3.5
The Yellow Wallpaper
ByPublisher Description
"The Yellow Wallpaper" is a short story by American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892. It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature for its illustration of the attitudes towards mental and physical health of women in the 19th century.
Narrated in the first person, the story is a collection of journal entries written by a woman whose physician husband has rented an old mansion for the summer. Forgoing other rooms in the house, the couple moves into the upstairs nursery. As a form of treatment, the husband forbids the unnamed woman from working or writing and encourages her to eat well and get plenty of air so that she can recuperate from what he calls a "temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency", a common diagnosis in women at the time.
Narrated in the first person, the story is a collection of journal entries written by a woman whose physician husband has rented an old mansion for the summer. Forgoing other rooms in the house, the couple moves into the upstairs nursery. As a form of treatment, the husband forbids the unnamed woman from working or writing and encourages her to eat well and get plenty of air so that she can recuperate from what he calls a "temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency", a common diagnosis in women at the time.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Yellow Wallpaper Reviews
3.5
“This is an incredibly unsettling book for one so short.
It's interesting that this book is considered to be an important work for the feminist as I more saw it as an important insight into lack of understanding of mental health which I know was as poor to men struggling as women back then.
I do understand that this book is definitely highlighting the power of the man/husband over his wife though regardless. Her thoughts and wishes often dismissed with every man surrounding her knowing what's best for her. Interestingly, the author makes a point of telling us she has recently had a child which with hindsight, is certainly an indication of post natal depression. It seemed to me that however misguided, her husband did seem to care for his wife. That she was kept at home during a time when many would have been locked up in institutions and forgotten about was surely a minor saving grace?
While there is still a way to go, I am so grateful that our understanding and treatment of people struggling with poor mental health is so much better now.
I found reading the way our narrators mental health declined as she became hyper-fixated on the yellow wallpaper was really creepy and was written really well.
Such a good book and way ahead of it's time.
4/5”
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