appendix C

Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper (Original) 85

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

(1891)

It’s not often that ordinary people like John and me rent historic homes for the summer.

A colonial mansion, an estate, I’d say a haunted house, and reach the limit of poetic license, but that would be asking too much.

Still I’ll proudly say that there is something weird about it.

Otherwise, why rent it so cheaply? And why has it been uninhabited so long?

John laughs at me, of course, but you expect that in a marriage.

John is extremely practical. He’s got no patience with faith, an intense annoyance with superstition, and he scoffs at anything not to be felt and seen and put down in numbers.

John is a doctor, and perhaps (I wouldn’t say it to a living soul, of course, but this is just paper and gives me relief) perhaps that is one reason I’m not getting well faster.

You see, he doesn’t believe I’m sick.

And what can you do?

If a well-respected doctor, and your own husband, assures friends and relatives that there’s really nothing wrong with you but temporary depression—a slight anxiety—what can you do?

My brother is also a doctor, and also well-respected, and he says the same thing.

So I take meds—whatever they are, and eat organic, and go on wellness retreats, and get outside, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to work until I’m well again.

Personally, I disagree with them.

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

But what can you do?

I did write for a while in spite of them; but it is exhausting—having to be so sneaky about it, or else face heavy opposition.

I sometimes think that in my mental state if I had less opposition and more company and mental stimulation—but John says the worst thing I can do is to think about my mental state, and I admit it always makes me feel bad.

So I’ll leave it alone and talk about the house.

The most beautiful place. It’s on its own, standing a ways back from the road, at least three miles from town. It makes me think of English places that you read about, because there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people.

There is a delicious garden. I’ve never seen such a garden—large and shady, full of box-hedge-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with benches under them.

There were greenhouses, too, but they’re all ruined now.

There were some legal problems, I believe, something about the heirs and coheirs; anyway, the place has been empty for years.

That spoils my ghost story, I’m afraid, but I don’t care—there is something strange about the house—I can feel it.

I even said so to John one moonlit evening, but he said what I felt was a draft, and shut the window.

I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I didn’t used to be so sensitive. I think it’s due to this anxiety.

But John says if I feel that way, I’ll lose self-control; so I take pains to control myself—around him, at least, and that makes me very tired.

I don’t like our room at all. I wanted one downstairs that opened onto the patio and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz curtains. But John wouldn’t hear of it.

He said there was only one window and not enough room for two beds, and no room close enough for him if he slept in another.

He’s very careful and loving, and hardly lets me move without directions.

I have a schedule prescription for every hour of the day; he takes all worries from me, and so I feel ungrateful not to value it more.

He said we came here only for me, that I was to just relax and have all the fresh air I could get. "Your type of

Reviews for The Yellow Wallpaper

[ionas_7 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I hadn’t any previous experience of this author. When reading the story I felt that it was the most horrifying piece of writing I had ever read, though when looking through it I didn’t feel that it was so bad. Reputedly, the story was based on the author’s own experience of her psychosis We’re not given the name of the woman recounting her experience, and I will call her the protagonist, or the P. Two of the first things that meet the eye are the protagonist’s negative comments about marriage, that the P’s husband John laughs at her (which is to be expected in marriage) and also negative comments about doctors. The P remarks that one reason she is not getting well faster may be because her husband is a physician. He does not believe she is “sick””, and what can one do? Both her husband and brother are doctors “of high standing” and both think there is nothing the matter with her except “a temporary nervous depression” or “slight hysterical tendency”. Perhaps at some level, then, the P feels obliged to prove them both wrong, that there really is something wrong with her; thus the need and “satisfaction” at some level to develop a full-blown psychosis. She is forbidden to work or write; but she is a woman with her own opinions and she herself feels that congenial work would do her good. She feels that if she had less “opposition” and “more society and stimulus”, she would feel better. We’re warned from the start that strange things are about to happen; she feels there is something queer, something strange, about the house. And otherwise, how had they been able to rent it so cheaply, and why would it have “"stood so long untenanted”? John is “very careful and loving” but he does not listen to his wife’s objections to the room he has chosen for them to sleep in. John is absolutely controlling; he chooses the house and the bedroom they’ve to sleep in and dictates what the P is permitted to do. When the P tells her left-brained husband what she feels about the house, he has so little understanding of what she’s talking about that he claims what she felt was a draught! She would have preferred to use as a bedroom a downstairs room with roses all over the window, but John wouldn’t hear of it. John has a “schedule prescription” for each hour in the day – the utnost control. Is this a general criticism of the control of all, or most, husbands of the times? At least the P is permitted to eat that which her appetite dictates, at any rate, “somewhat”. The room John chose for the bedroom was the former nursery that had bars on the windows. This is metaphoric for the P’s feeling of imprisonment when confined to the room. She had never seen worse wall-paper in her life. The colour of the wall-paper is a “smoldering unclean yellow”. John hates her to have to write a word. The P tells us that she is suffering, whereas logical John says there is no reason to suffer. (This is his subjective opinion.) She says her baby is “so dear” but she cannot be with him since it makes her so nervous. She supposes John was never nervous in his life. I will not cite any more details but will talk in a general manner. The author discloses in a gradual and subtle manner the start of the psychosis. First, she becomes convinced there is a woman or several women behind bars in the wall-paper, trying to get out. Later, she fails to distinguish between herself and the woman/women. She begins to display a slight paranoia, in that she gets a little afraid of John and Jennie (John’s sister), and feels they both give her strange looks. She projects her own problems onto John, and she thinks that he is getting queer now. She doesn’t like the look in John’s eyes and feels he is only pretending to be loving and kind. Now she. sees many creeping women outside, creeping so fast. Finally, she talks about she herself having to get back behind the pattern. She thinks she is the woman or one of the women behind the pattern. Eventually, John comes in the room and sees her creeping on the floor, realizes something is very wrong and faints. To sum up, I felt this to be an excellent and superbly written story and may read some of the author’s other stories.

