The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

 I've read The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman twice in college in the 1990s for two different English classes. I enjoyed reading this story back then very much. 

Honestly, I hadn't thought about The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in years until a booktuber I follow on YouTube had uploaded a review of it on his YouTube Channel last month. It was then I decided to reread The Yellow Wallpaper.

Lucky me, I was able to find and listen to the unabridged audio version of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman on YouTube for FREE. I find YouTube to be a wonderful resource for free unabridged audiobooks, especially the classics. (However, plenty of more contemporary works may be found as audiobooks for free on YouTube as well.)

I enjoyed rediscovering The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman! The Yellow Wallpaper is a classic, feminist, 'semi autobiographical' short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1890 and eventually published in the January issue of The New England Magazine in 1892.

The gist of this short story is a young woman who is a wife and new mother is suffering from postpartum depression shortly after giving birth. Her husband is a doctor and he prescribes complete bed rest in the country where she will overcome the issue according to her husband. The husband claims to know what is best for his wife as he is a doctor after all... Let's just say this theory blows up in his face.

The idea that women were treated the way they were in the late 1800s by the medical professionals is appalling. Women's health was not taken seriously by medical professionals and this short story exemplifies this... Reading The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is almost like reading a horror story of sorts.

Read The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman to glean the full details. This short story makes for interesting reading.

Below is the plot summary for The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman I discovered on Goodreads:

Diagnosed by her physician husband with a “temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency” after the birth of her child, a woman is urged to rest for the summer in an old colonial mansion. Forbidden from doing work of any kind, she spends her days in the house’s former nursery, with its barred windows, scratched floor, and peeling yellow wallpaper.

In a private journal, the woman records her growing obsession with the “horrid” wallpaper. Its strange pattern mutates in the moonlight, revealing what appears to be a human figure in the design. With nothing else to occupy her mind, the woman resolves to unlock the mystery of the wallpaper. Her quest, however, leads not to the truth, but into the darkest depths of madness.

A condemnation of the patriarchy, The Yellow Wallpaper explores with terrifying economy the oppression, grave misunderstanding, and willful dismissal of women in late nineteenth-century society.

I am giving The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman a rating of 4 stars out of 5 stars.

Until my next post, happy reading!!