good evening for lovers of classic stories with a
touch of horror and mystery tonight we dive into the story of the yellow wallpaper by Charlotte
Perkins Gilman a Timeless short story the yellow wallpaper takes us on a gripping exploration of
mental health patriarchal control and its effects on a woman in the Victorian era this story will
take you to a room with Hideous yellow wallpaper the mind of a woman woman trapped in mental
illness a battle against patriarchal control and the stigma o
f mental health questions about
reality and hallucination prepare yourself for a suspenseful and mysterious atmosphere detailed
and evocative descriptions a powerful message about mental health and gender roles let's listen
together to the story of the yellow wallpaper and discover its deepest meaning before we begin for
those who have never read this story prepare to be immersed in a world full of ambiguity and
questions for those who are already familiar with the story enjoy the adventure
again with A
New Perspective prepare to be captivated by every word don't forget to subscribe like and share
this podcast so that more people can enjoy it thank you for listening the yellow wallpaper it
is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer a
colonial mansion a hereditary estate I would say a haunted house and reached the height of romantic
Felicity but that would be asking too much of Fate still I will proudly declare that ther
e is
something queer about it else why should it be let so cheaply and why have stood so long untenanted
JN laughs at me of course but one expects that in marriage Jon is practical in the extreme he
has no patience with faith an intense horror of superstition and he scoffs openly at any talk
of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures John is a physician and perhaps I would
not say it to a living soul of course but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind perhaps
that
is one reason I do not get well faster you see he does not believe I am sick and what can
one do if a physician of high standing and one's own husband assures friends and relatives that
there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression a slight hysterical
tendency what is one to do my brother is also a physician and also of high standing and he says
the same thing so I take phosphates or phosphites whichever it is and tonics and Journeys and air
and exercise and
I'm absolutely forbidden to work until I'm well again personally I disagree with
their ideas personally I believe that congenial work with excitement and change would do me good
but what is one to do I did write for a while in spite of them but it does exhaust me a good
deal having to be so Sly about it it or else meet with heavy opposition I sometimes fancy that
in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus but John says the very worst
thing I can do is to think ab
out my condition and I confess it always makes me feel bad so I will
let it alone and talk about the house the most beautiful place it is quite alone standing well
back from the road quite 3 miles from the village it makes me think of English plac places that
you read about for there are hedges and walls and Gates that lock and lots of separate little
houses for the gardeners and people there is a delicious Garden I never saw such a garden
large and Shady full of box boarded paths and lined
with long grape covered arbors with seats
under them there were green houses too but they are all broken now there was some legal trouble I
believe something about The Heirs and coair anyhow the place has been empty for years that spoils my
ghostliness I am afraid but I don't care there is something strange about the house I can feel it I
even said so to John one Moonlight evening but he said what I felt was a draft and shut the window
I get unreasonably angry with Jon sometimes I'm sure I
never used to be so sensitive I think it
is due to this nervous condition but JN says if I feel so I shall neglect proper self-control
so I take pains to control my myself before him at least and that makes me very tired I don't like
our room a bit I wanted one downstairs that opened on the Piaza and had roses all over the window
and such pretty old-fashioned chint hangings but JN would not hear of it he said there was
only one window and not room for two beds and no near room for him if h
e took another he is very
careful and loving and hardly lets me stir without special Direction I have a schedule prescription
for each each hour in the day he takes all care from me and so I feel basely ungrateful not to
Value it more he said we came here solely on my account that I was to have perfect rest and all
the air I could get your exercise depends on your strength my dear said he and your food somewhat
on your appetite but air you can absorb all the time so we took the nursery at t
he top of the
house it is a big Airy room the whole floor nearly with windows that look always ways and air
and sunshine Galore it was Nursery first and then playground and gymnasium I should judge for the
windows are barred for little children and there are rings and things in the walls the paint and
paper look as if a boy school had used it it is stripped off the paper in great patches all around
the head of my bed about as far as I can reach and in a great place on the other side of the
