Haunting gothic and chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Haunting tale, 01 Nov 2007
This is a disturbing tale about a young woman's treatment by her husband. What we now know as post-natal depression was in those days treated as madness. Her husband has had her confined to a room with yellow patterned wallpaper after she has her first baby. Her only way of expressing her feelings is to write them down, but she has to do so in secret as her husband has forbidden it. She thinks there is a person underneath the wallpaper trying to get out and we can feel the desperation in her writing as she struggles to understand what is happening to her. This has a bone chilling ending which will haunt my mind forever.

Tales of a Lunatic, 25 Jan 2002
Focusing on The Yellow Wallpaper alone, this novel is wonderful. Our protagonist is a woman stifled by her husband, also a doctor, who doesnt allow her to write and believes her passion for writing has made her mad. He locks her in the highest room in the house with the famous Yellow Wallpaper where most of the story takes place. It is a tale of an incarcerated woman who stays awake by night to see the caged figure in the wallpaper that 'shakes the bars' by moonlight, hence her lunacy.
The book is a large component fir Gilbert and Gubar's 'The Madwoman In The Attic' and frankly, i love it!!

Haunting gothic and chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Haunting tale, 01 Nov 2007
This is a disturbing tale about a young woman's treatment by her husband. What we now know as post-natal depression was in those days treated as madness. Her husband has had her confined to a room with yellow patterned wallpaper after she has her first baby. Her only way of expressing her feelings is to write them down, but she has to do so in secret as her husband has forbidden it. She thinks there is a person underneath the wallpaper trying to get out and we can feel the desperation in her writing as she struggles to understand what is happening to her. This has a bone chilling ending which will haunt my mind forever.

Tales of a Lunatic, 25 Jan 2002
Focusing on The Yellow Wallpaper alone, this novel is wonderful. Our protagonist is a woman stifled by her husband, also a doctor, who doesnt allow her to write and believes her passion for writing has made her mad. He locks her in the highest room in the house with the famous Yellow Wallpaper where most of the story takes place. It is a tale of an incarcerated woman who stays awake by night to see the caged figure in the wallpaper that 'shakes the bars' by moonlight, hence her lunacy.
The book is a large component fir Gilbert and Gubar's 'The Madwoman In The Attic' and frankly, i love it!!

A Land of Her, 27 Oct 2008
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), American feminist and writer, best known for her seminal work Women and Economics (1898) and The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), based on her own experience of being treated for depression.

Herland was originally published as a serial in The Forerunner during 1945. It did not see book form until 1979. In the novel, Gilman envisages a utopian society comprised entirely of women who reproduce through parthenogenesis. Gilman was emphatic in constructing Herland's social structure as having grown out of the presence of women only, rather than simply the absence of men. Unlike her other works, Herland was largely forgotten until its book publication in 1979, when it was then acclaimed as a fresh and funny satire with insights that still speak to the condition of American women, even in now more emancipated times.

Herland was written against the background of campaigns for equal rights for women that were going on during the early years of the 20th century and is a call for social equality. The utopian nation of Herland demonstrates the capabilities, greatness, and potential of womanhood, and not simply as inferior to masculinity. The three male protagonists are, at first, suspicious of Herland, and assume a society run by women would be chaotic and disorganised, believing that women cannot survive without their male-halves.

Jeff, Van, and Terry represent the achievements of male constructed civilisation, which is full of suffering, war, disease, and other imperfections. The fact that the female inhabitants of Herland can reproduce asexually, and that their utopia far surpasses anything men have built, implies that women do not need men and can surpass them. In the end, Jeff and Van do not want to leave this perfect utopia for their own male-constructed civilization, which they are now disillusioned with, further reinforcing womanhood is greater than manhood ... or, at least, be accepted as equal.

This is further explored in the relationship three men have with their chosen wives in Herland. There is conflict between the partners regarding sexual discourse; the women see it as solely for procreation, while the men promote sex as also being a purely recreational engagement. Jeff and Van do overcome these disagreements, with Jeff conceiving a child with his chosen wife. However, Terry's attempted rape of his partner leads to him being banished. Van and his wife, Ellador, leave with Terry on their seaplane, because the vehicle needs two to operate, and because Ellador wants to experience the outside world. She flies off with them into the unknown.

The narrative structure of Herland portrays Jeff and Terry at different ends of the male spectrum. Jeff appears in touch with his female side and is unafraid to show his emotions. Terry's instinct is to dominate, which results in his unacceptable behaviour. Gilman signals this character trait in Terry when the three first meet inhabitants of Herland. Terry's instinct is to lure one nearer by dangling a necklace, before trying to make a grab for her. Gilman probably saw this as the act of a predatory, possessive male attempting a sexual conquest. Luring the female with trinkets, then claiming her as personal property.

In contrast, Van appears more neutral in his sexual traits and functions more as an observer of what is developing around him. This puts him in a position where he can accept and evaluate new ideas that may not initially conform his own experiences. In that sense, he functions as Gilman's male voice in the narrative. Through Van, the writer promotes the ideals of Herland and its positive function as a Utopian society, where the influence of womanhood eliminates the strife of male aggression and its manifestations in such things as war or greed.

Gender and its definition is the central dynamic of Herland, Gilman's argument being that gender is socially constructed rather than fixed and unchangeable. The women of Herland may conform to the role of motherhood, but they are also strong and independent. Some even display masculine qualities, such as short hair. Interestingly, which would have been considered abnormal at the time that the story was written. It should also be noted that, when the three men are incarcerated by the women of Herland, their hair grows long, which is one of a number of gender reversals that occur throughout the story; the women teach, the men learn; the women prove physically stronger than the men, which undermines their definition of womanhood even further. By It is through these challenges to the perceptions of the male protagonists that the definitions of gender are shown to be problematic and not as clear cut as male patriarchy would have us believe.

As a feminist and what would have been viewed at the time as radical, Gilman believed the domestic environment was constructed to oppress women. This is very apparent in The Yellow Wallpaper in which the female protagonist, who happens to be a writer, is prescribed a rest cure for a nervous condition by her physician husband. This "cure" not only involves confinement and electric impulse treatments, but forbids all creative activity - including writing - as he professes that this would only add to her distress. What he actually fears is that creative activity for a wife is a distraction from domestic duties, and also represents a form of female independence that is a threat to his patriarchal authority. Therefore, female creativity and the independence this brings must be suppressed by convincing the woman that it is bad for her, thus maintaining the social order.

The story was based on Gilman's own personal experience of a "rest cure", prescribed when suffering depression following the birth of her daughter, Katherine. This was during an age when women were seen as hysterical and claims of post natal depression sometimes viewed as invalid. Gilman was told to keep intellectual engagement minimal and never to pick up a pen and write again. The experience proved devastating and Gilman nearly ended up going into complete emotional collapse. It ended her first marriage to Walter Stetson and it was only after leaving him that the depression lifted. The Yellow Wallpaper amplifies her resentment to the way she was treated, and Gilman even sent a copy to the physician who had put her through the experience in the first place.

In Herland, Gilman expands this theme of repression with a larger scale story that articulates the concern that male aggression and prescribed maternal roles for women were not only artificial, but no longer necessary for society's continuation. Gilman believed that only economic independence could really achieve freedom for women and ensure equality with men. In Herland and Beyond (1980) Ann J. Lane asserts "Gilman offered perspectives on major issues of gender with which we still grapple; the origins of women's subjugation, the struggle to achieve both autonomy and intimacy in human relationships; the central role of work as a definition of self; new strategies for rearing and educating future generations to create a humane and nurturing environment." While The Yellow Wallpaper exposed these concerns, Herland offered a model for a possible solution. Or, at least, an ideal.







As relevant now as it was when it was written, 28 Aug 2008
I strongly disagree with earlier reviews which imply that this book is only of historical interest. The issues Gilman address are as topical now as when they were first written. I've read this book at least seven times, and I admit that the first few times I was distracted by the blatant bias, the sometimes clumsy style and the clunky plot, but with each subsequent reading I have been more gripped by the ideas that Gilman explores. Yes, it's simplistic. Yes, it's a bit 'obvious' in places. Yes, the characters are sterotyped and wooden. And the role of women-as-mothers is frustratingly restricted. But I can ignore all that and just marvel at the observations on human nature in this improbable - but in many ways admirable - feminist utopia. She addresses issues that are still very much alive today: feminism (of course), the environment / conservation, violence, socialisation, love, life, death and the universe...

