The Yellow Wallpaper

This is, once again, one of those books that I'm unsure why I bought other than I heard about it from somewhere and thought, okay, this is a book that maybe I should read. The book is actually 7 short stories, the main one being The Yellow Wallpaper, and the reason I bought this book. This, I recalled, was the story I had heard about.

When I read the stories, I stopped after each of the stories to ponder them, get a feel for the message being sent, and well, to be honest, read the stories as if I were in English class in high school. I read them, asked the various questions, who, what, why, what is the context, what is being said, why is this important, how has the context changed over the last 100 years?

So, the seven stories:

1. The Yellow Wallpaper

   This is the main story of the collection and the one from Gilman is the most well known. It's the story of a woman who moves to a house and essentially isolated "for her health." It is a fascinating description of a woman's descent into psychosis, well written and more than a little creepy. It is also a commentary on the crappy system of isolating women "for their health" (isolation is considered torture these days), along with how society continually ignoring women's opinions in favour of men's "because men know better." I sat with the story for a bit before looking up the analyses on the story, and I hit the top two main interpretations. The other interpretations required a better understanding of Gilman's life, so I'm okay having missed them.

2. Three Thanksgivings

   This is the story of a woman who has two adult kids, each of whom want her to sell her gigantic house and move in with them. Problem is, both kids are selfish and neither wants what is best for the mom. To make things worse, the mom has a mortgage on her giant house, one coming due in 2 years, so she's running out of time to save her house, her huge house that she grew up in, raised two kids in, and loves. The story has a nice ending.

3. The Cottagette

   Nice endings seem to be Gilman's desire. Nice endings are definitely not life, but they are nice escapes from the ugliness of life. This story is about a woman and her friend who find peace and delight in a remote cabin on a boarding property, where breakfast is a short walk away, but the world is their own, with fields of flowers and forests to enjoy. Along comes a man the woman likes, and the woman, at her friend's insistence, begins changing to win the man over. She wins the man over, with a twist. And, of course, a happy ending.

4. Turned

   Okay, now this one hit me hard. Wife. Husband. Servants. Husband goes away, servant gets sick, author implies a bunch, things get weird. This one gave me chills, reading it.

5. Making a Change

   This one also gave me chills, but for a different reason. Still. Chills. A woman is clearly suffering postpartum depression. Her mother-in-law lives with her and her husband. The new mother is not an experienced mother, though trying hard to "do it all," having sacrificed herself, her dreams, and her desires for her husband and child. She hits the breaking point, gives her mother-in-law the child, and leaves to commit suicide. Her mother-in-law figures out what is going on before the new mother succeeds, and changes happen. Except not everyone is so excited about the changes: in a society where a man supports is mother and wife and children, he's less of a man if any of them have to work, even when said people want to work. An interesting contrast at how society has changed. Well, "changed."

6. If I Were a Man

   Okay, this one is obvious. A wife becomes her husband, sees the world through the granted privileges of being white and male, such power! She, as her husband, causes him to stand up for women, despite the full-on ragging about how daft and stupid women are. She comes away with less of a need to prim and buy shit, he comes away with an understanding that women are people, too, and any particular preening and primping that happens is because men insist on it happening.

7. Mr. Peebles' Heart

   Happy endings, right? Right. This story is about a man who has done his duty all of his life, and his "meddling" sister-in-law who sets him free. Said sister-in-law is pretty wonderful. I want to grow up to be just like her.