Suzanne wrote: Geo brought up an interesting line, it said, "women don't creep during the day". Why? Because women have too much to do during the day? Because women must pretend to be happy during the day? Because the husband has put demands on his wife during the day? What do you think about this? Do you think the word "day" smbolizes society, and women have a sort of duty to keep appearances up during the day?

I think you're right. The protagonist-narrator in this story feels trapped and is clearly subjugated by the men in her life, her husband and brother. According to Wikipedia, Gilman called herself a humanist and "believed the domestic environment oppressed women through the patriarchal beliefs upheld by society." So the only time she could be herself was behind locked doors or at night when her husband is asleep. He catches her creeping about and makes her come back to bed. The bed rest cure seems not designed to make her better, but to keep her in the role that society has dictated.

Even when he catches her out of bed at night and she tries to talk to him about her case, he says something like "It will be as sick as it wants to be." He's very patronizing. He is trying to keep her in her role. Her bed rest will end when she can successfully perform her role in society again. No wonder he faints when he realizes how far she has come from that role by the end of the story.

I have to admit, I'm a bit of a creeper myself. When the kids were little, I could stay up late and do my own thing, but now, I can't outlast my kids. My creeping time now, is in the morning. I'll get up at six in the morning just to get a couple of hours to myself, before all the demands start. I am trapped inside my family's needs, but what is different, is my husband is too.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a couple of days to just spend in bed. Of our own choosing of course, and never in a yellow room. Actually, my kitchen is yellow, I do spend a great deal of time "trapped" in there.

Yes, this story is remarkable. I find it with a lot of common points with "I Stand Here Ironing" by Tillie Olsen. Both stories depict women that are victims of the environment where they live. In the Yellow Paper it's a reach woman, the one ironing is a poor woman, but the two are extremely unhappy.

I encourage you to read "I Stand Here Ironing".

Justareader

Hello and welcome justareader!

justareader wrote:I encourage you to read "I Stand Here Ironing".

Thank you for this suggestion, I will check it out.

For anyone interested in an interesting little side trip related to The Yellow Wallpaper and the "rest cure", there is a book written in 1982 (won 1984 Pulitzer) that delves into how women were perceived by the emerging medical field that I highly recommend -- The Social Transformation of American Medicine by Paul Starr. It puts the "rest cure" into a context. In early medical texts the definition of female was a pathological condition.


amazon.com/gp/product/0465079350/ref=pd ... HW6FEVYP07

Another piece of literature dealing with the 'rest cure' is the novel The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. It's an extensive narrative of the rest cure as the best resource available to cure TB before the advent of antibiotics (early XX century). Many people include this novel among the best of the XX century. The story shows the conflict of the patients with the disease, with themselves, and with the other patients in the sanatorium. The group of people living in this place (separated from society) is a good sample from humanity, very diverse, and with different levels of social skills. One of the few reliefs that the ill people encounter there, are the beauty of nature and friendship (for those able to make friends). I recommend it highly!!!
Jusareader

Such an amazing story. (Kind of Kate Chopin meets M. R. James.) I actually got to use it in an anthology I edited recently, pairing it with Oliver Onions' THE BECKONING FAIR ONE, which has always struck me as the other side of the coin. What's the quote from Jung? Something about "unconscious contents" going unrecognized until they "give rise to negative activity and personification."

justareader wrote:Another piece of literature dealing with the 'rest cure' is the novel The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. It's an extensive narrative of the rest cure as the best resource available to cure TB before the advent of antibiotics (early XX century). Many people include this novel among the best of the XX century. The story shows the conflict of the patients with the disease, with themselves, and with the other patients in the sanatorium. The group of people living in this place (separated from society) is a good sample from humanity, very diverse, and with different levels of social skills. One of the few reliefs that the ill people encounter there, are the beauty of nature and friendship (for those able to make friends). I recommend it highly!!!
Jusareader

I highly recommend, "Magic Mountain" too, it is a very multi layered novel, and IMHO it was the best book I read in 2010. Those living on the "mountain" insolated themselves from the reality of the war that was raging below at that time. Evenutally however, war was able to reach the top of the mountain and the invalids enjoying the rest cure, believing they could not be touch by the war had to face reality. This novel combines science, religion, philosphy, magic, war and history in beautifully written prose, and a good dose of humor as well.

I do believe "MM" is one of those novels you could read many times, and find something new with each reading.

Wow, I just responded to a post that is a year old. That's what happens when you don't have your glasses on!

Hi Suzanne, I have read the yellow wallpaper twice the last time at a course in our local senior college where we read stories of dysfunctional families "Raisin in the Sun", one about the boy on the rocking horse and I forget what else.

I hated Yellow Wallpaper.

Suzanne, what you quote about inheritance and such (I'm afraid to go back a/c I don't want to lose this post) that wasn't true is this country? My great grandmother who was born in 1860 owned property in her own right. We have to remember that women are often widows for a great number of years and were in earlier times also. Thus they would have had quite a bit of independence. It is true though that my own mother eloped because she had been in nurses training and hated it so quit. But when she went back home she had tasted freedom and no longer wanted to be under her fathers dominance. This was in 1926.