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What a wonderfully creepy short story (novella?)! I had plenty of suspicions about what was going to happen, but wasn't even close...

[frozenplums · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite short stories of all time! Beautifully haunting psychological thriller!

[darthdeverell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman explores the rest cure through a story in which her unreliable narrator slowly unravels like the wallpaper on which she fixates. The tale begins with the narrator entering a gothic manse fallen on hard times as part of her physician husband John's prescription, "absolutely forbidden to 'work' until" she is well (pg. 3). Locked in a room with only the curling patterns on yellow wallpaper to occupy herself, she slowly begins imagining that they move and ascribing personalities to the patterns. The narrator looks out the window and offers insight into her life, but this fades as the wallpaper comes to dominate her world, until she must climb inside it. The story offers useful historical insight into the rest cure while also serving as a good example of nineteenth century gothic fiction.

[serenity_tigerlily · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I first read this piece for an English class a couple years ago and it’s been with me ever since. It’s a fairly short read but when it’s over it still haunts you and leaves you chilled to the bone. I think that this story depicts how someone with a mental illness could feel when their illness isn’t validated and properly cared for.

[john257hopper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an interesting short story about the psychological disintegration of a woman, seeing images in the eponymous object around her as she lays in her sickbed. Too short to exert a really powerful impact, though, for me. 3.5/5

[thebookjunky · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I doubt I will ever read again such powerful descriptions of wallpaper. What vivid writing!

[dste_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I think that The Yellow Wallpaper is a really good short story. The way that the plot unravels on it's way to the ending is really skillful. I'm also impressed by the fact that the author went through a similar situation and was able to find her way out of it! Knowing that the author wrote from experience added a lot of credibility to the story as a whole.

[ajbraithwaite_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wow, this is a great short story. Creepy, sinister and unbearably sad.

[anawkwardreader · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

On the surface, it's a creepy, intriguing story about a woman and the wallpaper in her room, but it goes so much deeper to address how women were treated by their husbands and by doctors at the time. It's partially autobiographical and appalling and groundbreaking, especially for 1892, yet not as unrecognizable as one would hope for being well over 100 years old, which added to the disturbance level of this story for me.

It's in the public domain and a really quick read, but I liked this edition for its introduction and afterword that set the historical context and gave a lot of information about Charlotte Perkins Gilman and her own experiences with the "rest cure." But the afterword does spoil "The Awakening" and "The House of Mirth," just FYI.

[eclecticdodo · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A short story chronicling one woman's descent into madness, poorly understood by those around her, and tormented by the ghastly yellow wallpaper in her bedroom. Very well told. I only wish it were longer.

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It starts so simply...a couple is on vacation. She is ill and taking a rest in the country. But is that true? She is scared, and trapped, and not allowed to leave. Her fear is palpable. Or, maybe, she is an extremely unreliable narrator?

[mmwiseheart · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

** spoiler alert ** This is a fantastic insight into the mind of someone who has been suffering from undiagnosed post-partum depression. Her husband believes she just needs rest and confines her to a room with yellow wallpaper. The result of this isolation is a mental breakdown.

[basilsbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have been meaning to read this for such a long time and I finally did and it leaves me wishing I could read it again for the first time again, I really enjoyed this one

[citizenjoyce · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a classic of feminist literature. It tells of a woman suffering from depression which is made worse and worse by the paternalistic care of her "loving" husband who treats her as a child, manages every aspect of her life, discourages her writing career, and dismisses any concern she might have. His idea of a cure for depression seems to be that she sleep for 3 months and not trouble her pretty little brain. The result is a very moving, very creepy story.

[readingover50 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read this short story in 1 sitting. It is the story of a woman's descent into madness following the birth of her child and the subsequent enforced rest. She is taken to a country house to recover and spends most of her time confined to a room with horrid yellow wallpaper. The description of the room makes me think what happens to the woman has happened in the past. A creepy, thought provoking read.

