The Yellow Wallpaper (Dover Thrift Editions)

Book Description

Enjoy 7 thought-provoking stories that employ charm and humor to examine relations between the sexes from a feminist perspective. In addition to the title story, an 1892 classic that recounts a woman's descent into madness, this collection includes such masterful stories as "Cottagette," "Turned," "Mr. Peebles' Heart," and more.

Customer Reviews:

What's really behind that ugly wallpaper?.......2006-07-01

The Yellow Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gillman is one of the most fascinating short reads ever. I was assigned to read this classic gem in my literature class in College and I couldn't believe how well this short story was written. The book is in first person, it feels like a diary, very personal, intimate, and scary all at the same time. The ending is bone-chilling and brilliant. Gillman is some writer, why haven't I heard about this amazing book before? Wonderful, insightful quick read, a must have for literary fans.

good stuff.......2005-10-27

This book is a composite of short stories. The reason that I like it so much is for its progressiveness of the time it was written! There are underlined feminist theory and thought in this book, which is always important to understand and be grateful for!

Fantastic!.......2005-08-13

What a great and terrible story! A very short read but thoroughly entertaining. A glimpse into the past and the struggle women faced.

A review from the author of YEARS OF RAGE.......2005-04-01

In 1887, Charlotte Perkins Gilman was committed to a sanitarium in Pennsylvania run by one Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, the popularizer of a cure for female hysteria. Every female hysteric, according to Mitchell, should be placed under the watchful supervision of a (male) physician. He must oversee the strict regimentation of her body's habits. Such vigilant monitoring is a conditio sine qua non for any physician who wishes to cure the patient of her malady. She must submit unquestioningly to the physician's will and obey all of his prescriptions-one of which, invariably, is the injunction to do nothing. Bed rest is compulsory and should be vigorously enforced. The patient is to be placed in a state of perpetual invalidism; all forms of activity to which she is accustomed must be invalidated. Above all, she must not write.

Five years later, Gilman published the novella, The Yellow Wallpaper, a slightly veiled polemic against Weir Mitchell (the physician is even mentioned explicitly in the text) and the "cure" to female depression and hysteria that he advocated. The narrative is written from the perspective of a woman who undergoes a nervous breakdown. What we are reading is her diary, which charts her gradual mental deterioration. The narrator and her husband/physician, John, have rented an ancestral house for a summer. John prescribes for the narrator a "rest cure" that is clearly indebted to the teachings of Weir Mitchell. She is prohibited from writing; she writes nonetheless, perhaps to spite him. Isolated in her room and completely inactive except for her writing, the narrator becomes transfixed by the sickeningly grotesque wallpaper that surrounds her. She projects her self into the convoluted patterns of the paper and imagines a feminine figure-not necessarily a "woman," but rather a "shape... like a woman" [39]-entangled in the radiating network of fronds and vines. The feminine shape escapes from the wallpaper's intricate web and is seen "creeping up and down" in the "dark grape arbors" [45] of the courtyard. In the final scene of the work, the narrator, who has seemingly lost her mind, tears off the wallpaper and crawls and "creeps" "smoothly" [50] across the floor and over John, who has collapsed lifelessly after seeing his wife wriggling and writhing on the ground. Since all of this is composed in the present tense, apparently she is writing as she is creeping.

Two orders of writing are figured in the novella. On the one hand, there is the language of the yellow wallpaper, which spreads its sprawling patterns, its fecundating, fungoid forms, all over the room in which the narrator is confined-this is clearly representative of the language of medicine and maleness. On the other hand, there is the ideolect of the female narrator, who frees herself by writing in defiance of her husband's orders. Writing is here figured as a mode of activity-which, for Mitchell, is a quintessentially male practice (women who are active, according to Mitchell, ape men).

Little known in the century in which it was written, The Yellow Wallpaper was rediscovered in the late twentieth century and has become what is easily one of the most "over-interpreted" works of fiction in the last few decades. Most interpreters have pointed to the novella as a figuration of female liberation in modernist fiction. Despite its seeming simplicity, they invariably point to the text's so-called "ambiguities" and "contradictions," the most glaring of which is the manner in which the novella ends; most seem to believe that the novella ends complicatedly and equivocally. Does the narrator, in fact, achieve liberation? Or does she not? John, it is often said, faints to the floor, and fainting, as everyone knows, is somehow "feminine." Therefore, the narrator has perhaps achieved a "victory" over John. (One should also call attention to the fact that John is referred to, in the final scene, as "that man" [50], his proper name having been replaced by a demonstrative pronoun and a common noun.) And yet the narrator is also reduced, at the close of the novella, to the status of a worm or a snake, crawling and creeping across the floor along a self-ordained path. She certainly seems to have "precipitated" into what is usually described as "madness"-a "madness" that is attributed not to her "imaginative power and habit of story-making" [34], but rather to her husband's profession. Her progressive "improve[-ment]" [43] has resulted in a regressive deterioration. Because of this central ambiguity between "positive" and "negative" meanings, the novella seems, at once, a celebratory and affirmative "portrayal" of female liberation from a constraining, male-dominated order and an elegiac, despairing cry that proclaims the seeming impossibility of liberation from tyrannical maleness.

