“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story by American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1891 in The New England Magazine.
"I
am
sitting
by
the Window
in
th
is Atrocious Nursery."
THE YELLO\N \\TALL-PAPER.
By
Cltarlotte Perkins Stetson.
T is very se
ldom
that
mere ordi-
nary
P""
ople like
Jo
hn
and
myself
secure ancestral
hall
s
for
the
summer.
A colonial man-
sion, a hereditary
estate, I would
say a
haunted
house,
and
reach
the
height
of
romantic
felicity-
but
that
would
be
asking too
much
of
fate!
Sti
ll
I will proudly declare
that
there
is
something
queer
about it.
Else, why should it
be
l
et
so cheaply?
And
why have stood so long
untenanted?
John
laughs
at
me,
of
course,
but
one
expects
that
in marriage.
John
is practical in the extreme.
He
has no patience with faith,
an
intense
horror
of
superstition, and
he
scoffs
openly
at
any talk
of
things not to
be
felt
and
seen
and
put
down in figures.
John
is
a physician, and perltaps -
(I
would not say it to a living soul,
of
course,
but
this
is
dead
paper
and
a
grea
t relief to my mind - ) per/zaps th
at
is
one
reason I do
not
get
well faster.
You see he does not believe I am
sick!
.
And
what
can
one
do?
THE
YELLOW
WALL-PARER.
If
a physician
of
high standing,
and
one's
own husband, assures friends
and
relatives
that
there is really nothing
the
matter
with one
but
temporary nervous
depression - a slight hysterical
tendency
- what
is
one
to
do?
My
brother
is also a physician,
and
also
of
high standing,
and
he says
the
same thing. •
So
I take phosphates
or
phosphites-
whichever
it
is,
and
tonics,
and
journeys,
and
air, and exercise,
and
am absolutely
forbidden to
"work"
until I
am
well again.
Personally, I disagree with
their
ideas.
Personally, I believe
that
congenial
work, with excitement
and
change, would
do
me good.
But
what is one to
do?
I
did
write for a while
111
spite
of
them;
but
it does exhaust
me
a good
deal-having
to
be
so sly about it,
or
else meet with heavy opposition.
I sometimes fancy
that
in
my condi-
tion
if
I
had
less opposition
and
more
. society
and
stimulus -
but
John
says
the
very worst
thing
I
can
do
is to think
about
my condition,
and
I confess it
always makes
me
feel bad.
So I will let it alone
and
talk about
the
house.
The
most beautiful
place!
It
is quite
alone, standing well
back
from
the
road,
quite
three
miles from
the
village.
It
makes me
think
of
English places
that
you re
ad
about, for there
are
hedges
and
walls a
nd
gates
that
lock,
and
lots
of
separate little houses for
the
gardeners
and
people.
There
is
a delicious
garden!
I never
saw such a garden
-large
and
shady,
full
of
box-bordered
paths,
and
lined with
long grape-covered arbors with seats
under
them.
There
were greenhouses, too,
but
they
are
all
broken
now.
There
was some legal trouble, I be-
lieve, something about
the
heirs
and
co-
heirs;
anyhow,
the
place has
been
empty
for years.
That
spoils my ghostliness, I
am
afraid,
but
I
don't
care
- there is something
strange about
the
house - I
can
feel it.
I even said so to
John
one moonlight
evening,
but
he said what I felt was a
drauglzt,
and
shut
the window.
I
get
unreasonably angry with
John
sometimes.
I'm
sure I never used to be
so
sensitive. I
think
it
is due to this
nervous condition.
But
John
says if I feel so, I shall neglect
proper
self-control; so I take pains to
control
myself-before
him,
at
least, a
nd
that
makes me very tired.
I
don't
like our room a bit. I wanted
one downstairs
that
opened
on
the
piazza
and
had roses all over
the
window,
and
such pretty old-fashioned chintz hang-
ings!
but
John
would not hear
of
it.
He
said there
was
only one window
and
not room for two beds,
and
no
near
room for him if he took another.
He
is very careful and loving,
and
hardly lets me stir without special direc-
tion.
I have a
schedu
le prescription for
each
hour in the
day;
he takes a
ll
care from
me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to
value it ·more.
He
said
we
came
here solely on my
account,
that
I was to have perfect rest
and
all the air I could get.
"Your
ex-
ercise
depends
on
your strength, my
dear,"
said
he,"
and
your food somewhat
on
your
appetite;
but
air you
can
ab-
sorb a
ll
the
time."
So
we
took
the
nur-
sery
at
the top
of
the
house.
It
is
a big, airy room, the whole floor
nearly, with windows
that
look all ways,
and
air
and
sunshine galore.
It
was
nursery first and
then
playroom
and
gymnasium, I should
judge;
for
the
win-
dows are
barred
for little children,
and
there are rings
and
things in the walls.
The
paint
and
paper
look as
if
a boys'
school
had
used it.
