The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Charlotte Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Book Overview

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 na ve servant;...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486298574
• ISBN13: 9780486298573
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 80 Pages
• Weight: 0.19 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.3" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 14 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 9 and higher

Customer Reviews

Just No

This book lacked everything. I didn't care for the character or her so called decent into madness. A waste of $8

A written work that all should read at least once.

A look into the lives of women with post partum and how the men in their lives disregarded them and set unhealthy boundaries upon them in the forms of medical advice.

I Wish There Was More!

This is a short story! And if you’re anything like me, you love a bit of a thriller, this will leave you wanting more. It makes me so sad that this book isn’t longer! That the story isn’t longer! But it’s so good. I chewed out the pages in one day. 5/5 came in great condition.

The (yellow) walls are closing in...

I found this story to be both very disturbing and at the same time wonderful in its skill of disturbance. The suspense of what would happen to the narrator was as omnipresent and looming as the wall-paper which surrounded the narrator herself. The tale contains evidence of the romantic era (a speaker who suffers and a seeming element of the supernatural), but provides even more substance rooted in the realistic realm: excessively fine details, objects that become symbolic (none more clearly prominent than the imprisoning wall-paper itself), and graphic descriptions that provide a sharp edge to the narrator's plight as she succumbs to insanity. Ingenious clues were also placed through the story, occasionally leading the reader to momentarily doubt his or her own mental dexterity at following the course of events (such as John's sister's name going from Mary to Jennie to Jane). However, it is the descriptions of the wall-paper itself which give such a vivid and real impact to the story (such as "the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing sea-weeds in full chase," or "the outside pattern is a florid arabesque, reminding one of a fungus"). Gilman's assertive style is also noteworthy for the period it precluded: that of the empowerment of women, both in literature and in society.

Imaginative tale of a descent into madness

This short story, based upon the author's own experiences, is a powerful tale of one intelligent woman's struggle with madness, the role of (married) women in society and family in the late 1800s, and how she copes with well-meaning but misguided relatives and their ideas of a woman's nature and abilities. Many consider it an early feminist novel, and I agree, although I would extend the author's message to any group that finds itself severely restricted by society's notions of appropriate behavior, goals, and the nature of the group. The narrator of the story is, from a modern point of view, a normal, young, married woman who also has a desire to write. However, bound by Victorian mores and restrictions, this desire to write is deemed inappropriate at best and casts questions about her not fulfilling her (only) role as wife (and mother). She was only to focus her attention on "domestic" concerns (house, husband, children) and anything remotely intellectual was considered a threat to her sanity and her physical health. When she refuses to bow to society's (and her husband's) ideas of womanhood, she is confined to a room for COMPLETE rest (meaning NO mental stimulation of any kind, no reading, no writing). What makes matters worse is that her husband (a doctor) is also her jailer, and instead of truly understanding his wife as a human being, opts to follow society's standards instead of doing what is in the best interest of his wife (and her health, both physical and mental). Not surprisingly, she rebels a bit, and continues to write her thoughts in a journal, hiding the journal and pencil from her husband. When her deception is discovered, she is even more strictly confined than before, and denied contact with her children. It is at this point that she begins her descent into madness--not from the desire to write and express her creativity, but from being denied an outlet for that creativity. She was not mad before she was prescribed complete rest, but rather the complete rest which caused her madness. She begins to imagine things (shapes, objects, animals, people) in the yellow wallpaper which covers the walls of the room to which she is confined. As more restrictions and controls are placed upon her, her imagination grows, until finally she strips the wallpaper to reach the figures, and is found by her husband, surely and completely mad. I liked this story very much because the author conveyed the kind of dead lives many talented, creative women must have been forced to lead due to society's ideas of women and their abilities while fully backed by the medical profession. She clearly illustrates that in this instance, doctors and husbands do not know best, and that their very best intentions had the precise effect of bringing about the madness that they sought to cure. As I read the story, I wondered why her husband (and the doctor) were so blind as to the causes of her "nervous condition". It obviously was not working, and rather

Early Feminist Insight

This book truly captures the constraints felt by so many women, both in Perkins' time and in our own. She is able to touch on a very sensitive subject with amazing poetic prose. The fact that this book was written in the nineteenth century makes it all the more remarkable!

Very good, inspirational!

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an American short story author, writes "The Yellow Wallpaper." In this literary work Gilman illustrates the unfortunate injustices women are forced to accept. Gilman portrays a woman who needs to escape societies pressures, yet seeking her true identity she finds only insanity. This is a sad story that outlines the repression of the women in the late 1800's due to male supremacy. Furthermore, Gilman expresses these three over arching themes: gender, struggle for identity, and survival. These three issues question the position and role of women in a male dominated society. For many years Gilman suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to Melancholia. In stir of hope she sought the best specialist in nervous disease, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. He applied a "rest cure" treatment at once; this treatment involves total bed rest, isolation and confinement. Unfortunately his directions of bed rest, two hours of intellectual life a day and not touching a pen again, led Gilman to the border line of total mental breakdown. Using her remnants of intelligence she discontinued this treatment. She was so inspired by her escape and regained enough power to write "The Yellow Wallpaper." This piece was not only controversial, but helped stop other women from being driven to insanity themselves. The narrator in the story is also diagnosed as having a temporary nervous depression, which is later know as postpartum depression--a depression caused by a hormonal imbalance after giving birth. The narrator's husband, John, prescribes the same "rest cure" treatment Gilman was subjected to. Obviously the narrator loves her husband and trusts him but she too has some underlying feeling that maybe his prescription of total bed rest is not working for her. Gender segregation is completely outlined within this short story. The men, seen through the eyes of the narrator, are capable and stable. For example the narrator writes, "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." Here she is clearly portraying the male chauvinism and unreasoning within this male character. Her husband's role also plays a big part in her spiritual suicide. Although she may disagree with John and her brother she still states, "But what is one to do" (726). This clearly portrays that women, although they held an opinion, must learn to keep it to themselves. Even though, John had his wife placed in a big airy room the room did not help her much. Instead the yellow wallpapered room subjected her to total loneliness and tormented her with this distinct odor and a hideous view. While the men are perceived one way the women are perceived as the weak sex, that depend on men for strength. For example Mary, her sister-in-law, is the expected ideal woman of

Very quick, but it will stay with you

Amazingly good play about the plight of the woman in a oppressive patriarchal society. Imagry is excellent.