The Yellow Wallpaper
Are the shapes in the wallpaper really there? Or is our protagonist just going crazy in her isolation? The tension between the possibly supernatural and possibly mundane forms the basis for this great psychological/horror thriller.
The Facts
Text: The Yellow Wallpaper Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman Genre: Psychological horror, feminist Year: 1892 Available: Public Domain (Free!)
The Fiction
If I was to write a pandemic rec list of short stories this story would be one of two that would absolutely top that list. In quarantine it feels like sometimes all there is to do is stare at the walls. Who hasn't discovered a spot or ding they had never noticed before? Who hasn't thought they would go a little crazy if they had to look at the same four walls for another day?
The Yellow Wallpaper is a story about a woman, our nameless narrator, who summers in a grand house with her husband, John. Immediately she imagines the house is haunted, while practical John dismisses her. John, a doctor, is concerned for the health of our narrator who exhibits signs of what we, in modern times, would recognize as depression and what was then referred to as hysteria. John sequesters his wife to a room at the top of their rented house with instructions for her to rest and not excite herself with her writing. The narration is made up of the bits of reflection our narrator gets to write down when her husband isn't around to stop her. Our narrator is quick to relate that the room she is kept in is papered with hideous yellow wallpaper and, supposedly for her own good health, she is being forced to spend the majority of her time alone in there.
As the story goes on the narrator's time in the house becomes more and more unsettling. We question John, and his sister the housekeeper's motivations. Are they just over protective of our narrator's health, doing what they thought at the time was in her best interest? Or do they have more sinister motivations keeping her in that room? And what about the wallpaper? Does the winding, twisting pattern hold shapes? People? Is it affecting the other inhabitants of the house? Is it affecting our narrator?
The Feeling
Reading The Yellow Wallpaper with the theme of isolation is of course only one way to read this complex story. As stated it is also a horror story. Or it is a story about sexism, and what it is like to be a woman whose every action even her creativity is stifled by male control. Or it is a story about medical sexism, and the horrific treatment of female depression and mental illness. Or-
Well for a such a short story it could be about a lot of things. As stated the tension from this story, what makes it such an excellent horror story and classic is the uncertainty. All these questions. The main one being: is the house haunted? Or is it isolation that drives the narrator to the final pages? The factors resulting in the narrator's isolation, are different from those of our isolation in this pandemic. There is an important gendered aspect to this story that should not be ignored. But the narrator's fear and frustration in this almost 130 year old story have become uniquely relatable in this moment to any gender. If there was ever a time to get into this story it is now. What else are you going to do? Stare at your walls some more?
Atmospheric, excellently paced, full of social commentary, an unreliable narrator, and with a powerful ending The Yellow Wallpaper is a fantastically creepy short story that just might have you taking another look at the shapes on your walls.
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