{"product_id":"the-yellow-wallpaper-and-other-writings-isbn-9780593231258","title":"The Yellow Wall-Paper and Other Writings","description":"\u003cb\u003eCollected fiction and essays by a pillar of the American feminist canon—with an introduction by Halle Butler, a National Book Award Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and a \u003ci\u003eGranta\u003c\/i\u003e Best Young American Novelist\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCharlotte Perkins Gilman was a writer, editor, and journalist whose poems, articles, short stories, and novels had a single focus: equality for women. Although best known for “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” her spine-chilling takedown of the “rest cure” prescribed for postpartum depression, Gilman spent her life advocating for a woman’s right to an education, to creative self-expression and economic self-sufficiency, and an end to the consumerism that blinded women to the ways that society held them back. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis collection brings together Gilman’s best-known work with her lesser-known satirical short stories to provide an overarching introduction to this relentless ideologue.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Modern Library Torchbearers series features women who wrote on their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of resistance.\u003c\/b\u003e\"The most original and challenging mind which the [women's] movement produced.\"\u003cbr\u003e--Carrie Chapman Catt\u003cb\u003eCharlotte Perkins Gilman\u003c\/b\u003e (1860–1935) was a leading figure in the women’s movement of the early twentieth century. Gilman’s most famous work, “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” was based on her own experiences with postpartum depression and launched her into the national spotlight. Her subsequent work was built on her belief that women are not only the equal of men but in many ways their superiors. Gilman died in 1935 as the result of a breast cancer diagnosis. Having been diagnosed with inoperable breast cancer, she wrote that she “preferred chloroform to cancer.”\u003cb\u003eChapter 1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Yellow Wall-paper\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity—but that would be asking too much of fate!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStill I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElse, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou see he does not believe I am sick!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd what can one do?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf 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?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePersonally, I disagree with their ideas.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePersonally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut what is one to do?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal—having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI 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 about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I will let it alone and talk about the house.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of English 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden—large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was some legal trouble, I believe, something about the heirs and co-heirs; anyhow, the place has been empty for years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don’t care—there is something strange about the house—I can feel it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI even said so to John one moonlight evening, but he said what I felt was a draught, and shut the window.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself—before him, at least, and that makes me very tired.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don’t like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings! but John would not hear of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe 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 the top of the house.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe paint and paper look as if a boys’ 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere comes John, and I must put this away,—he hates to have me write a word.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe have been here two weeks, and I haven’t felt like writing before, since that first day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack of strength.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am glad my case is not serious!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf course it is only nervousness. It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able,—to dress and entertain, and order things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI suppose John never was nervous in his life. He laughs at me so about this wall-paper!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe said that after the wall-paper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs, and so on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You know the place is doing you good,” he said, “and really, dear, I don’t care to renovate the house just for a three months’ rental.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Then do let us go downstairs,” I said, “there are such pretty rooms there.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and said he would go down cellar, if I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut he is right enough about the beds and windows and things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is an airy and comfortable room as any one need wish, and, of course, I would not be so silly as to make him uncomfortable just for a whim.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOut of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deep-shaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOut of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful 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 excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I find I get pretty tired when I try.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt 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 in my pillow-case as to let me have those stimulating people about now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI wish I could get well faster.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one place where two breadths didn’t match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other.Modern Library Torchbearers","brand":"Modern Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304370032869,"sku":"NP9780593231258","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593231258.jpg?v=1767742358","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-yellow-wallpaper-and-other-writings-isbn-9780593231258","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}