The notion that this is an interesting "ambiguity" or "contradiction" escapes this reader. Far richer literary works of art were produced during the same period in which The Yellow Wallpaper was written. Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, and Djuana Barnes are only a few examples of female writers whose work is far more provocative and complex than that of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. No one with a shred of rationality would deny that The Yellow Wallpaper has a didactic character; and, with the exception of a few trite "ambiguities," its meanings are almost completely self-explanatory. The simplicity of the work may explain the multiplication of critical discourses that it has generated.

Joseph Suglia, the author of YEARS OF RAGE, the novel inspired by the Columbine High Massacre

Suffragette-Style Feminism Still Ringing True.......2005-04-01

The Yellow Wallpaper is a pinnacle of feminist literature, though most contemporary feminists wouldn't think so. This is the feminism of our great-grandmothers, suffragette-style.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman explores independence, spiritual and mental wellbeing, and empowerment within the confines of early-20th century through this collection of short stories originally written for her feminist newspaper. She cunningly explores women's relationships with children, men, and other women in very accessible stories that nearly everyone can relate with on some level.

These are stories of women doing it on their own and doing it well. Don't be spooked by the first story, but keep on reading and find yourself looking at women's empowerment from a whole new angle.

Best of all, the Dover Thrift Edition costs only $1.50!

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Post Partum Madness?
Wonders of The Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Manufacturer: Bantam Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 055321375X
Release Date: 1989-10-01

Book Description

Known primarily for her classic and haunting story "The Yellow Wallpaper," Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an enormously influential American feminist and sociologist. Her early-twentieth-century writings continue to inspire writers and activists today. This collection includes selections from both her fiction and nonfiction work.

In addition to the title story, there are seven short stories collected here that combine humor, anger, and startling vision to suggest how women's "place" in society should be changed to benefit all. The nonfiction selections are from Gilman's The Man-Made World: Our Androcentric Culture and her masterpiece, Women And Economics, which was translated into seven languages and established her international reputation as a theorist.

Also included in a delightful excerpt from Gilman's utopian novel, Herland, an acidly funny tale about three American male explorers who stumble into an all-female society and begin their odyssey by insisting, "This is a civilized country . . . there must be men." Gilman's analyses of economic and women's issues are as incisive and relevant today as they were upon their original publication. This volume is an unprecedented opportunity to rediscover a powerful American writer.

Customer Reviews:

Post Partum Madness?.......2002-03-16

Gilman was a feminist, a radical suffragist and a woman who was told that all of her thoughts and energies ought to be solely focused on something that she wasn't really interested in being: a mother. She suffered from post-partum depression and severe anxiety later in life. The title story, "the Yellow Wallpaper" is a semi-autobiographical account of what happened when she had to go through a "rest cure" for her "hysteria." The title story is her most well-known, but the other writings are very good too, and worth a second look. She wrote prolifically-- and deserves to be better known.

The first time I ever encountered this story was at a dramatic interpretation contest in high school-- and when the girl performing this did her descent into madness, it made the hair crawl on the back of my neck. If you really think about what's going on, you too will be creeped out.

