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A review by rubyeve
The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
dark
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
"And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern - it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads."
Enraging, terrifying, masterful. Written about a woman pushed towards insanity after being put on the 'rest cure' following the birth of her child, this story is not only a revealing gut punch from the past but horrifyingly relevant.
Sharp yet thoughtful writing and excellent choice of register were both executed perfectly for the story's purpose. We watch a woman guilty of her lack of domestic purpose who undergoes her husband's medical gaslighting almost achieve enlightenment in insanity through growing fearful of her husband, seeing those subjecting her to the rest cure as the irrational, guilty ones and realising the extensive numbers of women subjected to the same treatment through the beautifully crafted, mirroring symbol of entrapment and patriarchy - the yellow wallpaper.
We see the wallpaper go from a passing thought, to a reflection, to all-consuming entertainment, to engulfing the narrator as an actual part of it in her mind - a thought-provoking development symbolising the inescapable nature of patriarchy even for a woman who has become a part of something so irrational and unconforming as the yellow wallpaper itself. I found it hugely interesting that the 'rest cure' created a woman so damaged a victim of medical misogyny as well as the opposite of the pacified woman intended by the treatment as our narrator becomes what was a pattern of the maddeningly illogical wallpaper design which conforms to no set of expectations or conventions.
Thought-provoking genius.
Enraging, terrifying, masterful. Written about a woman pushed towards insanity after being put on the 'rest cure' following the birth of her child, this story is not only a revealing gut punch from the past but horrifyingly relevant.
Sharp yet thoughtful writing and excellent choice of register were both executed perfectly for the story's purpose. We watch a woman guilty of her lack of domestic purpose who undergoes her husband's medical gaslighting almost achieve enlightenment in insanity through growing fearful of her husband, seeing those subjecting her to the rest cure as the irrational, guilty ones and realising the extensive numbers of women subjected to the same treatment through the beautifully crafted, mirroring symbol of entrapment and patriarchy - the yellow wallpaper.
We see the wallpaper go from a passing thought, to a reflection, to all-consuming entertainment, to engulfing the narrator as an actual part of it in her mind - a thought-provoking development symbolising the inescapable nature of patriarchy even for a woman who has become a part of something so irrational and unconforming as the yellow wallpaper itself. I found it hugely interesting that the 'rest cure' created a woman so damaged a victim of medical misogyny as well as the opposite of the pacified woman intended by the treatment as our narrator becomes what was a pattern of the maddeningly illogical wallpaper design which conforms to no set of expectations or conventions.
Thought-provoking genius.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Misogyny, Mental illness, and Gaslighting