Member-only story
The Yellow Wallpaper
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is one of the finest examples of Victorian psychological fiction, a genre inspired by the epoch’s pseudo-scientific theories of the psyche. Much like Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw” published 6 years later, “The Yellow Wallpaper” doesn’t allow for sure answers to what’s happening to the characters in the story or why. What is certain is that Gilman was much more critical of the trendy views on feminine psychology in her day than were her male counterparts. Stylistically, Gilman’s spot-on rendition of everyday language ironically presents a challenge to the contemporary reader. Almost all the modifications to this story have served to make the first-person narration as natural to the contemporary ear as it was to its 19th century audience.
It’s not often that ordinary people like John and myself are able to rent a manor house for the summer — a colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house — and reach the height of romantic bliss. That would be asking too much of fate!
Still, I will openly say that there’s something odd about it.
Otherwise, why is it being rented so cheaply? And why has it been unoccupied for so long?
