Public reader discussion about The Yellow Wallpaper in the WeRead Catalog by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
By luckyBucket2001
This is the RPAN channel where people read, write, and talk about literature, just please stay civil. Also, looks like there’s an announcement that RPAN is ending on Nov 15. They say you’ll have until Dec 3 to request your old streams before everything disappears, but I’m not totally sure what the process is. I guess I’ll just have to check the details and see.
By chapterotter
I’ve got an assignment due tomorrow where we have to talk about who/what the wallpaper figure “seems” to be to us. Most people in my class say it’s basically the narrator herself, or like some kind of living symbol of gender expectations. But I got assigned to argue that it’s Eve (Adam and Eve). I’m not really sure how to prove that though—like, what quotes can I even use that would support Eve specifically? The only lines I’ve got so far are: - “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out.” - “One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.” - “There is a DELICIOUS garden! I never saw such a garden—large and shady...” Any other quotes that could help back up the Eve idea?
By field_simple
It really stuck with me. It was smart and honestly kind of terrifying, and I almost want to share the PDF just so other people can read it too. It’s about a woman who seems like she’s dealing with postpartum depression and gets shut away in a room alone, where she becomes fixated on the wallpaper. It’s one of those stories where you can just feel the author is really sharp while you’re reading. I think it’s a must if you care even a little about women’s lives, or if you’re interested in what being a woman was like in the 1800s. It came out in 1892, and now I really want to read more from this author. What makes it so unsettling, I think, is that women then basically didn’t have real medical help for postpartum depression… or for mental health in general, really. She has nobody to turn to, nobody to tell her she’s not imagining things. It’s horror, but not because of anything supernatural, just because of how awful and real her situation is, stuck having to obey a man in Victorian times. It’s mostly just her inner struggle, and it isn’t very long, but it’s still one of the scariest things I’ve ever read. Reading it as a young woman honestly made me sad, because it made me think how easily I — or any woman I know — could’ve ended up in that exact place. The fact that we never even get her name is interesting too, and it’s pretty obvious pretty early on that something is wrong.
By PinkHawk2001
This one feels crazy, honestly.
By margin_horse4
I saw “The Top Ten Greatest Horror Short Stories” over there a few days ago and noticed “The Yellow Wallpaper” was picked as #2. Then I realized I’d actually just checked out a short story collection from the library that had it, so I read it. I did enjoy it, but I honestly can’t figure out why it ranked that high. It feels like there’s something I might’ve missed, like I didn’t fully get what was going on. Maybe it just isn’t my favorite style of writing, but I’m really curious—if you love this story, what made it so great to you?
By RainyMaple
This is random, but I just remembered how much I loved *The Yellow Wallpaper* when we did it in school lol. Now I’m kind of on a whim looking for something new with a similar vibe—like where you’re not really sure you can trust the narrator because of their mental state. I’m pretty open about genre too, since I’m trying to read more stuff outside my usual historical fiction comfort zone. Any suggestions?
By CafeKettle81
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By TinyPanda15
Just finished *The Yellow Wallpaper* and I’m honestly confused about all the hype. I saw folks talking about it earlier this week and figured I’d try it since it’s so short, but it didn’t click for me. To me it just feels like a pretty straightforward “the narrator loses it” story. I get that it’s supposed to be important for feminism, but if I’m looking at it as a regular read, I don’t see why everyone loves it. Is there some way I should be thinking about it so I can maybe get more out of it?
By curiousBookmark
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I just finished the story and I’m honestly pretty confused. It starts with the woman dealing with depression after having her baby, and her husband basically tries to “fix” her by bringing her into that room… but then I’m lost. 1) When it says she was “creeping” in the walls, does that mean there’s actually a ghost or some supernatural thing going on? 2) Also, what exactly does “creeping” mean here? I assumed it might be a double meaning, but when I looked it up it was just like sneaking around. I don’t get how that connects to creeping in the garden in daylight. 3) Why do the husband and the caretaker even care about the yellow wallpaper? I thought her fixation on it was just because of her condition. 4) And what happens at the very end? Does the husband really die? Is she dead too—like suicide—or does she just go fully insane? I also don’t understand what it means when she’s creeping over his body.
