I’d never heard of Charlotte Perkins Gilman (b. 1892) until I read her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
Now I want to read everything about her, which I hope to share right here. But, for starters, above is an excerpt from her story, which is her most famous work.
It’s about an intelligent woman’s descent into madness, apparently instigated by the disturbing wallpaper pasted in the bedroom of the house she’s renting with her husband and infant son.
It turns out the story is highly autobiographical and that Perkins suffered postpartum psychosis. Her then husband’s efforts to cure her consisted of locking her in a room to force her to rest. No doubt such an ill conceived “cure” only made things worse.
The story is a quick read and readily available. Highly recommended for those who enjoy losing sight of reality at the hands of a twisted narrator puppeteered by a skilled writer.