And to top it all, it's funny.

Of Mainly Historical Interest, 04 Jul 2007
I'll be upfront - I did initially add this book to my basket partly to make up a 15 quid free delivery package - well, it also had been on my wish list for some time. I found the style of writing fairly stilted - some books which employ old-fashioned language can be entertaining, but I don't think this ever did, even when it was new. The message, men's blindness to female values, came through clear enough but I think I'd almost have rather read a pamphlet. Stories should seduce you, even stories with a message, and this was more of a turn-off. I dutifully finished it and am not unhappy about having read it, but I can't really recommend it except, as my title says, as of historical interest.

Of Mainly Historical Interest, 27 Jun 2007
I bought this book at least a little out of a sense of duty; that I ought to read it. And having read it, to be honest, I feel much the same. Given the time of writing, it's as relevant as can be, but it didn't entertain me that much. The style reminds me of "Exciting Adventure Stories For Boys" from 100 years ago (but actually written by a proto-feminist as propaganda).

I think, in 2007, we know this stuff (at least if we want to know it) but the interest lies in seeing how it was being put across all those years ago. Actually, given I know only the outlines of C.P. Gilman's life, I feel quite sympathetic towards her, but that doesn't guarantee a rewarding literary experience.

A gripping utopia, 04 Jul 2001
Narrated from a male perspective, this altenative utopia depicts a nation free from man-made harm. If the drive of feminism seems to be slowing down,this celebration of the ability of women will reignite the spark in any woman's mind. Read it and then make your male friends read it. Perkins-Gilman manages to subtly argue a point with no hint of preaching. Splendid.

Haunting gothic and chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Haunting tale, 01 Nov 2007
This is a disturbing tale about a young woman's treatment by her husband. What we now know as post-natal depression was in those days treated as madness. Her husband has had her confined to a room with yellow patterned wallpaper after she has her first baby. Her only way of expressing her feelings is to write them down, but she has to do so in secret as her husband has forbidden it. She thinks there is a person underneath the wallpaper trying to get out and we can feel the desperation in her writing as she struggles to understand what is happening to her. This has a bone chilling ending which will haunt my mind forever.

Tales of a Lunatic, 25 Jan 2002
Focusing on The Yellow Wallpaper alone, this novel is wonderful. Our protagonist is a woman stifled by her husband, also a doctor, who doesnt allow her to write and believes her passion for writing has made her mad. He locks her in the highest room in the house with the famous Yellow Wallpaper where most of the story takes place. It is a tale of an incarcerated woman who stays awake by night to see the caged figure in the wallpaper that 'shakes the bars' by moonlight, hence her lunacy.
The book is a large component fir Gilbert and Gubar's 'The Madwoman In The Attic' and frankly, i love it!!

A Land of Her, 27 Oct 2008
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), American feminist and writer, best known for her seminal work Women and Economics (1898) and The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), based on her own experience of being treated for depression.

Herland was originally published as a serial in The Forerunner during 1945. It did not see book form until 1979. In the novel, Gilman envisages a utopian society comprised entirely of women who reproduce through parthenogenesis. Gilman was emphatic in constructing Herland's social structure as having grown out of the presence of women only, rather than simply the absence of men. Unlike her other works, Herland was largely forgotten until its book publication in 1979, when it was then acclaimed as a fresh and funny satire with insights that still speak to the condition of American women, even in now more emancipated times.

Herland was written against the background of campaigns for equal rights for women that were going on during the early years of the 20th century and is a call for social equality. The utopian nation of Herland demonstrates the capabilities, greatness, and potential of womanhood, and not simply as inferior to masculinity. The three male protagonists are, at first, suspicious of Herland, and assume a society run by women would be chaotic and disorganised, believing that women cannot survive without their male-halves.

Jeff, Van, and Terry represent the achievements of male constructed civilisation, which is full of suffering, war, disease, and other imperfections. The fact that the female inhabitants of Herland can reproduce asexually, and that their utopia far surpasses anything men have built, implies that women do not need men and can surpass them. In the end, Jeff and Van do not want to leave this perfect utopia for their own male-constructed civilization, which they are now disillusioned with, further reinforcing womanhood is greater than manhood ... or, at least, be accepted as equal.

This is further explored in the relationship three men have with their chosen wives in Herland. There is conflict between the partners regarding sexual discourse; the women see it as solely for procreation, while the men promote sex as also being a purely recreational engagement. Jeff and Van do overcome these disagreements, with Jeff conceiving a child with his chosen wife. However, Terry's attempted rape of his partner leads to him being banished. Van and his wife, Ellador, leave with Terry on their seaplane, because the vehicle needs two to operate, and because Ellador wants to experience the outside world. She flies off with them into the unknown.

The narrative structure of Herland portrays Jeff and Terry at different ends of the male spectrum. Jeff appears in touch with his female side and is unafraid to show his emotions. Terry's instinct is to dominate, which results in his unacceptable behaviour. Gilman signals this character trait in Terry when the three first meet inhabitants of Herland. Terry's instinct is to lure one nearer by dangling a necklace, before trying to make a grab for her. Gilman probably saw this as the act of a predatory, possessive male attempting a sexual conquest. Luring the female with trinkets, then claiming her as personal property.

In contrast, Van appears more neutral in his sexual traits and functions more as an observer of what is developing around him. This puts him in a position where he can accept and evaluate new ideas that may not initially conform his own experiences. In that sense, he functions as Gilman's male voice in the narrative. Through Van, the writer promotes the ideals of Herland and its positive function as a Utopian society, where the influence of womanhood eliminates the strife of male aggression and its manifestations in such things as war or greed.

Gender and its definition is the central dynamic of Herland, Gilman's argument being that gender is socially constructed rather than fixed and unchangeable. The women of Herland may conform to the role of motherhood, but they are also strong and independent. Some even display masculine qualities, such as short hair. Interestingly, which would have been considered abnormal at the time that the story was written. It should also be noted that, when the three men are incarcerated by the women of Herland, their hair grows long, which is one of a number of gender reversals that occur throughout the story; the women teach, the men learn; the women prove physically stronger than the men, which undermines their definition of womanhood even further. By It is through these challenges to the perceptions of the male protagonists that the definitions of gender are shown to be problematic and not as clear cut as male patriarchy would have us believe.

As a feminist and what would have been viewed at the time as radical, Gilman believed the domestic environment was constructed to oppress women. This is very apparent in The Yellow Wallpaper in which the female protagonist, who happens to be a writer, is prescribed a rest cure for a nervous condition by her physician husband. This "cure" not only involves confinement and electric impulse treatments, but forbids all creative activity - including writing - as he professes that this would only add to her distress. What he actually fears is that creative activity for a wife is a distraction from domestic duties, and also represents a form of female independence that is a threat to his patriarchal authority. Therefore, female creativity and the independence this brings must be suppressed by convincing the woman that it is bad for her, thus maintaining the social order.

The story was based on Gilman's own personal experience of a "rest cure", prescribed when suffering depression following the birth of her daughter, Katherine. This was during an age when women were seen as hysterical and claims of post natal depression sometimes viewed as invalid. Gilman was told to keep intellectual engagement minimal and never to pick up a pen and write again. The experience proved devastating and Gilman nearly ended up going into complete emotional collapse. It ended her first marriage to Walter Stetson and it was only after leaving him that the depression lifted. The Yellow Wallpaper amplifies her resentment to the way she was treated, and Gilman even sent a copy to the physician who had put her through the experience in the first place.