Wonders of The Wallpaper.......2001-12-14

We all know that for every action there is a reaction, especially when treating medical patients. The patient either has a positive or negative reaction. Charlotte Perkins Gilman describes the affects of the medical treatment for women in The Yellow Wallpaper. She writes about a woman that supposedly needs medical treatment and is treated by her own husband. I feel that Gilman uses setting to create a place where the woman feels that she cannot be healed. Also, she has the woman act sane and aware in the beginning of the short story to point out that she does have a chance to be cured. Gilman's work is a great example of showing the medical treatment style in that time and the affects it has on patients. The doctors are not listening to their woman patients, not realizing that woman respond better when they talk out their problems and have someone to listen to and understand them.
Gilman's use of an unlikable setting sets the stage for disaster, which is a great technique. Gilman has the woman set up in a romm that is absolutely dull and depressing. The woman is not satisfied with her room and wishes to be somewhere more pleasant to spend her time. "I don't like our room at all...The paint and paper look as if a boys school used it...it is dull enough to confuse the eye in following..." (Pg, 43) The room has bars on the windows, the wallpaper is torn, and the headbaord is chewed on. It is no place for a patient. I feel that anyone would just want to die.
In the beginning of the story, Gilman has the woman patient sounds sane as if she could be cured in no time at all. The husband does not listen to his wife and he states that she need not do anything to stress herself out. It means that she should not lift a finger. The woman states, "Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good." (Pg, 42) I feel that Gilman shows the reader right away the correct medical treatment method. Gilman also slips in the damaging affects that are caused by the phosphites the woman takes. She writes, "My brother is a physician...and says the same thing. So I take the phosphates and phosphites." (Pg, 42) I believe it again points out that Gilman is mocking the medical treatment.
John, the woman's husband, went to medical school and the treatment he uses now is what he learned there. The author is pointing out that it is not personally his fault for the results of the patient, meaning his wife's results. It seems that Gilamn is focusing on the fact that medical doctors are not listening to women patients and becoming aware that women need to be open with their problems. Otherwise they cannot be curred.
It seems that Gilman is trying to explain the problems of the medical treatments for women, in my opinion, is outstanding. Mixing a light tone of writing, using setting poperfully, and ensuring the woman in the story that she is sane for the start. Overall, the short story is a success in acheiving those goals

Women's Encounters With the Mental Health Establishment: Escaping the Yellow Wallpaper

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Women's Encounters With the Mental Health Establishment: Escaping the Yellow Wallpaper

Manufacturer: Haworth Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Out of Her Mind: Women Writing on Madness (Modern Library Paperbacks)

ASIN: 0789015455

The Pedagogical Wallpaper: Teaching Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "the Yellow Wall-Paper"

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The Pedagogical Wallpaper: Teaching Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "the Yellow Wall-Paper"

Manufacturer: Peter Lang Publishing
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0820463051

Hudson Book of Fiction: 30 Stories Worth Reading

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Hudson Book of Fiction: 30 Stories Worth Reading
McGraw-Hill
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 007248439X

Book Description

The Hudson Series is dedicated to providing the best literature - without commentary or interpretation - at a student-friendly price.

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories (World's Classics)

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A Woman Beyond Her Time

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories (World's Classics)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 019282449X

Book Description

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was America's leading feminist intellectual of the early twentieth century. The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories makes available the fullest selection ever printed of her short fiction, featuring the pioneering feminist masterpiece of the title, her stories
contemporary with The Yellow Wallpaper, the fiction from her neglected California period (1890-95), and her later explorations of "the woman of fifty." Together, these impressive works throw new light on Gilman as a writer of fiction.

Customer Reviews:

A Woman Beyond Her Time.......2004-02-28

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Short Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a book truly ahead of it's time. From reading the stories it is apparent that Charlotte was an extreme feminist for the late 1800s. I found it interesting that a woman in the 1800s was so aware of the confinements imposed on women during that time. It was very clear to me that Charlotte Perkins Gilman was on a mission to educate as many woman as she could regarding the inequality of rights for women versus men. The main reason I found this book so intriguing was not because of her writing technique but her strong desire to help women realize that they were more capable than society gave them credit for. She was clearly trying to strengthen herself and other women. I appreciated her writing more for the books contribution to the empowerment of women. It was truly courageous of Charlotte to express as much as she did in her writings since it was uncommon for women to stand up for themselves and their rights. Charlottes writing was motivational and inspired many woman to eventually step out of their "limitations and boundaries" at the time and become more assertive about their rights.

Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings (Modern Library Classics (Sagebrush))

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Repetitive Feminism

Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings (Modern Library Classics (Sagebrush))
Charlotte Gilman
Manufacturer: Tandem Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: School & Library Binding

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ASIN: 0613501438

Book Description

"There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver."--Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), a leading figure in the women's movement of the early twentieth century, is a pillar of the American feminist canon. This edition of her work includes her best-known story, "The Yellow Wall-paper," a terrifying tale about a woman driven to the brink of insanity by the "rest cure" she is ordered to follow by her doctor to relieve her postpartum depression. Also included is a wide range of other short stories; an abridged version of her little-known but brilliant utopian novel, Herland, about a peaceful all-female world; and selections from her landmark treatise, Women and Economics, first published in 1898 to universal acclaim.

