A Woman Creeps Out of The Paper

John doesn’t believe I am sick! He says this is a temporary nervous depression. He is a physician and my husband (also loves and cares about me a lot); he knows better, of course! He has taken me to this rented house, a beautiful, ghostly house indeed, except for the horrid wallpaper.

John says I have to rest. I can’t meet with Henry and Julia, can’t even write or go outside. But sometimes, I feel like writing would relieve my ideas and help me rest.

I have never seen so much expression in an inanimate thing like this wallpaper. I stay all day lying in bed, which I don’t mind, except that the paper seems to have a strange, formless sort of figure.

It’s the Fourth of July, and I don’t know why I cry most of the time. There are things in that paper that nobody knows except me. I see a pattern of dim shapes getting clearer each day, like a woman creeping behind that pattern. My child is happy, thank God! But I don’t have to take care of him; it’s tiring enough to even breathe.

I noticed there’s a smell in the paper, a peculiar odor growing stronger day by day. The woman behind the pattern shakes as well. I think she gets out in the daytime. Shhh! This is a secret; I have seen her out of my window.

Today, I have locked the door. I have to peel off all the paper. I don’t want to go outside anymore. There are so many creepy women outside the window. John said, “Open the door, darling!” After a while, he came in and watched me peeling the paper. I don’t know why this man has fainted, watching me finally pull off the paper.

This is a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper. This short story depicts the reality of the late 19th-century societal situation regarding women’s mental health. The woman here is facing postpartum depression, and her husband prescribes a “rest cure.” The yellow wallpaper is the metaphoric object of her gradually deteriorating mental illness due to isolation. From an ugly wallpaper to a woman, then a smell, and finally, lots of women outside—this is the ultimate madness.

This short story is Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s semi-autobiography. After the birth of her daughter during her first marriage in 1885, she experienced severe postpartum depression. Her treatment under Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell's "rest cure" (which prohibited intellectual activity) inspired her famous short story, The Yellow Wallpaper (1892).

She escaped the struggle but couldn’t escape cancer. In 1930, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and faced a debilitating decline. Gilman was a loyal advocate for euthanasia—the right to die with dignity. She decided to end her prolonged suffering; her suicide note read:

At the age of 75, Gilman took her life by inhaling chloroform in her home in California.

What do you think The Yellow Wallpaper represents?

That’s Gilman’s story!

Let’s chat on Wednesday.

Thanks,
Jessie.