In Herland, Gilman expands this theme of repression with a larger scale story that articulates the concern that male aggression and prescribed maternal roles for women were not only artificial, but no longer necessary for society's continuation. Gilman believed that only economic independence could really achieve freedom for women and ensure equality with men. In Herland and Beyond (1980) Ann J. Lane asserts "Gilman offered perspectives on major issues of gender with which we still grapple; the origins of women's subjugation, the struggle to achieve both autonomy and intimacy in human relationships; the central role of work as a definition of self; new strategies for rearing and educating future generations to create a humane and nurturing environment." While The Yellow Wallpaper exposed these concerns, Herland offered a model for a possible solution. Or, at least, an ideal.







As relevant now as it was when it was written, 28 Aug 2008
I strongly disagree with earlier reviews which imply that this book is only of historical interest. The issues Gilman address are as topical now as when they were first written. I've read this book at least seven times, and I admit that the first few times I was distracted by the blatant bias, the sometimes clumsy style and the clunky plot, but with each subsequent reading I have been more gripped by the ideas that Gilman explores. Yes, it's simplistic. Yes, it's a bit 'obvious' in places. Yes, the characters are sterotyped and wooden. And the role of women-as-mothers is frustratingly restricted. But I can ignore all that and just marvel at the observations on human nature in this improbable - but in many ways admirable - feminist utopia. She addresses issues that are still very much alive today: feminism (of course), the environment / conservation, violence, socialisation, love, life, death and the universe...

And to top it all, it's funny.

Of Mainly Historical Interest, 04 Jul 2007
I'll be upfront - I did initially add this book to my basket partly to make up a 15 quid free delivery package - well, it also had been on my wish list for some time. I found the style of writing fairly stilted - some books which employ old-fashioned language can be entertaining, but I don't think this ever did, even when it was new. The message, men's blindness to female values, came through clear enough but I think I'd almost have rather read a pamphlet. Stories should seduce you, even stories with a message, and this was more of a turn-off. I dutifully finished it and am not unhappy about having read it, but I can't really recommend it except, as my title says, as of historical interest.

Of Mainly Historical Interest, 27 Jun 2007
I bought this book at least a little out of a sense of duty; that I ought to read it. And having read it, to be honest, I feel much the same. Given the time of writing, it's as relevant as can be, but it didn't entertain me that much. The style reminds me of "Exciting Adventure Stories For Boys" from 100 years ago (but actually written by a proto-feminist as propaganda).

I think, in 2007, we know this stuff (at least if we want to know it) but the interest lies in seeing how it was being put across all those years ago. Actually, given I know only the outlines of C.P. Gilman's life, I feel quite sympathetic towards her, but that doesn't guarantee a rewarding literary experience.

A gripping utopia, 04 Jul 2001
Narrated from a male perspective, this altenative utopia depicts a nation free from man-made harm. If the drive of feminism seems to be slowing down,this celebration of the ability of women will reignite the spark in any woman's mind. Read it and then make your male friends read it. Perkins-Gilman manages to subtly argue a point with no hint of preaching. Splendid.

chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Not the best thing since sliced bread., 24 Feb 2008
As an empowered female of bra-burning age, I get that I'm supposed to love this. After all, it focuses on the cavalier way women were treated (rest for mental illness instead of treatment - husband knows best - that sort of thing). It also provides insight into the protagonist's slow descent into madness. Written in journal format, we're privy to the private thoughts and, as the story and dementia progress, insane ramblings of a woman on the edge.

Surely this should be great... right? Hmm. Perhaps the hype overshadowed the story for me, but I didn't find it particularly haunting or innovative. Instead what I discovered was a well-written, if not memorable, tale of mental illness.


A masterpiece of feminist fiction and a chilling horror tale, 01 May 2006
Charlotte Perkins Gilman provides a stunning and disturbing account of a woman's decline in madness. Margaret Atwood comments in the Blind Assassin that life is little more than a period of waiting interspersed with a few significant moments. For the nameless women in The Yellow Wallpaper, this is one of those moments. Over a three month period we see in acute and distressingly real detail how her inability to match her identity with the role of submissive wife that late Victorian society demanded leads to a steady, inexorable descent from sagacity to despair. Suffering from some unnamed illness - which modern readers might relate to post-natal depression, she is confined to a room for rest and sleep. Unable to find any outlet for emotion or intellect, she becomes obsessed with the room's wallpaper - its complex and endless pattern of pointless swirls. At first she just dislikes it, then hatred bordering on fear follows, to be usurped by a semi-dependent fascination and ultimately total identity: she becomes, not so much the wallpaper, but the embodiment of the creeping women who dwell, reluctantly, behind the pattern.

It is a picture of personal despair, of desperate attempts to retain sanity and ultimately of failure. On one level it's a chilling horror tale reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe. On another it is a clinically precise picture of a mental aberration. But it is more than that. A powerful indictment of the institution of marriage, of the social mores and misguided kindliness of late Victorian middle-class America, and of the treatment of women, Gilman's story is as timeless as it is authentic.


Excellent Short Story, 22 Sep 2005
As a short story alone this work is outstanding. Stylistically it is sparse and chilling, and as a psychological tale the horror of the detail is left to the reader. That is not to say this is a horror tale as one would normally expect, but a powerful evocation of how women were often mistreated and degraded by Victorian culture. It chronicles the tale of a free-thinking and self-willed woman who is forced to take the infamous rest-cure to prevent her from stretching beyond the limited boundaries set for middle-class housewives in the nineteenth century. Enforced rest with little entertainment or stimulus is really a form of incarceration with damaging psychological effects. These effects are recorded through the shapes and figures that manifest through the ghastly yellow wallpaper, which is intended to beautify the room but actually represents prison bars in a different form. Powerful, short and effective, this is an excellent short story - and worth reading alongside The Awakening as two standard texts for feminist analysis of this particular era.

a quirky, stirring story with a great afterword, 19 Dec 2004
Firstly, to the story itself. The narrative voice is a repressed woman of the late 19th century, locked in a room with horrid yellow wallpaper, expected by her husband to recover from a mysterious sickness. The more time she spends in this prison, desperate to write, the more disturbed she becomes, until she begins to see a woman crawling within the wallpaper. This is both a study of psychology and a look into the position of women of the period.
The style of the story is wonderfully haunting. The narrative is sparse and exclamatory. This publication has printed the lettering large so that the paragaphs are fairly spread out. The result is that the story appears like a long poem. It is easily read in half an hour or so.
I was very grateful for the very informative Afterword, which is actually longer than the story. It offers a background of the author and links her to other similar authors, as well as explaining the situation of the woman in the story. Without the Afterword, I think I would have been left chilled, but uninformed.

Haunting gothic and chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Haunting tale, 01 Nov 2007
This is a disturbing tale about a young woman's treatment by her husband. What we now know as post-natal depression was in those days treated as madness. Her husband has had her confined to a room with yellow patterned wallpaper after she has her first baby. Her only way of expressing her feelings is to write them down, but she has to do so in secret as her husband has forbidden it. She thinks there is a person underneath the wallpaper trying to get out and we can feel the desperation in her writing as she struggles to understand what is happening to her. This has a bone chilling ending which will haunt my mind forever.

Tales of a Lunatic, 25 Jan 2002
Focusing on The Yellow Wallpaper alone, this novel is wonderful. Our protagonist is a woman stifled by her husband, also a doctor, who doesnt allow her to write and believes her passion for writing has made her mad. He locks her in the highest room in the house with the famous Yellow Wallpaper where most of the story takes place. It is a tale of an incarcerated woman who stays awake by night to see the caged figure in the wallpaper that 'shakes the bars' by moonlight, hence her lunacy.
The book is a large component fir Gilbert and Gubar's 'The Madwoman In The Attic' and frankly, i love it!!

A Land of Her, 27 Oct 2008
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), American feminist and writer, best known for her seminal work Women and Economics (1898) and The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), based on her own experience of being treated for depression.

Herland was originally published as a serial in The Forerunner during 1945. It did not see book form until 1979. In the novel, Gilman envisages a utopian society comprised entirely of women who reproduce through parthenogenesis. Gilman was emphatic in constructing Herland's social structure as having grown out of the presence of women only, rather than simply the absence of men. Unlike her other works, Herland was largely forgotten until its book publication in 1979, when it was then acclaimed as a fresh and funny satire with insights that still speak to the condition of American women, even in now more emancipated times.

