The Yellow Wallpaper

[suwoo]

I just spent about 10 minutes reading this after seeing it on my reading list for next year (English lit degree) and reading about it on here.

I loved it. In response to Reality's thread about feminisim ruining fiction, I would agree, but I also feel enlightened by my recent feminsit literary theory lectures. I am enjoying seeing a range of cultural texts (to include film & TV) in a new light.

Any other 'Madwoman in the attic' texts I can squeeze in between my reading list plays/novels? (Apart from Jane Eyre which I plan to enjoy in a leisurely fashion in the summer hols)

Reminds me i should get around to reading herland, also by cpg.

'Herland' isn't a patch on 'The Yellow Wallpaper' imho.

Angela Carter (edited by) "Wayward Girls & Wicked Women", "The Magic Toyshop", "The Bloody Chamber"....How about Caryl Churchill's "Top Girls" (you might very well be covering Churchill as a critic).

MitchiestInge my book group at work is just about to start reading Thérèse Raquin - will report back on what people make of it

I've just read Hedda Gabler and A Dolls House. They contain two strong feminist protagonists, although Ibsen claimed to not be a feminist himself. There are parallels to be made between Nora (from A Dolls House) and the unnamed character in The Yellow Wallpaper. It is so visual isn't it, her going around the room. It gives me chills to think about it.

I bloomin' love Ibsen. :)

did somebody call?

gilbert and gubar will fetch up sooner or later, so get a copy if you haven't already

they were going to make a film of the yellow wallpaper, wonder what happened there

it could be an amazing film - i can imagine it as part animation

It would be brilliant as an animation - in slightly blurry pics in which the yellowness wallpaper gets increasingly more evil/acid coloured and the poor little lady creeps around getting smaller and smaller and smaller and....

yellowness OF THE

And I know that yellowness isn't a real word but I like it! :)

i wrote a whole essay about yellow once. i think. in the lit of the period. y'know. it seems to ring a bell somewhere in the basement.

i'm sure i used yellowness.

We did The Yellow Wallpaper at school and I loved it. I seem to remember that at that time a certain chemical was used to create the colour yellow and subsequently caused delusions when used on wallpaper.

Adds a different perspective to a feminist analysis.

I loved Sylvia Plath's 'The Bell Jar' in terms of feminist marble losing, and her poetry: "Love set you going like a fat, gold watch."

'in terms of feminist marble losing'

I think arsenic may have been used in the yellow dye.

I LOVE The Yellow Wallpaper. That last image is just chilling.

Lots of Angela Carter you might enjoy.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox I like too. I'm just reading O'Farrell's latest book and the female characters in it seem to be following the pattern set in TVAoEL. Similar chick litty type book is Michele Roberts' A Fair Exchange.

There's an interpretation of the Yellow Wallpaper in the context of PND - apparently the "treatment" was commonly recommended for PND at the time.

Woman on the Edge of Time - Marge Piercy. It is quite 70s, but very much madwoman in attic territory.
Mrs Dalloway.
Janice Galloway - the Trick is to Keep Breathing. (Depression and grief so not fun, but brilliant).
And Angela Carter (again).

If you liked the Yellow Wallpaper, why not read some more by Charlotte Perkins Gilman? She also wrote novels, including Herland (a sort of H. Rider Haggard-style adventure where the protagonists find themselves in a society without men) and What Diantha Did, which is a stonkingly good story about Diantha, who founds her own business and makes her own way in the world despite the disapproval of her fiance. They're both available on Gutenberg so you can either read them online or on a Kindle, if you have one.

You could also try 'The Treasure' by Kathleen Norris - less overtly feminist but still interesting, and a nice quick read. That's also on Gutenberg.

And the Women's Room - Marilyn French.
And Cassandra by Florence Nightingale. She is Quite Cross.

And the Women's Room - Marilyn French.
And Cassandra by Florence Nightingale. She is Quite Cross.