Customer Reviews:

Repetitive Feminism.......2001-12-15

Charlotte Perkins Gilman stands out as a feminist. She is known for her short stories, but is also wrote a novel, Herland, and a couple articles on women in society during the late 1800's. Her short stories are not all based on feminism, but rather life lessons. Her novel is creative but unrealistic. Her articles, "women and Economics" and "The Man Made World" are very repetitive. She expresses the same views with every point she is trying to make: the point being that men dominate almost every aspect of life, politics, marriage, money, society, and family life.
Her fiction is enjoyable reading. It not only could appeal to women but also men, because it does not focus only on feminist views. She expresses ideas on life that men and women share. There is always a clear image of what is going on in the story.
Her articles are very bitter, and her arguments are based on the same idea, that men rule and it is unfair to think that women are incapable of what men do. She talks mostly of what women don't do, and nothing of what women are able to do. Reading one section of both of her articles put together is like reading the whole thing. Young women today may find it hard to relate to her views, because things have changed drastically from 1890 to today.
As a feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman was outspoken and strong with her one view. If there is an interest in Gilman, read her novel or short stories. They are much more interesting then her repetitive feminist articles.

Approaches to Teaching Gilman's ""the Yellow Wall-Paper"" and Herland (Approaches to Teaching World Literature)

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Approaches to Teaching Gilman's ""the Yellow Wall-Paper"" and Herland (Approaches to Teaching World Literature)

Manufacturer: Modern Language Association of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0873529006

The Yellow Wall-Paper: A Sourcebook and Critical Edition

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Perfect for research

The Yellow Wall-Paper: A Sourcebook and Critical Edition
C. Golden
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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A Glossary of Literary Terms

ASIN: 0415263581

Book Description

In 1892, Charlotte Perkins Gilman published her landmark work, The Yellow Wall-Paper, generating spirited debates in literary and political circles on both sides of the Atlantic. Today this story of a young wife and mother succumbing to madness is hailed both as a feminist classic and a key text in the American literary canon.

This sourcebook combines extracts from contemporary documents and critical reviews with incisive commentary, providing:

*an introduction to the political, biographical and medical contexts in which Gilman was writing
*a publishing and critical history of the work with extracts from the earliest reviews through to recent criticism
*a chronology of key biographical and contextual events
*an annotated guide to further reading
*original illustrations and photographs of the author and figures related to the story.

Filled with extensive commentary, as well as contextual and critical materials, this reprint of the complete original text-as published in the New England Magazine in 1892-constitutes an important critical edition.

Customer Reviews:

Perfect for research.......2007-04-18

If you are doing research on "The Yellow Wall-Paper" this book is essential. It provides a great amount of context for the piece as well as lots of criticism and interpretation. Of the 20 or so books that I used for research, this was by far the best one. Well worth the investment.

Tales by American Masters: The Yellow Wallpaper

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Feminist dribble and inane ramblings
The (yellow) walls are closing in...
The Yellow Wallpaper Review
A Celebrated Chintz
Imaginative tale of a descent into madness

Tales by American Masters: The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Manufacturer: DH Audio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette

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ASIN: 0886468957

Book Description

Part of The Wadsworth Casebooks for Reading, Research, and Writing Series, this new title provides all the materials a student needs to complete a literary research assignment in one convenient location.

Customer Reviews:

Feminist dribble and inane ramblings.......2006-03-24

I had the misfortune of having to read this book as part of my A-level studies whilst at school and as many school children in England in the early 1990s will agree it was 'the' worst book to force young minds to read. The main character is so tediously dull that I did have a miniscule amount of empathy for her to end it all, but my desire was based more upon the fact that it would mean the end of the very dull story. It's yellow wallpaper for goodness sakes. Don't read into it that this is something deep and meaningful, because it isn't. If you're like me you won't care about the character's, you'll just wish that you were not reading about them. This is the 19th century version of MTV, you will be left feeling empty, like you just wasted a few hours of your life on something not worthy of it. do yourselves a favour, if you get anything from this book it's this. Write a load of mindless drivel, leave it to some socially challenged critics to make something out of nothing and you'll be on to a winner. In 100 years time kids will be forced to read it in schools and they'll probably hate you for it, but you won't care because you'll be long gone. As should be the case with the book!

The (yellow) walls are closing in..........2006-03-09

I found this story to be both very disturbing and at the same time wonderful in its skill of disturbance. The suspense of what would happen to the narrator was as omnipresent and looming as the wall-paper which surrounded the narrator herself.