Herland was written against the background of campaigns for equal rights for women that were going on during the early years of the 20th century and is a call for social equality. The utopian nation of Herland demonstrates the capabilities, greatness, and potential of womanhood, and not simply as inferior to masculinity. The three male protagonists are, at first, suspicious of Herland, and assume a society run by women would be chaotic and disorganised, believing that women cannot survive without their male-halves.

Jeff, Van, and Terry represent the achievements of male constructed civilisation, which is full of suffering, war, disease, and other imperfections. The fact that the female inhabitants of Herland can reproduce asexually, and that their utopia far surpasses anything men have built, implies that women do not need men and can surpass them. In the end, Jeff and Van do not want to leave this perfect utopia for their own male-constructed civilization, which they are now disillusioned with, further reinforcing womanhood is greater than manhood ... or, at least, be accepted as equal.

This is further explored in the relationship three men have with their chosen wives in Herland. There is conflict between the partners regarding sexual discourse; the women see it as solely for procreation, while the men promote sex as also being a purely recreational engagement. Jeff and Van do overcome these disagreements, with Jeff conceiving a child with his chosen wife. However, Terry's attempted rape of his partner leads to him being banished. Van and his wife, Ellador, leave with Terry on their seaplane, because the vehicle needs two to operate, and because Ellador wants to experience the outside world. She flies off with them into the unknown.

The narrative structure of Herland portrays Jeff and Terry at different ends of the male spectrum. Jeff appears in touch with his female side and is unafraid to show his emotions. Terry's instinct is to dominate, which results in his unacceptable behaviour. Gilman signals this character trait in Terry when the three first meet inhabitants of Herland. Terry's instinct is to lure one nearer by dangling a necklace, before trying to make a grab for her. Gilman probably saw this as the act of a predatory, possessive male attempting a sexual conquest. Luring the female with trinkets, then claiming her as personal property.

In contrast, Van appears more neutral in his sexual traits and functions more as an observer of what is developing around him. This puts him in a position where he can accept and evaluate new ideas that may not initially conform his own experiences. In that sense, he functions as Gilman's male voice in the narrative. Through Van, the writer promotes the ideals of Herland and its positive function as a Utopian society, where the influence of womanhood eliminates the strife of male aggression and its manifestations in such things as war or greed.

Gender and its definition is the central dynamic of Herland, Gilman's argument being that gender is socially constructed rather than fixed and unchangeable. The women of Herland may conform to the role of motherhood, but they are also strong and independent. Some even display masculine qualities, such as short hair. Interestingly, which would have been considered abnormal at the time that the story was written. It should also be noted that, when the three men are incarcerated by the women of Herland, their hair grows long, which is one of a number of gender reversals that occur throughout the story; the women teach, the men learn; the women prove physically stronger than the men, which undermines their definition of womanhood even further. By It is through these challenges to the perceptions of the male protagonists that the definitions of gender are shown to be problematic and not as clear cut as male patriarchy would have us believe.

As a feminist and what would have been viewed at the time as radical, Gilman believed the domestic environment was constructed to oppress women. This is very apparent in The Yellow Wallpaper in which the female protagonist, who happens to be a writer, is prescribed a rest cure for a nervous condition by her physician husband. This "cure" not only involves confinement and electric impulse treatments, but forbids all creative activity - including writing - as he professes that this would only add to her distress. What he actually fears is that creative activity for a wife is a distraction from domestic duties, and also represents a form of female independence that is a threat to his patriarchal authority. Therefore, female creativity and the independence this brings must be suppressed by convincing the woman that it is bad for her, thus maintaining the social order.

The story was based on Gilman's own personal experience of a "rest cure", prescribed when suffering depression following the birth of her daughter, Katherine. This was during an age when women were seen as hysterical and claims of post natal depression sometimes viewed as invalid. Gilman was told to keep intellectual engagement minimal and never to pick up a pen and write again. The experience proved devastating and Gilman nearly ended up going into complete emotional collapse. It ended her first marriage to Walter Stetson and it was only after leaving him that the depression lifted. The Yellow Wallpaper amplifies her resentment to the way she was treated, and Gilman even sent a copy to the physician who had put her through the experience in the first place.

In Herland, Gilman expands this theme of repression with a larger scale story that articulates the concern that male aggression and prescribed maternal roles for women were not only artificial, but no longer necessary for society's continuation. Gilman believed that only economic independence could really achieve freedom for women and ensure equality with men. In Herland and Beyond (1980) Ann J. Lane asserts "Gilman offered perspectives on major issues of gender with which we still grapple; the origins of women's subjugation, the struggle to achieve both autonomy and intimacy in human relationships; the central role of work as a definition of self; new strategies for rearing and educating future generations to create a humane and nurturing environment." While The Yellow Wallpaper exposed these concerns, Herland offered a model for a possible solution. Or, at least, an ideal.







As relevant now as it was when it was written, 28 Aug 2008
I strongly disagree with earlier reviews which imply that this book is only of historical interest. The issues Gilman address are as topical now as when they were first written. I've read this book at least seven times, and I admit that the first few times I was distracted by the blatant bias, the sometimes clumsy style and the clunky plot, but with each subsequent reading I have been more gripped by the ideas that Gilman explores. Yes, it's simplistic. Yes, it's a bit 'obvious' in places. Yes, the characters are sterotyped and wooden. And the role of women-as-mothers is frustratingly restricted. But I can ignore all that and just marvel at the observations on human nature in this improbable - but in many ways admirable - feminist utopia. She addresses issues that are still very much alive today: feminism (of course), the environment / conservation, violence, socialisation, love, life, death and the universe...

And to top it all, it's funny.

Of Mainly Historical Interest, 04 Jul 2007
I'll be upfront - I did initially add this book to my basket partly to make up a 15 quid free delivery package - well, it also had been on my wish list for some time. I found the style of writing fairly stilted - some books which employ old-fashioned language can be entertaining, but I don't think this ever did, even when it was new. The message, men's blindness to female values, came through clear enough but I think I'd almost have rather read a pamphlet. Stories should seduce you, even stories with a message, and this was more of a turn-off. I dutifully finished it and am not unhappy about having read it, but I can't really recommend it except, as my title says, as of historical interest.

Of Mainly Historical Interest, 27 Jun 2007
I bought this book at least a little out of a sense of duty; that I ought to read it. And having read it, to be honest, I feel much the same. Given the time of writing, it's as relevant as can be, but it didn't entertain me that much. The style reminds me of "Exciting Adventure Stories For Boys" from 100 years ago (but actually written by a proto-feminist as propaganda).

I think, in 2007, we know this stuff (at least if we want to know it) but the interest lies in seeing how it was being put across all those years ago. Actually, given I know only the outlines of C.P. Gilman's life, I feel quite sympathetic towards her, but that doesn't guarantee a rewarding literary experience.

A gripping utopia, 04 Jul 2001
Narrated from a male perspective, this altenative utopia depicts a nation free from man-made harm. If the drive of feminism seems to be slowing down,this celebration of the ability of women will reignite the spark in any woman's mind. Read it and then make your male friends read it. Perkins-Gilman manages to subtly argue a point with no hint of preaching. Splendid.

chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Not the best thing since sliced bread., 24 Feb 2008
As an empowered female of bra-burning age, I get that I'm supposed to love this. After all, it focuses on the cavalier way women were treated (rest for mental illness instead of treatment - husband knows best - that sort of thing). It also provides insight into the protagonist's slow descent into madness. Written in journal format, we're privy to the private thoughts and, as the story and dementia progress, insane ramblings of a woman on the edge.

Surely this should be great... right? Hmm. Perhaps the hype overshadowed the story for me, but I didn't find it particularly haunting or innovative. Instead what I discovered was a well-written, if not memorable, tale of mental illness.