room low down I never saw a worse paper in my life one of those sprawling flamboyant patterns
committing every artistic sin it is dull enough to confuse the eye in following pronounced enough
to constantly irritate and provoke study and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little
distance they suddenly commit suicide plunge off at outrageous angles destroy themselves in unheard
of contradictions the color is repellent almost revolting a smoldering unclean yellow strangely
Faded
by the slow turning sunlight it is a dull yet lurid Orange in some places a sickly sulfur
tint in others no wonder the children hated it I should hate it myself if I had to live in
this room long there comes John and I must put this away he hates to have me write a word we
have been here 2 weeks and I haven't felt like writing before since that first day I'm sitting
by the window now up in this atrocious nursery and there's nothing to hinder my writing as much as I
please save lack of stren
gth John is away all day and even some nights when his cases are serious
I'm glad my case is not serious but these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing Jon does not
know how much I really suffer he knows there is no reason to suffer and that satisfies him of
course it is only nervousness it does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way I meant to be
such a help to JN such a real rest and comfort and here I am a comparative burden already nobody
would believe what an effort it is to
do what little I am able to dress and entertain and order
things it is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby such a Dear baby and yet I cannot be with him
it makes me so nervous I suppose johon never was nervous in his life he laughs at me so about this
wallpaper at first he meant to repaper the room but afterwards he said that I was letting it get
the better of me and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies
he said that after the wallpaper was chang
ed it would be the heavy bedstead and then the barred
windows and then that gate at the head of the stairs and so on you know the place is doing
you good he said and really dear I don't care to renovate the house just for a 3 month's rental
then do let us go downstairs I said there are such pretty rooms there then he took me in his arms and
called me blessed little goose and said he would go down Sellar if I wished and have it whitewashed
into the bargain but he is right enough about the be
ds and windows and things it is as Airy and
comfortable a room as anyone need wish and of course I would not be so silly as to make him
uncomfortable just for a whim I'm really getting quite fond of the big room all but that horrid
paper out of one window I can see the garden those mysterious deep shaded Arbors the riotous
old-fashioned flower flowers and bushes and gnarly trees out of another I get a lovely view of the
bay and a little private Warf belonging to the estate there is a beauti
ful shaded Lane that runs
down there from the house I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and Arbors
but John has cautioned me not to give way to Fancy in the least he says that with my imaginative
power and habit of story making a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner
of exited fancies and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency so I try I
think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the
Press of
ideas and rest me but I find I get pretty tired when I try it is so discouraging not to have any
advice and companionship about my work when I get really well John says we will ask cousin Henry
and Julia down for a long visit but he says he would as soon put fireworks Works in my pillowcase
as to let me have those stimulating people about now I wish I could get well faster but I must
not think about that this paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had there
i
s a recurrent spot where the pattern lulls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at
you upside down I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness up
and down and sideways they crawl and those absurd un blinking eyes are everywhere there is one place
where two breaths didn't match and the eyes go all up and down the line one a little higher than
the other I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before and we all know how much
expression they
have I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and Terror out of
blank walls and plain Furniture than most children could find in a toy store I remember what a kindly
wink the knobs of our big old bureau used to have and there was one chair that always seemed like
a strong friend I used to feel that if any of the other things look too Fierce I could always hop
into that chair and be safe the furniture in this room is no worse than in harmonious however for
we had to bring it
all from downstairs I suppose when this was used as a playroom they had to take
the nursery things out and no wonder I never saw such ravages as the children have made here the
wallpaper as I said before is torn off in spots and it sticketh closer than a brother they must
have had perseverance as well as hatred then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered
the plaster itself is dug out here and there and this great heavy bed which is all we found in
