The Yellow Wallpaper
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The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Yellow Wallpaper
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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 reach the height of romantic felicity--but that would be asking too
much of fate!
Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.
Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long
untenanted?
John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.
John 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 am absolutely forbidden to "work"
until I am 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, or else meet with heavy opposition.
I sometimes fancy that 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.
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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 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.
There 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.
There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now.
There was some legal trouble, I believe, something about the heirs and
coheirs; 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 DRAUGHT, and shut the window.
I 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.
But 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.
I 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.
He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no
near room for him if he took another.
He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special
direction.
I 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.
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 the top of the house.
It 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
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playroom 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 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.
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 repelllent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow,
strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.
It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur 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 two weeks, and I haven't felt like writing before,
since that first day.
I 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.
John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious.
I am glad my case is not serious!
But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing.
John 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 John, 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,--
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to dress and entertain, and other 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 John never was nervous in his life. He laughs at me so about
this wall-paper!
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 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.
"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."
"Then do let us go downstairs," I said, "there are such pretty rooms
there."
Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and
said he would go down to the cellar, if I wished, and have it whitewashed
into the bargain.
But he is right enough about the beds and windows and things.
It 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.
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 deepshaded
arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees.
Out 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.
I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it
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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 in
my pillow-case 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 is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls 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,
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.
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 looked too fierce I could
always hop into that chair and be safe.
The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious, 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 wall-paper, 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.
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There comes John'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 country. A lovely country, too, full of
great elms and velvet meadows.
This wall-paper has a kind of sub-pattern 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 skulk about
behind that silly and conspicuous front design.
There's sister on the stairs!
Well, the Fourth 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 Nellie and the children down for a week.
Of course I didn't do a thing. Jennie 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 don't feel as if it was worth while 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 John is here, or anybody else, but when I am
alone.
And I am alone a good deal just now. John is kept in town very often
by serious cases, and Jennie is good and lets me alone when I want her to.
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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 wall-paper. Perhaps
BECAUSE of the wall-paper.
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 principle 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 breadth 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, on the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the sprawling
outlines run off in great 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 frieze, and that adds
wonderfully to the confusion.
There is one end of the room where it is almost intact, and there, when
the crosslights fade and the low sun shines directly upon it, I can almost
fancy radiation after all,--the interminable grotesques seem to form around
a common centre 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 John would think it absurd. But I MUST say what I feel
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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 musn't lose my strength, 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 getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this
nervous weakness I suppose.
And dear John 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 wall-paper.
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 impressionable 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 any more--I am too wise,--but I
keep watch of it all the same.
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 John would
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take me away from here!
It is so hard to talk with John 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 shines 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 wall-paper 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 though 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 three 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 could and 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 color, 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 three weeks more and then we will
take a nice little trip of a few days while Jennie is getting the house ready.
Really dear you are better!"
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"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, and 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 unreliable 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 florid arabesque, reminding one of a fungus. If
you can imagine a toadstool in joints, an interminable string of toadstools,
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 n