The Yellow Wall-Paper

[cornerofmadness]

The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This classic wasn't even on my radar until I ended up with a reading prompt of post partum depression and research gave me this. I have to say this worked particularly well. Our narrator has been moved to a country house mostly as a change of scenery post the birth of her child (which it takes us a while to even realize that). Her husband is trying to keep her from ending up in an asylum which at the time was not a great place to be.

She's been confined to bed rest with her husband and a nanny taking care of the child and a servant/nurse caring for her. At first she hates this confinement and loathes the mustard yellow wallpaper with the stains and ugly pattern but as we go and she descends into madness she wants out of this house because there are things moving behind the wallpaper and she's afraid but it goes down hill from there after the 'woman in the wallpaper' begins to appear.

It's a short story and it's available as a free read on the Gutenberg Project and multiple free listens from narrators over on Youtube so if you want a good gothic horror for a prompt like that or just because you enjoy the genre, I'd suggest this one.



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