the room looks as if it had been
through the wars but I don't mind it a bit only the paper there
comes Jon's sister such a dear girl as she is and so careful of me I must not let her find
me writing she is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper and hopes for no better profession I
verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick but I can write when she is out and
see her a long way off from these windows there is one that commands the road a lovely shaded
Winding Road and one that just looks off over the co
untry a lovely country too full of great
Elms and velvet Meadows this wallpaper has a kind of subpattern in a different shade a particularly
irritating one for you can only see it in certain lights and not clearly then but in the places
where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so I can see a strange provoking formless sort of
figure that seems to sulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design their sister on the
stairs well the 4th of July is over the people are gone and I
am tired out John thought it might
do me good to see a little company so we just had mother and Nelly and the children down for a
week of course I didn't do a thing Jenny sees to everything now but it tired me all the same John
says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall but I don't want
to go there at all I had a friend who was in his hands once and she says he is just like John
and my brother only more so besides it is such an undertaking to go so far I do
n't feel as if it
was worthwhile to turn my hand over for anything and I'm getting dreadfully fretful and querulous I
cry at nothing and cry most of the time of course I don't when JN is here or anybody else but when
I'm alone and I am alone a good deal just now John is kept in town very often by serious cases and
Jenny is good and lets me alone when I want her to so I walk a little in the garden or down that
lovely Lane sit on the porch under the roses and lie down up here a good deal I'm
getting really
fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper perhaps because of the wallpaper it dwells in my mind so I
lie here on this great immovable bed it is nailed down I believe and follow that pattern about by
the hour it is as good as gymnastics I assure you I start we'll say at the bottom down in the
corner over there where it has not been touched and I determine for the thousandth time that I
Will Follow That pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion I know a little of the prin
ciple of
design and I know this thing was not arranged on any laws of radiation or alternation or repetition
or symmetry or anything else that I ever heard of it is repeated of course by the breadths but
not otherwise looked at in one way each breath stands alone the bloated curves and flourishes a
kind of debased Romanesque with delirium tremens go waddling up and down in isolated Columns of
fatuity but but on the other hand they connect diagonally and the sprawling outlines run off in
Gr
eat slanting Waves of optic horror like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase the whole thing
goes horizontally too at least it seems so and I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order
of its going in that direction they have used a horizontal breadth for a freeze and that adds
wonderfully to the confusion there is one end of the room where it is almost intact and there
when the cross lights fade and the low Sun Shines directly upon it I can almost fancy radiation
after all the
interminable grotesque seem to form around a Common Center and rush off in headlong
plunges of equal distraction it makes me tired to follow it I will take a nap I guess I don't know
why I should write this I don't want to I don't feel able and I know JN would think it absurd but
I must say what I feel and think in some way it is such a relief but the effort is getting to be
greater than the relief half the time now I am awfully lazy and lie down ever so much John says I
mustn't lose my str
ength and has me take cod liver oil and lots of tonics and things to say nothing
of Ale and wine and rare meat Dear John he loves me very dearly and hates to have me sick I tried
to have a real Earnest reasonable talk with him the other day and tell him how I wish he would
let me go and make a visit to cousin Henry and Julia but he said I wasn't able to go nor able
to stand it after I got there and I did not make out a very good case for myself for I was crying
before I had finished it is g
etting to be a great effort for me to think straight just this nervous
weakness I suppose and dear JN gathered me up in his arms and just carried me upstairs and laid me
on the bed and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head he said I was his darling and his
comfort and all he had and that I must take care of myself for his sake and keep well he says no
one but myself can help me out of it that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly
fancies run away with me there's
one Comfort the baby is well and happy and does not have to occupy
this Nursery with the horrid wallpaper if we had not used it that blessed child would have what
a fortunate Escape why I wouldn't have a child of mine an impression little thing live in such a