It
is stripped
off-
the
paper
-
in
great
patches
a
ll
around
the
head
of
my bed,
about
as far as I
can
reach,
and
in a great place on
the
other
side
of
the room low down. I never saw
a worse
paper
in my life.
One
of
those sprawling flamboyant
patterns committing every artistic sin.
It
is
dull enough to confuse
the
eye
in
following,
pronounced
enough to con-
stantly
irrit
ate
and
provoke study,
and
when you follow the lame
uncertain
curves for a little distance they suddenly
commit suicide - plunge off
at
outrage-
ous angles, destroy themselves
in
un-
heard
of
contradictions.
THE
YELLOW
·WAL~PAPER.
649
The
color is repellant, almost revolt-
ing
; a smouldering unclean yellow,
strangely faded
by
the slow-turning sun-
light.
It
is a dull yet lurid orange in some
places, a sickly sulphur
tint
in
others.
No
wonder
the
children
hated
it!
I
should
hate
it
myself if I
had
to live in
this
room long.
There
comes
John,
and
I must
put
this
away, -
he
hates
to
have me write a
word.
• • • • * •
We
have
been
here
two·weeks,
and
I
haven't
felt like writing before, since
that
first day.
I
am
sitting
by
the
window now, up in
this atrocious nursery,
and
there
is noth-
ing
to
hinder
my writing as
much
as I
please, save lack
of
strength.
John
is away all day,
and
even some
nights
when his cases
are
serious.
I am glad my case is
not
serious!
But
these nervous troubles
are
dread-
fully depressing.
John
does
not
know how much I really
suffer.
He
knows
there
is no reason to
suffer,
and
that
satisfies him.
Of
course
it
is only nervousness.
It
does
weigh
o"n
me so
not
to
do
my
duty
in
any
way!
I
meant
to
be
such a help to
John,
such a real rest
and
comfort,
and
here
I
am
a comparative
burden
already!
Nobody
would believe what
an
effort
it
is
to
do
what little I
am
able, -
to
dress
and
entertain,
and
order
things.
It
is fortunate Mary is so good with
the
baby. Such a
dear
baby!
And
yet
I cannot
be
with him,
it
makes
me
so nervous.
I suppose
John
never
was nervous in
his life.
He
laughs
at
me so
about
this
wall-paper!
At first
he
meant
to
repaper
the
room,
but
afterwards
he
said
that
I was
letting
it
get
the
better
of
me,
and
that
nothing
was worse for a nervous
patient
than
to
give way to such fancies.
He
said
that
after
the
wall-paper was
changed
it
would
be
the
heavy
bedstead,
and
then
the
barred
windows,
and
then
that
gate
at
the
head
of
the
stairs,
and
so
on.
"You
know
the
place
is
doing
you
good,"
he said,
"and
really, dear, I
don't
care
to renovate
the
house just for a
three
months'
rental."
"Then
do
let us go downstairs," I
said,
"there
are
such
pretty
rooms
there."
Then
he
took
me in his
arms
and
called me a blessed little goose,
and
said
he
would go down cellar, if I wished,
and
have
it
whitewashed into the bargain.
But
he
is right enough
about
the
beds
and
windows
and
things.
It
is
an
airy
and
comfortable room as
anyone
need
wish, and,
of
course, I would
not
be
so silly as to make him uncomfort-
able just for a whim.
I'm
really
getting
quite fond
of
the
big room, all
but
that
horrid
paper.
Out
of
one
window I
can
see
the
garden,
those mysterious
deep-shaded
arbors,
the
riotous old-fashioned flowers,
and
bushes
and
gnarly trees.
Out
of
another
I
get
a lovely view
of
the
bay
and
a little private
wharf
be-
longing to the estate.
There
is a
beauti-
ful
shaded
lane
that
runs down
there
from
the
house. I always fancy I see
people
walking
in
these numerous
paths
and
arbors,
but
John
has
cautioned
me
not
to
give way to fancy in
the
least.
He
says
that
with my imaginative
power
and
habit
of
story-making, a nervous weak-
ness like mine is sure to lead to all man-
ner
of
excited
fancies,
and
that
I
ought
to
use my will
and
good sense
to
check
the
tendency.
So I try.
I
think
sometimes
that
if
I were only
well enough to write_ a little
it
would re-
lieve
the
press
of
ideas
and
rest
me.
But
I find I
get
pretty
tired
when I try.
It
is so discouraging
not
to
have
any
advice
and
companionship
about
my
work.
When
I
get
really well,
John
says
we will ask Cousin
Henry
and
Julia down
for a long
visit;
but
he
says he would as
soon
put
fireworks
in
my pillow-case as to
let me have those stimulating people
about
now.
I wish I could
get
well faster.
But
I must
not
think
about
that.
This
paper
looks to me as
if
it
knew
what a
vicious influence
it
had!
There
is a
recurrent
spot
where the.
pattern
lolls like a
broken
neck
and
two
bulbous eyes
stare
at
you upside down.
I
get
positively angry with
the
imperti-
j