By sharpRough1645
I read this back in high school English Lit, and it’s still stuck in my head. It was honestly pretty haunting.
By NinaInTucson95
Hey everyone— I’m trying to put together a list of short stories that are actually really good and don’t take forever to get through, like shorter than a TV show episode or two. What have you got?
By early_crown
Pretty good paper overall.
By jadesilver
Just wrapped this up and I’m kind of all over the place. I wouldn’t have picked it on my own, but I saw a few reviews and figured I’d try it. Now I can’t stop wondering—did she actually hang herself? Is she what’s haunting the place? There are a bunch of different ways it could be explained, so I’m not even sure what to think yet. I really want to hear what everyone’s saying about it, like your full take and how you interpret the whole story. I’m probably gonna put it down for now and read it again soon to see if it clicks.
By snow-story5
I just re-read this yesterday, and somehow I still end up picking up new stuff from it every time. It feels even more relevant right now too, especially with how doctors keep dismissing and talking down to their women patients—like when it comes to mental health.
By LetterCarabeen
I don’t really know how to feel about the narrator’s mental stuff getting worse, because it’s kind of hard to tell what’s real at times. The wall paper fixation didn’t help, and it just felt like things were spiraling more and more. And John trying to “treat” his wife just came off so wrong to me—I couldn’t get behind it at all. Also, that ending… I’m not sure what I think is happening there. It definitely left me unsettled. I’m guessing there’s some bigger symbolism, but I’m not confident enough to say what. And I kept thinking it reminded me of other stories where someone’s slowly losing it or being controlled, but nothing specific comes to mind.
By sparrownarrow7
I just finished this for the first time and I’m still kind of stunned. Now I really want something else that’ll hit me just as hard—like totally blown away, and also horrified. Ideally it has a few of the same things: an unreliable narrator, darker gothic atmosphere, maybe some supernatural stuff, and some social commentary mixed in. I’m also looking for themes around mental illness, feeling trapped/entangled, and that super intense imagery—especially if the book leans into vivid colors.
By BookmarkBookish65
Pretty sure it’s in the public domain, so it should always be free. I’d grab it from Project Gutenberg instead of Amazon.
By copperThread1972
Has anyone here got a go-to pick for this kind of thing? Like the physical object (or whatever) that kind of carries most of the weight in a novel—examples like the rocket in *Gravity’s Rainbow*, the monster in *Frankenstein*, the white whale in *Moby-Dick*. For me, I’d say Aristotle’s Humors in Eco’s *The Name of the Rose* is a top contender. I think a lot of the adult role models I had growing up really influenced me in a good way: they were funny, but also super skeptical, and that combo has basically stayed with me and steers how I see stuff. So anything that plays with humor as both freeing and kind of unsettling, plus knowledge challenging the big official power structure, really landed. Also, the whole “ancient joke book, but make it a murder weapon” idea is just… honestly hilarious to me.
By snow-story5
I’m not trying to get anyone to do my homework for me—I actually have to deal with that part myself. I just wanna know how other people read it, since I’m honestly not sure what I was supposed to pull from it. I get that there’s supposed to be a feminist angle and that our class will probably zoom in on that and overanalyze it. But when I read it, I didn’t really notice all that. It just felt like a creepy look at someone really starting to lose it, like a scary story through the eyes of an unstable woman who might not be reliable. If you’ve read it, what did you think? Did you go with what it seemed like on the surface, or did you catch a bigger message I missed?
By coffee-mocha
Really good story, I just can’t seem to find it anywhere. I think BBC Radio 4 did a version of it too—might have been on the Fear on Four series.