Charlotte Perkins Gilman - Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Novels, Stories & Poems (LOA #356)

Library of America, a nonprofit organization,

champions our nations cultural heritage

by publishing Americas greatest writing in

authoritative new editions and providing resources

for readers to explore this rich, living legacy.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

novels, stories & Poems

The Yellow Wall-Paper

Herland

With Her in Ourland

Selected Stories and Poems

Alfred Bendixen, editor

LIBRARY OF AMERICA E-BOOK CLASSICS

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN: NOVELS, STORIES & POEMS

Volume compilation, notes, and chronology copyright 2022 by Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., New York, N.Y. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Published in the United States by Library of America

Visit our website at www.loa.org.

The text of One Girl of Many, from The Complete Poetry of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 18841935 , ed. Jacquelyn K. Markham, copyright 2014 by Edwin Mellen Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Distributed to the trade in the United States
by Penguin Random House Inc. and in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Ltd.

eISBN 978-1-59853-720-8

SHORT STORIES

The Yellow Wall-Paper

(manuscript version)

I T IS very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and I secure ancestral halls for the summer.

A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicitybut 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 wouldnt 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 ones 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 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 heavy opposition.

I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulusbut John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel badly.

So I will let it alone, and write about the house.

The most beautiful place!

It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, and 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 co-heirs; anyhow, it has been empty for years and years.

That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I dont carethere is something strange about the houseI can feel it. I even said so to John one moonlit evening, but he said what I felt was a draught , and shut the window.

I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. Im 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 myselfbefore him at least, and that makes me very tired.

I dont 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 wouldnt 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, hardly lets me stir without special direction; I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day, he takes every care, and 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 sunlight 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. The paint and paper look as if a boys school had used it. It is stripped offthe paperin 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 suicideplunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.

The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sun. 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 awayhe hates to have me write a word.

***

We have been here two weeks, and I havent 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 doesnt 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 just 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!