A masterpiece of feminist fiction and a chilling horror tale, 01 May 2006
Charlotte Perkins Gilman provides a stunning and disturbing account of a woman's decline in madness. Margaret Atwood comments in the Blind Assassin that life is little more than a period of waiting interspersed with a few significant moments. For the nameless women in The Yellow Wallpaper, this is one of those moments. Over a three month period we see in acute and distressingly real detail how her inability to match her identity with the role of submissive wife that late Victorian society demanded leads to a steady, inexorable descent from sagacity to despair. Suffering from some unnamed illness - which modern readers might relate to post-natal depression, she is confined to a room for rest and sleep. Unable to find any outlet for emotion or intellect, she becomes obsessed with the room's wallpaper - its complex and endless pattern of pointless swirls. At first she just dislikes it, then hatred bordering on fear follows, to be usurped by a semi-dependent fascination and ultimately total identity: she becomes, not so much the wallpaper, but the embodiment of the creeping women who dwell, reluctantly, behind the pattern.

It is a picture of personal despair, of desperate attempts to retain sanity and ultimately of failure. On one level it's a chilling horror tale reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe. On another it is a clinically precise picture of a mental aberration. But it is more than that. A powerful indictment of the institution of marriage, of the social mores and misguided kindliness of late Victorian middle-class America, and of the treatment of women, Gilman's story is as timeless as it is authentic.


Excellent Short Story, 22 Sep 2005
As a short story alone this work is outstanding. Stylistically it is sparse and chilling, and as a psychological tale the horror of the detail is left to the reader. That is not to say this is a horror tale as one would normally expect, but a powerful evocation of how women were often mistreated and degraded by Victorian culture. It chronicles the tale of a free-thinking and self-willed woman who is forced to take the infamous rest-cure to prevent her from stretching beyond the limited boundaries set for middle-class housewives in the nineteenth century. Enforced rest with little entertainment or stimulus is really a form of incarceration with damaging psychological effects. These effects are recorded through the shapes and figures that manifest through the ghastly yellow wallpaper, which is intended to beautify the room but actually represents prison bars in a different form. Powerful, short and effective, this is an excellent short story - and worth reading alongside The Awakening as two standard texts for feminist analysis of this particular era.

a quirky, stirring story with a great afterword, 19 Dec 2004
Firstly, to the story itself. The narrative voice is a repressed woman of the late 19th century, locked in a room with horrid yellow wallpaper, expected by her husband to recover from a mysterious sickness. The more time she spends in this prison, desperate to write, the more disturbed she becomes, until she begins to see a woman crawling within the wallpaper. This is both a study of psychology and a look into the position of women of the period.
The style of the story is wonderfully haunting. The narrative is sparse and exclamatory. This publication has printed the lettering large so that the paragaphs are fairly spread out. The result is that the story appears like a long poem. It is easily read in half an hour or so.
I was very grateful for the very informative Afterword, which is actually longer than the story. It offers a background of the author and links her to other similar authors, as well as explaining the situation of the woman in the story. Without the Afterword, I think I would have been left chilled, but uninformed.

chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Not the best thing since sliced bread., 24 Feb 2008
As an empowered female of bra-burning age, I get that I'm supposed to love this. After all, it focuses on the cavalier way women were treated (rest for mental illness instead of treatment - husband knows best - that sort of thing). It also provides insight into the protagonist's slow descent into madness. Written in journal format, we're privy to the private thoughts and, as the story and dementia progress, insane ramblings of a woman on the edge.

Surely this should be great... right? Hmm. Perhaps the hype overshadowed the story for me, but I didn't find it particularly haunting or innovative. Instead what I discovered was a well-written, if not memorable, tale of mental illness.


A masterpiece of feminist fiction and a chilling horror tale, 01 May 2006
Charlotte Perkins Gilman provides a stunning and disturbing account of a woman's decline in madness. Margaret Atwood comments in the Blind Assassin that life is little more than a period of waiting interspersed with a few significant moments. For the nameless women in The Yellow Wallpaper, this is one of those moments. Over a three month period we see in acute and distressingly real detail how her inability to match her identity with the role of submissive wife that late Victorian society demanded leads to a steady, inexorable descent from sagacity to despair. Suffering from some unnamed illness - which modern readers might relate to post-natal depression, she is confined to a room for rest and sleep. Unable to find any outlet for emotion or intellect, she becomes obsessed with the room's wallpaper - its complex and endless pattern of pointless swirls. At first she just dislikes it, then hatred bordering on fear follows, to be usurped by a semi-dependent fascination and ultimately total identity: she becomes, not so much the wallpaper, but the embodiment of the creeping women who dwell, reluctantly, behind the pattern.

It is a picture of personal despair, of desperate attempts to retain sanity and ultimately of failure. On one level it's a chilling horror tale reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe. On another it is a clinically precise picture of a mental aberration. But it is more than that. A powerful indictment of the institution of marriage, of the social mores and misguided kindliness of late Victorian middle-class America, and of the treatment of women, Gilman's story is as timeless as it is authentic.


Excellent Short Story, 22 Sep 2005
As a short story alone this work is outstanding. Stylistically it is sparse and chilling, and as a psychological tale the horror of the detail is left to the reader. That is not to say this is a horror tale as one would normally expect, but a powerful evocation of how women were often mistreated and degraded by Victorian culture. It chronicles the tale of a free-thinking and self-willed woman who is forced to take the infamous rest-cure to prevent her from stretching beyond the limited boundaries set for middle-class housewives in the nineteenth century. Enforced rest with little entertainment or stimulus is really a form of incarceration with damaging psychological effects. These effects are recorded through the shapes and figures that manifest through the ghastly yellow wallpaper, which is intended to beautify the room but actually represents prison bars in a different form. Powerful, short and effective, this is an excellent short story - and worth reading alongside The Awakening as two standard texts for feminist analysis of this particular era.

a quirky, stirring story with a great afterword, 19 Dec 2004
Firstly, to the story itself. The narrative voice is a repressed woman of the late 19th century, locked in a room with horrid yellow wallpaper, expected by her husband to recover from a mysterious sickness. The more time she spends in this prison, desperate to write, the more disturbed she becomes, until she begins to see a woman crawling within the wallpaper. This is both a study of psychology and a look into the position of women of the period.
The style of the story is wonderfully haunting. The narrative is sparse and exclamatory. This publication has printed the lettering large so that the paragaphs are fairly spread out. The result is that the story appears like a long poem. It is easily read in half an hour or so.
I was very grateful for the very informative Afterword, which is actually longer than the story. It offers a background of the author and links her to other similar authors, as well as explaining the situation of the woman in the story. Without the Afterword, I think I would have been left chilled, but uninformed.

Haunting gothic and chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Haunting tale, 01 Nov 2007
This is a disturbing tale about a young woman's treatment by her husband. What we now know as post-natal depression was in those days treated as madness. Her husband has had her confined to a room with yellow patterned wallpaper after she has her first baby. Her only way of expressing her feelings is to write them down, but she has to do so in secret as her husband has forbidden it. She thinks there is a person underneath the wallpaper trying to get out and we can feel the desperation in her writing as she struggles to understand what is happening to her. This has a bone chilling ending which will haunt my mind forever.

Tales of a Lunatic, 25 Jan 2002
Focusing on The Yellow Wallpaper alone, this novel is wonderful. Our protagonist is a woman stifled by her husband, also a doctor, who doesnt allow her to write and believes her passion for writing has made her mad. He locks her in the highest room in the house with the famous Yellow Wallpaper where most of the story takes place. It is a tale of an incarcerated woman who stays awake by night to see the caged figure in the wallpaper that 'shakes the bars' by moonlight, hence her lunacy.
The book is a large component fir Gilbert and Gubar's 'The Madwoman In The Attic' and frankly, i love it!!

A Land of Her, 27 Oct 2008
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), American feminist and writer, best known for her seminal work Women and Economics (1898) and The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), based on her own experience of being treated for depression.

Herland was originally published as a serial in The Forerunner during 1945. It did not see book form until 1979. In the novel, Gilman envisages a utopian society comprised entirely of women who reproduce through parthenogenesis. Gilman was emphatic in constructing Herland's social structure as having grown out of the presence of women only, rather than simply the absence of men. Unlike her other works, Herland was largely forgotten until its book publication in 1979, when it was then acclaimed as a fresh and funny satire with insights that still speak to the condition of American women, even in now more emancipated times.

