This story was published in 1892. Its a personal narrative written from Ms. Gilman's "secret journal." The author and her husband, who is a physician, rent a mansion for the summer. Her husband prescribes a 'rest cure' due to her 'temporary nervous depression-a slight hysterical tendency' after the birth of their child. She is confined to a room, with barred windows, and describes the decor- yellow wallpaper. "Its dull enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance, they suddenly commit suicide-plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard contradictions."
The author writes in short,curt sentences, with subtle nuances, as she describes her controlling husband," He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction."
Her husband continually patronizes her with comments such as, "blessed little goose" and "what is it little girl? He said. Don't go walking about like that-you'll get cold."
Ms. Perkins Gilman describes the inevitable-madness -as her only freedom. She ends the story screaming at her husband, "I have gotten out-at last -outside the wallpaper and can't be put back."
This book is as relevant today as it was in 1892. I read this short story in college, and it has haunted me ever since. Ms. Perkins Gilman writes with the passion of a Feminist, who has felt the weight of confinement, in describing a woman's role in servitude to men.
Ms. Perkins Gilman did spend a month in a 'sanitarium' and in 1887, after 4 years of marriage, she and her husband divorced.
2 comments:
I’m looking forward to reading this book. We now hear so often of ‘prefeminist’ women who set the stage for us more than a century ago. Divorce in 1982? Was there such a thing? By the way she probably needed the mental institution to help extricate herself from his control and crazymaking.
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