Thursday, July 23, 2009
Week 5 Question 4
The “Yellow Wallpaper” is one of the great fantasies of American literature. A direct reading of The “Yellow Wallpaper” confronts us with a tale of terror, but below its hallucinatory plot against the mistreatment of women, certainly exaggerated, but absolutely wonderful. The protagonist of The “Yellow Wallpaper” is a woman of a large emotional stress, presumably a postpartum depression, which is taken to a house, where she ends confined between the walls of a disturbing room covered with a strange yellow wallpaper. It has been said that The “Yellow Wallpaper” is based on painful personal experience of Charlotte Perkins, which does not mention so as not to ruin the story, but the truth is that, intentionally or not, Charlotte Perkins in this tale conjures the best of Gothic literature, to describe with precision and macabre hallucinatory mental disorders. Personally, I find the “Yellow Wallpaper” as the best horror story wrote by a lady leaving aside the feminist message and focusing the whole story in the dramatic evolution of the obsession of its protagonist.
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While I agree with your reading of the story. I found a much stronger feminist reading of The Yellow Wallpaper. I found the ending particularly interesting when she says "in spite of you and Jane" which I originally interpreted as a typo of Jennie but later realized that she was referencing both Janes and Johns as being the instigators of feminine oppression. This is one of my favorite stories as it takes a serious theme and makes it enjoyable to read rather than coming across as preachy, and I think that is why there are so many different interpretations.
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