What I’m Reading – The Yellow Wallpaper

*Spoilers*

I recently finished reading The Yellow Wallpaper, a short story by Charlotte Perkins Stetson written in 1892.

It starts off with a young couple and their baby going to a remote estate for the summer. The main character, an unnamed woman, is suspicious of the house since it was so cheap to rent. She mentions that she had been feeling sick and how her husband, a doctor named John, assures her it is just nervous depression and she is fine. Nowadays, we would call her condition postpartum depression. She has mentioned her symptoms to her brother, who is also a doctor, and he told her the same thing. They told her she needed to rest and have no activities for a while, which should cure her.

The first thing she notices at the estate is the yellow wallpaper in their bedroom. She hates it—it is a sickly yellow color. She wants to change rooms, but her husband doesn’t allow it. She writes about her experiences on sheets of paper in secret because her husband doesn’t want her to write; it might be too stimulating for her. She takes long walks around the property for fresh air and loves the gardens and greenhouses.

She writes about getting tired easily and sleeping a lot. She says her husband always has her entire day planned, she has a nanny to take care of her son, she has no stress, so she can’t understand why she isn’t feeling better. Her husband is unaware she is suffering so much. When she isn’t sleeping, she’s crying or getting angry for no reason. Her husband says she doesn’t have anything physically wrong with her, so she must use self-control to get well and not let silly fancies get the better of her.

She wants to have more visitors and do more activities, but her husband forbids it. She spends more and more time alone in the bedroom with the yellow wallpaper, which she describes as everlasting and impertinent. She starts to see disturbing patterns in the wallpaper that make her angry. But, the more she studies it, the more the wallpaper changes. It goes from making her angry to fascinating her. She is convinced that there is a puzzle to be worked out, something the wallpaper is hiding.

As the story continues she slowly starts to lose her grip on reality and spirals into madness, obsessed with figuring out the yellow wallpaper, until it’s too late…

The story is best known for being a work of feminist literature. It brought up taboo topics like mental health and women’s rights. I enjoyed reading it. The first-person narrative keeps a narrow view of what is going on, so we get to slide into madness with the character. It was well-written and unnerving. A good psychological read for Halloween.

The story has themes of gender roles, lack of autonomy, and mental health.

Rating: 8/10