The unnamed narrator and her doctor husband, John, live in "a colonial mansion, a hereditary estate..." She believes the house is haunted. "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that." She believes she is ill but her husband, and her brother, also a physician, say it is only "temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency..." They insist on "phosphates or phosphites - whichever it is - and tonics" and absolutely forbid work until she is well again. She believes "Personally...that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. Personally, I disagree with their ideas. But what is one to do? I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal - having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition." She is confined to rest in a room she hates with wallpaper she finds hideously ugly: "The color is repellent, almost revolting: a smoldering unclean yellow... dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others." It is in this room that she writes her secret journal that is this story. She struggles to believe in her husband and brother's "kindness" and "care" while, with terrifying starkness, she narrates her journey into madness. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out . -- From
Product Description
"The Yellow Wallpaper" is a 6,000-word short story by American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was first published in 1891 in New England Magazine. It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the 19th century toward women's physical and mental health.
The story is written in the first person as a series of journal entries. The narrator is a woman whose husband - a physician - has confined her to the upstairs bedroom of a house he has rented for the summer. She is forbidden from working and has to hide her journal entries from him so that she can recuperate from what he has diagnosed as a "temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency;" a diagnosis common to women in that period. The windows of the room are barred, and there is a gate across the top of the stairs, allowing her husband to control her access to the rest of the house.
The story illustrates the effect of confinement on the narrator's mental health, and her descent into psychosis. With nothing to stimulate her, she becomes obsessed by the pattern and color of the room's wallpaper. "It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw - not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things. But there is something else about that paper - the smell! ... The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell." (Quote from wikipedia.org)
About the Author
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (July 3, 1860 - August 17, 1935) was a prominent American poet, non-fiction writer, short story writer, novelist, lecturer, and social reformer. She is best remembered today for her short story The Yellow Wallpaper, based on her own bout with severe depression.
Description:
Review
The unnamed narrator and her doctor husband, John, live in "a colonial mansion, a hereditary estate..." She believes the house is haunted. "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that." She believes she is ill but her husband, and her brother, also a physician, say it is only "temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency..." They insist on "phosphates or phosphites - whichever it is - and tonics" and absolutely forbid work until she is well again. She believes "Personally...that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. Personally, I disagree with their ideas. But what is one to do? I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal - having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition." She is confined to rest in a room she hates with wallpaper she finds hideously ugly: "The color is repellent, almost revolting: a smoldering unclean yellow... dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others." It is in this room that she writes her secret journal that is this story. She struggles to believe in her husband and brother's "kindness" and "care" while, with terrifying starkness, she narrates her journey into madness. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out . -- From
Product Description
"The Yellow Wallpaper" is a 6,000-word short story by American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was first published in 1891 in New England Magazine. It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the 19th century toward women's physical and mental health.
The story is written in the first person as a series of journal entries. The narrator is a woman whose husband - a physician - has confined her to the upstairs bedroom of a house he has rented for the summer. She is forbidden from working and has to hide her journal entries from him so that she can recuperate from what he has diagnosed as a "temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency;" a diagnosis common to women in that period. The windows of the room are barred, and there is a gate across the top of the stairs, allowing her husband to control her access to the rest of the house.
The story illustrates the effect of confinement on the narrator's mental health, and her descent into psychosis. With nothing to stimulate her, she becomes obsessed by the pattern and color of the room's wallpaper. "It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw - not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things. But there is something else about that paper - the smell! ... The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell." (Quote from wikipedia.org)
About the Author
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (July 3, 1860 - August 17, 1935) was a prominent American poet, non-fiction writer, short story writer, novelist, lecturer, and social reformer. She is best remembered today for her short story The Yellow Wallpaper, based on her own bout with severe depression.