room for worlds I never thought of it before but it is lucky that John kept me here after all
I can stand it so much easier than a baby you see of course I never mention it to them anymore
I'm too wise but I keep watch of it all the s
ame there are things in that paper that nobody knows
but me or ever will behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day it is always
the same shape only very numerous and it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind
that pattern I don't like it a bit I wonder I begin to think I wish Jon would take me away from
here it is so hard to talk with JN about my case because he is so wise and because he loves me so
but I tried it last night it was Moonlight the moon s
hines in all around just as the sun does I
hate to see it sometimes it creeps so slowly and always comes in by one window or another John was
asleep and I hated to waken him so I kept still and watched The Moonlight on that undulating
wallpaper till I felt creepy the faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern just as if
she wanted to get out I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move and when I came
back John was awake what is it little girl he said don't go walking
about like that you'll get cold
I thought it was a good time to talk so I told him that I really was not gaining here and that I
wished he would take me away why darling said he our lease will be up in 3 weeks and I can't see
how to leave before the repairs are not done at home and I cannot possibly leave town just now of
course if you were in any danger I couldn't would but you really are better dear whether you can see
it or not I am a doctor dear and I know you are gaining flesh and col
or your appetite is better I
feel really much easier about you I don't weigh a bit more said I nor as much and my appetite may be
better in the evening when you are here but it is worse in the morning when you are away bless her
little heart said he with a big hug she shall be as sick as she pleases but now let's improve The
Shining hours by going to sleep and talk about it in the morning and you won't go away I asked
gloomily why how can I dear it is only only 3 weeks more and then we will
take a nice little
trip of a few days while Jenny is getting the house ready really dear you are better better in
body perhaps I began and stopped short for he sat up straight and looked at me with such a stern
reproachful look that I could not say another word my darling said he I beg of you for my sake
and for our child's sake as well as for your own that you will never for one instant let that idea
enter your mind there is nothing so dangerous so fascinating to a temperament like yours
it is a
false and foolish fancy can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so so of course I said
no more on that score and we went to sleep before long he thought I was asleep first but I wasn't I
lay there for hours trying to decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move
together or separately on a pattern like this by daylight there is a lack of sequence a Defiance
of law that is a constant irritant to a normal mind the color is hideous enough and unreli
able
enough and infuriating enough but the pattern is torturing you think you have mastered it but just
as you get well underway in following it turns a back somersault and there you are it slaps you in
the face knocks you down and tramples upon you it is like a bad dream the outside pattern is a flid
Arabesque reminding one of a fungus if you can imagine a toad stool in joints an interminable
string of toad stools budding and sprouting in Endless convolutions why that is something like it
that is sometimes there is one marked peculiarity about this paper a thing nobody seems to notice
but myself and that is that it changes as the light changes when the sun shoots in through
the East window I always watch for that first long straight Ray it changes so quickly that I
never can quite believe believe it that is why I watch it always By Moonlight the moon shines in
all night when there is a moon I wouldn't know it was the same paper at night in any kind of light
in Twilight Cand
le Light lamp light and worst of all By Moonlight it becomes bars the outside
pattern I mean and the woman behind it is as plain as can be I didn't realize for a long time
what the thing was that showed behind that dim subpattern but now I am quite sure it is a woman
by daylight she is subdued quiet I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still it is so puzzling
it keeps me quiet by the hour I lie down ever so much now John says it is good for me and to sleep
all I can indeed he started
the Habit by making me lie down for an hour after each meal it is a very
bad habit I'm convinced for you see I don't sleep and that cultivates deceit for I don't tell them
I'm awake oh no the fact fact is I am getting a little afraid of Jon he seems very queer sometimes
and even Jenny has an inexplicable look it strikes me occasionally just as a scientific hypothesis
that perhaps it is the paper I have watched John when he did not know I was looking and come into
the room suddenly on the m
ost innocent excuses and I've caught him several times looking at the
paper and Jenny too I caught Jenny with her hand on it once she didn't know I was in the room room
