First published by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in January 1892 in The New England Magazine, The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story of extraordinary power, exploring issues of mental health, the role of women in society and the oppressive nature of the patriarchy.
Told in the first person, the story follows the plight of a woman confined by her husband in a small room in and old mansion – ostensibly for her own good. As her boredom increases and her sanity deteriorates, she becomes fixated on the wallpaper in the room, the yellow design of which includes an image of a trapped woman. Reflecting themes of oppression, the subjugation of women and the sexism of the late 19th century, this story has been reproduced in numerous textbooks, anthologies and feminist literary collections for over a century and has been hailed as one of the early triumphs of Gothic literature.
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Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) was an American writer, lecturer, feminist, social reformer and, troublingly, a eugenicist.Born into poverty (her father abandoned their family when she was very young), Charlotte Perkins had a difficult childhood and very little early education. Despite her intelligence, she was a poor student who refused to put any effort into any subject that did not interest her. Reconnecting with her father – who modestly supported her tuition at the Rhode Island School of Design – she began working in the arts as a trade card artist, tutor and painter. But her father’s real influence on young Charlotte was to introduce her to literature. Charlotte began writing at an early age and her fiction was often peppered with her opinions on domestic life, society at large and, in particular, the oppression of women. Married briefly and divorced as a young woman (she had one child, Katherine, with her first husband), Charlotte was known to have had at least two romantic relationships with women, but she found a partner in Houghton Gilman, whom she married in 1900 and lived with until his death in 1934.Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote several books and poetry collections and was the driving force behind the literary magazines The Impress and The Forerunner, which serialized a number of her own works. She wrote ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ in 1890 and it was published in the January 1892 issue of The New England Magazine. Since then, the story has been re-printed in countless anthologies, textbooks and collections of women’s literature. While she was a strong advocate for women and a proud social reformer, Gilman had troubling views on race – believing African-Americans to be inferior – and ultimately declared herself a eugenicist. These beliefs have caused critics to view her work as tinged with racism, which certainly has tarnished her reputation as a writer overall. Shortly after her husband’s death, Gilman was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer. Rather than suffer the effects of the illness, she chose to take her own life and on August 17, 1935, she died of an overdose of chloroform.
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