4*s
This may be a short story but it is a disquieting one to say the least. Based upon the author’s experience in the late 1800’s when diagnosed by a physician of a nervous disease she was prescribed ‘rest cure’ which meant that she was to stay in bed all day and only allowed mental stimulation for two hours a day… this led to a near total mental decline.
The story features a young woman who has a baby, although he or she, is kept well ‘off-page’ as the subject who has moved into an old house with a creepy feel to it as she lies in a room with yellow peeling wallpaper.
The journal entries written by the woman in the bed, written in secret to hide them from her physician husband, who has diagnosed her with a nervous disease and banned her from leaving the house or having any mental stimulation.
Alone in the room the woman sees first patterns and then more disturbing things in the yellow on the wall which mirror the stretching and then the breaking of her mind although the ending is cleverly left open to interpretation.
The author wrote the story to warn others against rest cures but it has come to be viewed as one of the earliest examples of feminist writing and I can’t disagree. Somehow you can’t imagine a healthy man struggling with a new role in life being told to go to his room until he felt better!!
This is one of those stories that make me truly grateful that I was born when I was!
First Published: 1892
No of Pages: 27
Genre: Short Story
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Cleopatra Loves Books 
Fantastic book
LikeLike
Me, too, Cleo. Your comment about a grown man being sent to his room is spot on.
LikeLike
🙂
LikeLike
Ah, even now women are told that they are ‘unreasonable’ or ‘hysterical’ whenever they dare to raise their voices or disagree with something… Yes, a very disturbing story.
LikeLike
True, but we are in a far stronger position than we used to be, and for that I am truly grateful.
LikeLike
When I read this for the first time long, long ago, I didn’t really think of the feminist aspects – it just seemed like a mega-creepy horror story kinda in the style of Edgar Allan Poe. It was only on a more recent re-read that I kinda “got the point” – but I still get creeped out when I think of the ending…
LikeLike
It is very creepy indeed! I found t far more disturbing than I expected to.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This treatment sounds like utter hell!
LikeLike
Ooh I may have to check this out.
LikeLike
I get shivers every time I read this book and get to the final paragraphs. It’s even worse knowing this was a story born out of her own treatment for what we now know is post natal depression
LikeLiked by 1 person
Exactly I think reading the story and knowing what’s behind it makes it even more eerie
LikeLiked by 1 person
This was always one of my favourites! It’s like the OG narrative with an unreliable female narrator!
LikeLike
Sounds very disturbing. It never ceases to amaze me how they treated mental illness back then. even more disturbing when there wasn’t even an illness to treat.
LikeLike
Me too! Stories like this make me admire even more the women who fought against this treatment of women.
LikeLike
This does sound very disturbing, Cleo. It’s even more disturbing to think that this sort of thing wasn’t uncommon. It reflects a pattern, rather than one isolated instance, and that makes it even eerier.
LikeLike
Ohh, sounds like one I need to get my hands on. It’s interesting how often ‘rest cures’ come up in history prior to WWI – I guess after that they didn’t have the ‘luxury’.
LikeLike
This is one of my favourite short stories. I loved it. I would like to read it again
LikeLike
Great review, Cleo! I just ordered it for myself. 🙂 I’m always fascinated by the history of treating behavioral health is issues in general but particularly in women. This book reminded me of how I felt when I read Mary: Mrs. A Lincoln by Janis Cooke Newman a few years ago. It was before I started blogging so I didn’t write a full review but parts of it made my blood boil. If a husband or son wanted a woman out of the way, all he had to do was have her declared incompetent.
LikeLike
This was my professor’s favorite story to teach because it always got a reaction from the students (tough crowd at 8am).
I only remember bits and pieces and need to reread it, but I remember how it completely ruined the word “smooch” for me. Lol. With Valentine’s Day so close, that word is everywhere!
LikeLike
I didn’t think feminist writing but that is the perfect explanation. Interesting thought. This is why I love blogging, it makes you think more about what you read.
LikeLike
Ooh, I hate those guys who “lock” their wives away…whether it’s in their bedroom, or a psychiatric institution. Some of the best thrillers come from these circumstances, though. Thanks for sharing.
LikeLike
This is one of the books that sent me running to feminism.
LikeLike
I remember reading this back in college. Such a disturbing story, more so after you’ve picked it to pieces with literary criticism! The fact that it has stuck with me ever since then (and it’s been a while) just proves what a well-written piece it is. Thanks for sharing!
LikeLike
This,sounds fascinating. Every time I read a book like this I thank my lucky stars I live when I do…but also where I do as I fear there are women being locked away and writing in secret even now.
LikeLike
An excellent point Emma – I should have added the where to my statement.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love this story. I’ve always felt the author/woman in the story had post-partum depression because she’d just had a baby but they didn’t know what that meant or how to help at the time so she just got worse being locked away.
-Lauren
http://www.shootingstarsmag.blogspot.com
LikeLike
I love this story. I read it about 20 years ago and it has never left me. Lucky enough to catch a really creepy performance of it at the fringe in Edinburgh one year.
LikeLike
One of my favorite classics – a great narrative for the times it was written in and chock full of symbolism. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
LikeLike
Totally agree Cleo – I found this story very creepy and deeply disturbing. A rest cure sounds like the worse thing you could do – I wonder what they were thinking!
LikeLike
I know this is, or has been, somewhere on the TBR – even if it is just a mental TBR, and your review means I really must do something about making it a HAVE read, as the topics interest me
LikeLike
This is frightening. As you said, no grown man would have been sent to his room with mental rest and left there to decline!
LikeLike
This is one of my favourite short-stories, and quite a scary one. I was 21 when I read it, and I just had a big row with my then-boyfriend about children: He wanted them, I was not sure. Enter my feminist and American literature professor, who kindly brought a psychiatrist to explain post-partum depression for us, and I had made a decision: I am under no obligation to have children. And I should enjoy it. Also, thanks heavens for the time I was born in too, Cleo!!!!
LikeLike
I really love this story. For how short it is, it really is so well done. Still an all time fave!
LikeLike
We recently read and analyzed this story in school! It was a lot creepier once I understood everything that was happening (like the smudges on the wall being where she was rubbing against it and pacing around the room)! Good thoughts on this, by the way! 🙂
LikeLike
I read this in college years ago and I still remember it. It was a stand-out!
LikeLike
Great post. I too believe it is a great example of feminist literature. It is so interesting to analyse the text as a critique of a patriarchal form of control that manages to ensure female subordination and oppression through the female’s own participation. For instance, the line, ‘He asked me all sorts of questions, too, and pretended to be very loving and kind’, comes to mind!
LikeLike