and when I asked her in a quiet a very quiet voice with the most restrained manner possible what
she was doing with the paper she turned around as if she had been caught stealing and looked
quite angry asked me why I should frighten her so then she said that the paper stained everything
it touched that she had found yellow s
mooches on all my clothes and Johns and she wished we would
be more careful did not that sound Innocent but I know she was studying that pattern and I am
determined that nobody shall find it out but myself life is very much more exciting now than it
used to be you see I have something more to expect to look forward to to watch I really do eat better
and I'm more quiet than I was John is so pleased to see me improve he laughed a little the other
day and said I seemed to be flourishing in spi
te of my wallpaper I turned it off with a laugh I
had no intention of telling him it was because of the wallpaper he would make fun of me he might
even want to take me away I don't want to leave now until I have found it out there is a week more
and I think that will be enough I'm feeling ever so much better I don't sleep much at night for
it is so interesting to watch developments but I sleep a good deal in the daytime in the daytime
it is tiresome and perplexing there are always new shoot
s on the fungus and new shades of yellow
all over it I cannot keep count of them though I have tried conscientiously it is the strangest
yellow that wallpaper it makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw not beautiful ones
like buttercups but old foul bad yellow things but there is something else about that paper the
smell I noticed it the moment we came into the room but with so much air and Sun it was not bad
now we have had a week of fog and rain and whether the windows are open
or not the smell is here
it creeps all over the house I find it hovering in the dining room skullking in the Parlor hiding
in the hall lying in wait for me on the stairs it gets into my hair even when I go to ride if I turn
my head suddenly and surprise it there is that smell such a peculiar odor too I've spent hours
in trying to analyze it to find what it smelled like it is not bad at first and very gentle but
quite the subtlest most enduring odor I ever met in this day damp weather it is
awful I wake up in
the night and find it hanging over me it used to disturb me at first I thought seriously of burning
the house to reach the smell but now I am used to it the only thing I can think of that it is like
is the color of the paper a yellow smell there is a very funny mark on this wall low down near the
mop board a streak that runs around the room it goes behind every piece of furniture except the
bed a long straight even smooch as if it had been rubbed over and over I wonder h
ow it was done
and who did it and what they did it for round and round and round round and round and round it
makes me dizzy I really have discovered something at last through watching so much at night when
it changes so I have finally found out the front pattern does move and no wonder the woman behind
shakes it sometimes I think there are a great many women behind and sometimes only one and she
crawls around fast and her crawling shakes it all over then in the very bright spots she keeps
still and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard 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 they get through and then the pattern strangles them off
and turns them upside down and makes their eyes white if those heads were covered or taken off
it would not be half so bad I think that woman gets out in the daytime and I'll tell you why
privately I'v
e seen her I can see her out of every one of my windows it is the same woman I
know for she is always creeping and most women do not creep by daylight I see her on that long
shaded Lane creeping up and down I see her in those dark grape arbors creeping all around
the garden I see her on that long road under the trees creeping along and when a carriage comes
she hides under the blackberry vines I don't blame her a bit it must be very humiliating to be caught
creeping by daylight I always loc
k the door when I creep by daylight I can't do it at night for I
know Jon would suspect something at once and Jon is so queer now that I don't want to irritate him
I wish he would take another room besides I don't want anybody to get that woman out at night but
myself I often wonder if I could see her out of all the windows at once but turn as fast as I can
I can only see out of one at one time and though I always see her she may be able to creep faster
than I can turn I have watched her so
metimes away off in the Open Country creeping as fast as a
cloud shadow in a high wind if only that top pattern could be gotten off from the under one I
mean to try it little by little I have found out another funny thing but I Shan tell it this time
it does not do to trust people too much there are only two more days to get this paper off and I
believe JN is beginning to notice I don't like the look in his eyes and I heard him ask Jenny a
lot of professional questions about me she had a ve
ry good report to give she said I slept a good
deal in the daytime John knows I don't sleep very well at night for all I'm so quiet he asked me
all sorts of questions too and pretended to be very loving and kind as if I couldn't see through