The tale contains evidence of the romantic era (a speaker who suffers and a seeming element of the supernatural), but provides even more substance rooted in the realistic realm: excessively fine details, objects that become symbolic (none more clearly prominent than the imprisoning wall-paper itself), and graphic descriptions that provide a sharp edge to the narrator's plight as she succumbs to insanity.

Ingenious clues were also placed through the story, occasionally leading the reader to momentarily doubt his or her own mental dexterity at following the course of events (such as John's sister's name going from Mary to Jennie to Jane).

However, it is the descriptions of the wall-paper itself which give such a vivid and real impact to the story (such as "the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing sea-weeds in full chase," or "the outside pattern is a florid arabesque, reminding one of a fungus").

Gilman's assertive style is also noteworthy for the period it precluded: that of the empowerment of women, both in literature and in society.

The Yellow Wallpaper Review.......2005-09-26

The book is a classic. Yet, you need a certain taste for certain types of knowledge. Such as women and gender studies. As well as you certainly need to enjoy reading professional opinions.

A Celebrated Chintz.......2004-07-03

Elaine Hedges provides an excellent and useful introduction to the life and work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman in this affordable, and scrupulously edited, edition of what is now her most famous work. She positions this story in the trajectory of Gilman's wrought personal and effusive literary lives and reveals its importance to late-twentieth-century feminism.
Jason Rosenfeld

Imaginative tale of a descent into madness.......2003-04-16

This short story, based upon the author's own experiences, is a powerful tale of one intelligent woman's struggle with madness, the role of (married) women in society and family in the late 1800s, and how she copes with well-meaning but misguided relatives and their ideas of a woman's nature and abilities. Many consider it an early feminist novel, and I agree, although I would extend the author's message to any group that finds itself severely restricted by society's notions of appropriate behavior, goals, and the nature of the group.
The narrator of the story is, from a modern point of view, a normal, young, married woman who also has a desire to write. However, bound by Victorian mores and restrictions, this desire to write is deemed inappropriate at best and casts questions about her not fulfilling her (only) role as wife (and mother). She was only to focus her attention on "domestic" concerns (house, husband, children) and anything remotely intellectual was considered a threat to her sanity and her physical health. When she refuses to bow to society's (and her husband's) ideas of womanhood, she is confined to a room for COMPLETE rest (meaning NO mental stimulation of any kind, no reading, no writing). What makes matters worse is that her husband (a doctor) is also her jailer, and instead of truly understanding his wife as a human being, opts to follow society's standards instead of doing what is in the best interest of his wife (and her health, both physical and mental). Not surprisingly, she rebels a bit, and continues to write her thoughts in a journal, hiding the journal and pencil from her husband. When her deception is discovered, she is even more strictly confined than before, and denied contact with her children.
It is at this point that she begins her descent into madness--not from the desire to write and express her creativity, but from being denied an outlet for that creativity. She was not mad before she was prescribed complete rest, but rather the complete rest which caused her madness. She begins to imagine things (shapes, objects, animals, people) in the yellow wallpaper which covers the walls of the room to which she is confined. As more restrictions and controls are placed upon her, her imagination grows, until finally she strips the wallpaper to reach the figures, and is found by her husband, surely and completely mad.
I liked this story very much because the author conveyed the kind of dead lives many talented, creative women must have been forced to lead due to society's ideas of women and their abilities while fully backed by the medical profession. She clearly illustrates that in this instance, doctors and husbands do not know best, and that their very best intentions had the precise effect of bringing about the madness that they sought to cure. As I read the story, I wondered why her husband (and the doctor) were so blind as to the causes of her "nervous condition". It obviously was not working, and rather than demonstrating their intelligence by trying something else or, God forbid, asking her what she needed (a couple hours per day to devote to writing, a small thing indeed), continued along the same methods of treatment, only with more restrictions! The social commentary and the commentary on the status of women in society and in their own families is handled in an effective way by the author, not only in her prose but in the development of the characters and the storyline. It is a most persuasive plea of the basic idea of feminism--that women are people too, with talents and abilities outside of their roles as wives and mothers that deserve an opportunity to be developed. In reading this story, I am amazed by how far we as a society have come in changing our views of women, and yet by how much further we have to go. I highly recommend this book.
This book was also made into a show that aired on PBS' Masterpiece Theatre in the late 1980s. I have not been able to find a copy of the program, but remember that it was well-produced and faithful to the story.

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