Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper is proof in black and white how a very short tale—only about fifteen pages—can develop characters, increase drama, and incite thoughtful discussion about deeper themes. In this short story, which is debated to be partially autobiographical—a young woman confined to a room with yellow wallpaper at the orders of her doctor and her husband.
Why is she originally prescribed this sort of
bed-rest? The answer is unclear. Possibly she has just had a baby…possibly she
has post-partum depression. Possibly she
is mentally ill. Possibly she is
perfectly fine but her husband wants her put away.
Whatever her original state of physical and mental
health, our narrator soon proves herself to be unreliable and slipping deeper
and deeper into madness. The wallpaper
is what gets to her the most. She
becomes fixated on its ugliness. She hates it. And she notices that it has marks on it, like someone has been rubbing
on it. Eventually she sees the culprit:
there’s a woman in the wallpaper.
From the moment she begins her narrative, the woman has
believed the house was haunted. Now it
seems she was right…although it might not be a ghost, after all, but something
even more intangible: her mind itself.
Recommended Reading Age: High School
Adaptations:
Nothing they can adapt could be as ghastly as the nightmares I’ve had
since reading this book. And yet I like this story. I own
this story.
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