him still I don't wonder he acts so sleeping under this paper for three months it only interests
me but I feel sure John and Jenny are secretly affected by it hrah this is the last day but it is
enough Jon is to stay in town overnight and won't be out un
til this evening Jenny wanted to sleep
with me the sly thing but I told her I should undoubtedly rest better for a night all alone that
was clever for really I wasn't alone a bit as soon as it was Moonlight and that poor thing began
to crawl and shake the pattern I got up and ran to help her I pulled and she shook I shook and
she pulled and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper a strip about as high as my
head and half around the room and then when the sun came and that awful
pattern began to laugh at
me I declared I would finish it today we go away tomorrow and they are moving all my furniture
down again to leave things as they were before Jenny looked at the wall in amazement but I told
her merrily that I did it out of pure spite at the vicious thing she laughed and said she wouldn't
mind doing it herself but I must not get tired how she betrayed herself that time but I am here
and no person touches this paper but me not alive she tried to get me out of the r
oom it was too
patent but I said it was so quiet and empty and clean now that I believed I would lie down again
and sleep all I could and not to wake me even for dinner I would call when I woke so now she is
gone and the servants are gone and the things are gone and there is nothing left but that great
bedstead nailed down with the canvas mattress we found on it we shall sleep downstairs tonight
and take the boat home tomorrow I quite enjoy the room now it is be again how those children did
tear about here this bedstead is fairly Gord but I must get to work I have locked the door and thrown
the key down into the front path I don't want to go out and I don't want to have anybody come in
till JN comes I want to astonish him I've got a rope up here that even Jenny did not find if that
woman does get out and tries to get away I can tie her but I forgot I could not reach far without
anything to stand on this bed will not move I tried to lift and push it until I was lame and
then
I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner but it hurt my teeth then I peeled off
all the paper I could reach standing on the floor it sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys
it all those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision
I'm getting angry enough to do something desperate to jump out of the window would be admirable
exercise but the bars are too strong even to try besides I wouldn't do it of course not I know
well enough th
at a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued I don't like to look out
of the windows even there are so many of those creeping women and they creep so fast I wonder if
they all come out of that wallpaper as I did but I am securely fastened Now by my well- hidden rope
you don't get me out in the road there I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when
it comes night and that is hard it is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around
as I please I don't w
ant to go outside I won't even if Jenny asks me to for outside you have
to creep on the ground and everything is green instead of yellow but here I can creep smoothly
on the floor and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall so I cannot lose my
way why there's JN at the door it is no use young man you can't open it how he does call and pound
now he's crying for an axe it would be a shame to break down that beautiful door John dear said I
in the gentlest voice the key is dow
n by the front steps under a plantain leaf that silenced him for
a few moments then he said very quietly indeed open the door my darling I can't said I the key
is down by the front door under a plantain leaf and then I said it again several times very
gently and slowly and said it so often that he had to go and see and he got it of course and
came in he stopped short by the door what is the matter he cried for God's sake what are you doing
I kept on creeping just the same but I looked at hi
m over my shoulder I've got out at last said
I in spite of you and Jan and I've pulled off most of the paper so you can't put me back now
why should that man have fainted but he did and right across my path by the wall so that I had to
creep over him every time a round of applause that concludes the story of the yellow wall paper by
Charlotte Perkins Gilman what did you think did the story send chills down your spine do you
have your own interpretation of the story's meaning this story is i
ndeed full of ambiguity and
question and that's what makes it so intriguing and Unforgettable some key points to ponder how
is mental illness portrayed in this story how does the role of patriarchy affect women's mental
health is the yellow wallpaper real or is it just a hallucination what does the ambiguous ending
mean this story doesn't provide easy answers but instead encourages us to think critically
about various issues thank you for listening to the storytelling tonight I hope this st
ory has
inspired you and opened up New Perspectives on Mental Health gender roles and the power of
imagination see you at the next storytelling
Comments