Herland was written against the background of campaigns for equal rights for women that were going on during the early years of the 20th century and is a call for social equality. The utopian nation of Herland demonstrates the capabilities, greatness, and potential of womanhood, and not simply as inferior to masculinity. The three male protagonists are, at first, suspicious of Herland, and assume a society run by women would be chaotic and disorganised, believing that women cannot survive without their male-halves.

Jeff, Van, and Terry represent the achievements of male constructed civilisation, which is full of suffering, war, disease, and other imperfections. The fact that the female inhabitants of Herland can reproduce asexually, and that their utopia far surpasses anything men have built, implies that women do not need men and can surpass them. In the end, Jeff and Van do not want to leave this perfect utopia for their own male-constructed civilization, which they are now disillusioned with, further reinforcing womanhood is greater than manhood ... or, at least, be accepted as equal.

This is further explored in the relationship three men have with their chosen wives in Herland. There is conflict between the partners regarding sexual discourse; the women see it as solely for procreation, while the men promote sex as also being a purely recreational engagement. Jeff and Van do overcome these disagreements, with Jeff conceiving a child with his chosen wife. However, Terry's attempted rape of his partner leads to him being banished. Van and his wife, Ellador, leave with Terry on their seaplane, because the vehicle needs two to operate, and because Ellador wants to experience the outside world. She flies off with them into the unknown.

The narrative structure of Herland portrays Jeff and Terry at different ends of the male spectrum. Jeff appears in touch with his female side and is unafraid to show his emotions. Terry's instinct is to dominate, which results in his unacceptable behaviour. Gilman signals this character trait in Terry when the three first meet inhabitants of Herland. Terry's instinct is to lure one nearer by dangling a necklace, before trying to make a grab for her. Gilman probably saw this as the act of a predatory, possessive male attempting a sexual conquest. Luring the female with trinkets, then claiming her as personal property.

In contrast, Van appears more neutral in his sexual traits and functions more as an observer of what is developing around him. This puts him in a position where he can accept and evaluate new ideas that may not initially conform his own experiences. In that sense, he functions as Gilman's male voice in the narrative. Through Van, the writer promotes the ideals of Herland and its positive function as a Utopian society, where the influence of womanhood eliminates the strife of male aggression and its manifestations in such things as war or greed.

Gender and its definition is the central dynamic of Herland, Gilman's argument being that gender is socially constructed rather than fixed and unchangeable. The women of Herland may conform to the role of motherhood, but they are also strong and independent. Some even display masculine qualities, such as short hair. Interestingly, which would have been considered abnormal at the time that the story was written. It should also be noted that, when the three men are incarcerated by the women of Herland, their hair grows long, which is one of a number of gender reversals that occur throughout the story; the women teach, the men learn; the women prove physically stronger than the men, which undermines their definition of womanhood even further. By It is through these challenges to the perceptions of the male protagonists that the definitions of gender are shown to be problematic and not as clear cut as male patriarchy would have us believe.

As a feminist and what would have been viewed at the time as radical, Gilman believed the domestic environment was constructed to oppress women. This is very apparent in The Yellow Wallpaper in which the female protagonist, who happens to be a writer, is prescribed a rest cure for a nervous condition by her physician husband. This "cure" not only involves confinement and electric impulse treatments, but forbids all creative activity - including writing - as he professes that this would only add to her distress. What he actually fears is that creative activity for a wife is a distraction from domestic duties, and also represents a form of female independence that is a threat to his patriarchal authority. Therefore, female creativity and the independence this brings must be suppressed by convincing the woman that it is bad for her, thus maintaining the social order.

The story was based on Gilman's own personal experience of a "rest cure", prescribed when suffering depression following the birth of her daughter, Katherine. This was during an age when women were seen as hysterical and claims of post natal depression sometimes viewed as invalid. Gilman was told to keep intellectual engagement minimal and never to pick up a pen and write again. The experience proved devastating and Gilman nearly ended up going into complete emotional collapse. It ended her first marriage to Walter Stetson and it was only after leaving him that the depression lifted. The Yellow Wallpaper amplifies her resentment to the way she was treated, and Gilman even sent a copy to the physician who had put her through the experience in the first place.

In Herland, Gilman expands this theme of repression with a larger scale story that articulates the concern that male aggression and prescribed maternal roles for women were not only artificial, but no longer necessary for society's continuation. Gilman believed that only economic independence could really achieve freedom for women and ensure equality with men. In Herland and Beyond (1980) Ann J. Lane asserts "Gilman offered perspectives on major issues of gender with which we still grapple; the origins of women's subjugation, the struggle to achieve both autonomy and intimacy in human relationships; the central role of work as a definition of self; new strategies for rearing and educating future generations to create a humane and nurturing environment." While The Yellow Wallpaper exposed these concerns, Herland offered a model for a possible solution. Or, at least, an ideal.







As relevant now as it was when it was written, 28 Aug 2008
I strongly disagree with earlier reviews which imply that this book is only of historical interest. The issues Gilman address are as topical now as when they were first written. I've read this book at least seven times, and I admit that the first few times I was distracted by the blatant bias, the sometimes clumsy style and the clunky plot, but with each subsequent reading I have been more gripped by the ideas that Gilman explores. Yes, it's simplistic. Yes, it's a bit 'obvious' in places. Yes, the characters are sterotyped and wooden. And the role of women-as-mothers is frustratingly restricted. But I can ignore all that and just marvel at the observations on human nature in this improbable - but in many ways admirable - feminist utopia. She addresses issues that are still very much alive today: feminism (of course), the environment / conservation, violence, socialisation, love, life, death and the universe...

And to top it all, it's funny.

Of Mainly Historical Interest, 04 Jul 2007
I'll be upfront - I did initially add this book to my basket partly to make up a 15 quid free delivery package - well, it also had been on my wish list for some time. I found the style of writing fairly stilted - some books which employ old-fashioned language can be entertaining, but I don't think this ever did, even when it was new. The message, men's blindness to female values, came through clear enough but I think I'd almost have rather read a pamphlet. Stories should seduce you, even stories with a message, and this was more of a turn-off. I dutifully finished it and am not unhappy about having read it, but I can't really recommend it except, as my title says, as of historical interest.

Of Mainly Historical Interest, 27 Jun 2007
I bought this book at least a little out of a sense of duty; that I ought to read it. And having read it, to be honest, I feel much the same. Given the time of writing, it's as relevant as can be, but it didn't entertain me that much. The style reminds me of "Exciting Adventure Stories For Boys" from 100 years ago (but actually written by a proto-feminist as propaganda).

I think, in 2007, we know this stuff (at least if we want to know it) but the interest lies in seeing how it was being put across all those years ago. Actually, given I know only the outlines of C.P. Gilman's life, I feel quite sympathetic towards her, but that doesn't guarantee a rewarding literary experience.

A gripping utopia, 04 Jul 2001
Narrated from a male perspective, this altenative utopia depicts a nation free from man-made harm. If the drive of feminism seems to be slowing down,this celebration of the ability of women will reignite the spark in any woman's mind. Read it and then make your male friends read it. Perkins-Gilman manages to subtly argue a point with no hint of preaching. Splendid.

chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Not the best thing since sliced bread., 24 Feb 2008
As an empowered female of bra-burning age, I get that I'm supposed to love this. After all, it focuses on the cavalier way women were treated (rest for mental illness instead of treatment - husband knows best - that sort of thing). It also provides insight into the protagonist's slow descent into madness. Written in journal format, we're privy to the private thoughts and, as the story and dementia progress, insane ramblings of a woman on the edge.

Surely this should be great... right? Hmm. Perhaps the hype overshadowed the story for me, but I didn't find it particularly haunting or innovative. Instead what I discovered was a well-written, if not memorable, tale of mental illness.