[pocketmermaid · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite pieces of short fiction ever. I was first exposed to this story during my senior year of high school, where I just wrote it off as a creepy story. I enjoyed it, but I didn't really GET it. This 6,000 word story, written as a journal of a woman's descent into madness, is deceptively simple.I came across it again years later, and I saw it in a different way. An extremely personal way. I related to this narrator in that I feared ending up like her. And if I'd been born in her time, I very well might have. I chose this story to be the focus of a research paper for a lit class, and studied it once again for another lit class. I am very familiar with this story and I've lost count of how many times I've read it. But every time I read it, I get a new feeling from it, and it chills me all over again.

[pepperwings · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's fascinating and also mystifying how people handled mental stress, or mental disorders years ago, what things helped some people, and drove others further into madness. From what I understand, this story is partially true, based on the author's experience and hallucinations, and the frustration from people who largely had good intentions. Of course, from a feminist point of view, it's terrible how little people listened to what she wanted, or worked to truly understand and help.

[sullwyn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was shorter than I expected.. But interesting.. I loved the visuals I got from her description of the creeping woman behind the pattern in the wallpaper... And to learn ultimately that it was herself she saw trapped behind it.. Creepy.. And sad.. I enjoyed it!

[arkrayder · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was an okay short story about a woman’s decent into psychosis. It’s written in the form of a diary entry but there are no dates or times. Just a long stream of consciousness. Quick read.

[kikiunhinged · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant work and I love how disturbing people thought it was when she wrote it. As if one would have to be insane to be able to write that brilliantly. Loved it and will read it again.

[ahooper04 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very moving story about a woman who slowly loses her mind because of the way society treats women during the 19th century.

[m.belljackson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

With still so many unresolved questions, The Yellow Wallpaper keeps its power.Was the doctor husband totally without bad intentions?If no, why did he not respond to his wife's simple request NOT to stay in the upstairs nursery with the awful peeling wallpaper?Did her writing actually cause her to become more upset? or was this a thing he just wanted to control?If she could make it outside for daily walks, why does she keep insisting that her husband would not allow her to DO anything?She could have gardened! fed birds! found a pet! followed the wildlife! dug a pond!So this descent into madness felt more like the choices of an unstable mind rather than an intent by her husband and his sister to drive her insane.

[lesliehurd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story published in 1892. It is presented as a collection of journal entries written by a woman whose doctor husband has confined her to the upstairs bedroom of a house they’ve rented for the summer so she can recuperate from what he calls a “temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency,” a diagnosis common to women in that period.

This early piece of feminist literature reflects 19th century male attitudes toward women's physical and mental health. What she seems to have is post partum depression. Rather than help her recover, her confinement in the room with the peeling yellow wallpaper has a very bad effect indeed on her mental health.

I found myself outraged at the condescending attitude of her husband, as well as her acceptance of his decree. I also found the story of her mental decline deliciously creepy. The short story is definitely worth a read.

[amydross · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Never read this as a kid, realized I probably should. An interesting perspective on interior decorating.

[janemarieprice · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am glad I read this during the day. It is quite frightening on a lot of levels. The narrator is struggling with depression stemming from the pressure of being a ‘good wife’ by society’s standards and possibly also from the recent birth of her child. As I’m sure was common at the time, she is assumed to have some sort of non-medical exhaustion by her doctor husband and brother. The cure is extended rest and absolutely no work whatsoever. Trapped in a room (of her husband’s choosing of course), she descends into a sort of madness through obsession with the wallpaper. There is a lot going on in the short story, most disturbing to me is the narrators seeming ignorance of the cause of her own depression. While she does fight in a way against her husband’s diagnosis, she doesn’t seem to feel sure about her condition herself.

[sturlington_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A woman, confined to an upper-story bedroom in a creepy house for a "rest cure" following a mental breakdown, becomes obsessed with the hideous yellow wallpaper.I have read this story a few times and I always forget how creepy and chilling it is, especially the final image. Gilman has a knack of pointing out the horrific things that society does to women. In this story, depriving the narrator of her means of expressing herself and stimulating her brain is just as terrifying as confining her to her room. I believe the narrator was suffering from undiagnosed postpartum depression.Reread in 2015.

[bookworm12_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Short and über creepy, this story is told from the point-of-view of a woman staying in the country with her husband. She’s recovering from an unnamed illness (possibly post-partum depression) and her husband has set her up in a room by herself. The walls are covered with an ugly yellow wallpaper and as the story progresses she becomes obsessed with it. She begins to believe she can see a woman lurking behind the designs in the wallpaper. The longer she remains confined to the room the deeper she descends into her madness, taking the reader along for the ride. The story was published in 1892 and is often called one of the first pieces of feminist literature. It’s a chilling look at the “treatment” women were often given and the lack of freedom they were permitted in these situations. It’s also just a great scary story, so there’s something for everyone.

[theeccentriclady · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting read from a different era. Not sure how I really feel even after 2 months. I like dark and books about insanity but this one was a bit out there.

[lisamorr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very quick read. The VMC edition I had included an Afterword which was almost as long as the book itself!I enjoyed this book (short story, or at most a novella). Written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an early feminist, it recounts a wife's descent into madness. The main character is the wife mentioned above; it is told in the first person, and the reader is not entirely convinced of what is real and what is in the narrator's mind.This was a disturbing book - I felt helpless, like the narrator. A good book.