A masterpiece of feminist fiction and a chilling horror tale, 01 May 2006
Charlotte Perkins Gilman provides a stunning and disturbing account of a woman's decline in madness. Margaret Atwood comments in the Blind Assassin that life is little more than a period of waiting interspersed with a few significant moments. For the nameless women in The Yellow Wallpaper, this is one of those moments. Over a three month period we see in acute and distressingly real detail how her inability to match her identity with the role of submissive wife that late Victorian society demanded leads to a steady, inexorable descent from sagacity to despair. Suffering from some unnamed illness - which modern readers might relate to post-natal depression, she is confined to a room for rest and sleep. Unable to find any outlet for emotion or intellect, she becomes obsessed with the room's wallpaper - its complex and endless pattern of pointless swirls. At first she just dislikes it, then hatred bordering on fear follows, to be usurped by a semi-dependent fascination and ultimately total identity: she becomes, not so much the wallpaper, but the embodiment of the creeping women who dwell, reluctantly, behind the pattern.

It is a picture of personal despair, of desperate attempts to retain sanity and ultimately of failure. On one level it's a chilling horror tale reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe. On another it is a clinically precise picture of a mental aberration. But it is more than that. A powerful indictment of the institution of marriage, of the social mores and misguided kindliness of late Victorian middle-class America, and of the treatment of women, Gilman's story is as timeless as it is authentic.


Excellent Short Story, 22 Sep 2005
As a short story alone this work is outstanding. Stylistically it is sparse and chilling, and as a psychological tale the horror of the detail is left to the reader. That is not to say this is a horror tale as one would normally expect, but a powerful evocation of how women were often mistreated and degraded by Victorian culture. It chronicles the tale of a free-thinking and self-willed woman who is forced to take the infamous rest-cure to prevent her from stretching beyond the limited boundaries set for middle-class housewives in the nineteenth century. Enforced rest with little entertainment or stimulus is really a form of incarceration with damaging psychological effects. These effects are recorded through the shapes and figures that manifest through the ghastly yellow wallpaper, which is intended to beautify the room but actually represents prison bars in a different form. Powerful, short and effective, this is an excellent short story - and worth reading alongside The Awakening as two standard texts for feminist analysis of this particular era.

a quirky, stirring story with a great afterword, 19 Dec 2004
Firstly, to the story itself. The narrative voice is a repressed woman of the late 19th century, locked in a room with horrid yellow wallpaper, expected by her husband to recover from a mysterious sickness. The more time she spends in this prison, desperate to write, the more disturbed she becomes, until she begins to see a woman crawling within the wallpaper. This is both a study of psychology and a look into the position of women of the period.
The style of the story is wonderfully haunting. The narrative is sparse and exclamatory. This publication has printed the lettering large so that the paragaphs are fairly spread out. The result is that the story appears like a long poem. It is easily read in half an hour or so.
I was very grateful for the very informative Afterword, which is actually longer than the story. It offers a background of the author and links her to other similar authors, as well as explaining the situation of the woman in the story. Without the Afterword, I think I would have been left chilled, but uninformed.

chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Not the best thing since sliced bread., 24 Feb 2008
As an empowered female of bra-burning age, I get that I'm supposed to love this. After all, it focuses on the cavalier way women were treated (rest for mental illness instead of treatment - husband knows best - that sort of thing). It also provides insight into the protagonist's slow descent into madness. Written in journal format, we're privy to the private thoughts and, as the story and dementia progress, insane ramblings of a woman on the edge.

Surely this should be great... right? Hmm. Perhaps the hype overshadowed the story for me, but I didn't find it particularly haunting or innovative. Instead what I discovered was a well-written, if not memorable, tale of mental illness.


A masterpiece of feminist fiction and a chilling horror tale, 01 May 2006
Charlotte Perkins Gilman provides a stunning and disturbing account of a woman's decline in madness. Margaret Atwood comments in the Blind Assassin that life is little more than a period of waiting interspersed with a few significant moments. For the nameless women in The Yellow Wallpaper, this is one of those moments. Over a three month period we see in acute and distressingly real detail how her inability to match her identity with the role of submissive wife that late Victorian society demanded leads to a steady, inexorable descent from sagacity to despair. Suffering from some unnamed illness - which modern readers might relate to post-natal depression, she is confined to a room for rest and sleep. Unable to find any outlet for emotion or intellect, she becomes obsessed with the room's wallpaper - its complex and endless pattern of pointless swirls. At first she just dislikes it, then hatred bordering on fear follows, to be usurped by a semi-dependent fascination and ultimately total identity: she becomes, not so much the wallpaper, but the embodiment of the creeping women who dwell, reluctantly, behind the pattern.

It is a picture of personal despair, of desperate attempts to retain sanity and ultimately of failure. On one level it's a chilling horror tale reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe. On another it is a clinically precise picture of a mental aberration. But it is more than that. A powerful indictment of the institution of marriage, of the social mores and misguided kindliness of late Victorian middle-class America, and of the treatment of women, Gilman's story is as timeless as it is authentic.


Excellent Short Story, 22 Sep 2005
As a short story alone this work is outstanding. Stylistically it is sparse and chilling, and as a psychological tale the horror of the detail is left to the reader. That is not to say this is a horror tale as one would normally expect, but a powerful evocation of how women were often mistreated and degraded by Victorian culture. It chronicles the tale of a free-thinking and self-willed woman who is forced to take the infamous rest-cure to prevent her from stretching beyond the limited boundaries set for middle-class housewives in the nineteenth century. Enforced rest with little entertainment or stimulus is really a form of incarceration with damaging psychological effects. These effects are recorded through the shapes and figures that manifest through the ghastly yellow wallpaper, which is intended to beautify the room but actually represents prison bars in a different form. Powerful, short and effective, this is an excellent short story - and worth reading alongside The Awakening as two standard texts for feminist analysis of this particular era.

a quirky, stirring story with a great afterword, 19 Dec 2004
Firstly, to the story itself. The narrative voice is a repressed woman of the late 19th century, locked in a room with horrid yellow wallpaper, expected by her husband to recover from a mysterious sickness. The more time she spends in this prison, desperate to write, the more disturbed she becomes, until she begins to see a woman crawling within the wallpaper. This is both a study of psychology and a look into the position of women of the period.
The style of the story is wonderfully haunting. The narrative is sparse and exclamatory. This publication has printed the lettering large so that the paragaphs are fairly spread out. The result is that the story appears like a long poem. It is easily read in half an hour or so.
I was very grateful for the very informative Afterword, which is actually longer than the story. It offers a background of the author and links her to other similar authors, as well as explaining the situation of the woman in the story. Without the Afterword, I think I would have been left chilled, but uninformed.

A Great Feminist Work, 10 May 1998
Gilman shows the reader she is going with men in the workplace , but wants to show women are just as hard or harder workers at home than the men outside of the house. She wants to show how men think women are weaklings and she shows them wrong with her strong words against the put down of a man.

Haunting gothic and chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Haunting tale, 01 Nov 2007
This is a disturbing tale about a young woman's treatment by her husband. What we now know as post-natal depression was in those days treated as madness. Her husband has had her confined to a room with yellow patterned wallpaper after she has her first baby. Her only way of expressing her feelings is to write them down, but she has to do so in secret as her husband has forbidden it. She thinks there is a person underneath the wallpaper trying to get out and we can feel the desperation in her writing as she struggles to understand what is happening to her. This has a bone chilling ending which will haunt my mind forever.

Tales of a Lunatic, 25 Jan 2002
Focusing on The Yellow Wallpaper alone, this novel is wonderful. Our protagonist is a woman stifled by her husband, also a doctor, who doesnt allow her to write and believes her passion for writing has made her mad. He locks her in the highest room in the house with the famous Yellow Wallpaper where most of the story takes place. It is a tale of an incarcerated woman who stays awake by night to see the caged figure in the wallpaper that 'shakes the bars' by moonlight, hence her lunacy.
The book is a large component fir Gilbert and Gubar's 'The Madwoman In The Attic' and frankly, i love it!!

A Land of Her, 27 Oct 2008
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), American feminist and writer, best known for her seminal work Women and Economics (1898) and The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), based on her own experience of being treated for depression.

Herland was originally published as a serial in The Forerunner during 1945. It did not see book form until 1979. In the novel, Gilman envisages a utopian society comprised entirely of women who reproduce through parthenogenesis. Gilman was emphatic in constructing Herland's social structure as having grown out of the presence of women only, rather than simply the absence of men. Unlike her other works, Herland was largely forgotten until its book publication in 1979, when it was then acclaimed as a fresh and funny satire with insights that still speak to the condition of American women, even in now more emancipated times.

Herland was written against the background of campaigns for equal rights for women that were going on during the early years of the 20th century and is a call for social equality. The utopian nation of Herland demonstrates the capabilities, greatness, and potential of womanhood, and not simply as inferior to masculinity. The three male protagonists are, at first, suspicious of Herland, and assume a society run by women would be chaotic and disorganised, believing that women cannot survive without their male-halves.

Jeff, Van, and Terry represent the achievements of male constructed civilisation, which is full of suffering, war, disease, and other imperfections. The fact that the female inhabitants of Herland can reproduce asexually, and that their utopia far surpasses anything men have built, implies that women do not need men and can surpass them. In the end, Jeff and Van do not want to leave this perfect utopia for their own male-constructed civilization, which they are now disillusioned with, further reinforcing womanhood is greater than manhood ... or, at least, be accepted as equal.

This is further explored in the relationship three men have with their chosen wives in Herland. There is conflict between the partners regarding sexual discourse; the women see it as solely for procreation, while the men promote sex as also being a purely recreational engagement. Jeff and Van do overcome these disagreements, with Jeff conceiving a child with his chosen wife. However, Terry's attempted rape of his partner leads to him being banished. Van and his wife, Ellador, leave with Terry on their seaplane, because the vehicle needs two to operate, and because Ellador wants to experience the outside world. She flies off with them into the unknown.

The narrative structure of Herland portrays Jeff and Terry at different ends of the male spectrum. Jeff appears in touch with his female side and is unafraid to show his emotions. Terry's instinct is to dominate, which results in his unacceptable behaviour. Gilman signals this character trait in Terry when the three first meet inhabitants of Herland. Terry's instinct is to lure one nearer by dangling a necklace, before trying to make a grab for her. Gilman probably saw this as the act of a predatory, possessive male attempting a sexual conquest. Luring the female with trinkets, then claiming her as personal property.

In contrast, Van appears more neutral in his sexual traits and functions more as an observer of what is developing around him. This puts him in a position where he can accept and evaluate new ideas that may not initially conform his own experiences. In that sense, he functions as Gilman's male voice in the narrative. Through Van, the writer promotes the ideals of Herland and its positive function as a Utopian society, where the influence of womanhood eliminates the strife of male aggression and its manifestations in such things as war or greed.

Gender and its definition is the central dynamic of Herland, Gilman's argument being that gender is socially constructed rather than fixed and unchangeable. The women of Herland may conform to the role of motherhood, but they are also strong and independent. Some even display masculine qualities, such as short hair. Interestingly, which would have been considered abnormal at the time that the story was written. It should also be noted that, when the three men are incarcerated by the women of Herland, their hair grows long, which is one of a number of gender reversals that occur throughout the story; the women teach, the men learn; the women prove physically stronger than the men, which undermines their definition of womanhood even further. By It is through these challenges to the perceptions of the male protagonists that the definitions of gender are shown to be problematic and not as clear cut as male patriarchy would have us believe.

As a feminist and what would have been viewed at the time as radical, Gilman believed the domestic environment was constructed to oppress women. This is very apparent in The Yellow Wallpaper in which the female protagonist, who happens to be a writer, is prescribed a rest cure for a nervous condition by her physician husband. This "cure" not only involves confinement and electric impulse treatments, but forbids all creative activity - including writing - as he professes that this would only add to her distress. What he actually fears is that creative activity for a wife is a distraction from domestic duties, and also represents a form of female independence that is a threat to his patriarchal authority. Therefore, female creativity and the independence this brings must be suppressed by convincing the woman that it is bad for her, thus maintaining the social order.

The story was based on Gilman's own personal experience of a "rest cure", prescribed when suffering depression following the birth of her daughter, Katherine. This was during an age when women were seen as hysterical and claims of post natal depression sometimes viewed as invalid. Gilman was told to keep intellectual engagement minimal and never to pick up a pen and write again. The experience proved devastating and Gilman nearly ended up going into complete emotional collapse. It ended her first marriage to Walter Stetson and it was only after leaving him that the depression lifted. The Yellow Wallpaper amplifies her resentment to the way she was treated, and Gilman even sent a copy to the physician who had put her through the experience in the first place.

In Herland, Gilman expands this theme of repression with a larger scale story that articulates the concern that male aggression and prescribed maternal roles for women were not only artificial, but no longer necessary for society's continuation. Gilman believed that only economic independence could really achieve freedom for women and ensure equality with men. In Herland and Beyond (1980) Ann J. Lane asserts "Gilman offered perspectives on major issues of gender with which we still grapple; the origins of women's subjugation, the struggle to achieve both autonomy and intimacy in human relationships; the central role of work as a definition of self; new strategies for rearing and educating future generations to create a humane and nurturing environment." While The Yellow Wallpaper exposed these concerns, Herland offered a model for a possible solution. Or, at least, an ideal.







As relevant now as it was when it was written, 28 Aug 2008
I strongly disagree with earlier reviews which imply that this book is only of historical interest. The issues Gilman address are as topical now as when they were first written. I've read this book at least seven times, and I admit that the first few times I was distracted by the blatant bias, the sometimes clumsy style and the clunky plot, but with each subsequent reading I have been more gripped by the ideas that Gilman explores. Yes, it's simplistic. Yes, it's a bit 'obvious' in places. Yes, the characters are sterotyped and wooden. And the role of women-as-mothers is frustratingly restricted. But I can ignore all that and just marvel at the observations on human nature in this improbable - but in many ways admirable - feminist utopia. She addresses issues that are still very much alive today: feminism (of course), the environment / conservation, violence, socialisation, love, life, death and the universe...

And to top it all, it's funny.

Of Mainly Historical Interest, 04 Jul 2007
I'll be upfront - I did initially add this book to my basket partly to make up a 15 quid free delivery package - well, it also had been on my wish list for some time. I found the style of writing fairly stilted - some books which employ old-fashioned language can be entertaining, but I don't think this ever did, even when it was new. The message, men's blindness to female values, came through clear enough but I think I'd almost have rather read a pamphlet. Stories should seduce you, even stories with a message, and this was more of a turn-off. I dutifully finished it and am not unhappy about having read it, but I can't really recommend it except, as my title says, as of historical interest.

Of Mainly Historical Interest, 27 Jun 2007
I bought this book at least a little out of a sense of duty; that I ought to read it. And having read it, to be honest, I feel much the same. Given the time of writing, it's as relevant as can be, but it didn't entertain me that much. The style reminds me of "Exciting Adventure Stories For Boys" from 100 years ago (but actually written by a proto-feminist as propaganda).

I think, in 2007, we know this stuff (at least if we want to know it) but the interest lies in seeing how it was being put across all those years ago. Actually, given I know only the outlines of C.P. Gilman's life, I feel quite sympathetic towards her, but that doesn't guarantee a rewarding literary experience.

A gripping utopia, 04 Jul 2001
Narrated from a male perspective, this altenative utopia depicts a nation free from man-made harm. If the drive of feminism seems to be slowing down,this celebration of the ability of women will reignite the spark in any woman's mind. Read it and then make your male friends read it. Perkins-Gilman manages to subtly argue a point with no hint of preaching. Splendid.

chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Not the best thing since sliced bread., 24 Feb 2008
As an empowered female of bra-burning age, I get that I'm supposed to love this. After all, it focuses on the cavalier way women were treated (rest for mental illness instead of treatment - husband knows best - that sort of thing). It also provides insight into the protagonist's slow descent into madness. Written in journal format, we're privy to the private thoughts and, as the story and dementia progress, insane ramblings of a woman on the edge.

Surely this should be great... right? Hmm. Perhaps the hype overshadowe