The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Stetson
“Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.”
I had the explosively beautiful Spring chapter of “Jean Gourdon’s Four Days” by Émile Zola all teed up for this week’s reading. Alas, as the temperatures hover in the 30s in my world, and the wind howls, and the rain feels a touch too icy to be properly called rain, I just can’t bring myself to publish it. The vibrance of Zola’s spring imagery deserves better. It deserves May (I hope!).
With the grey cold overstaying its welcome, one can start to feel a little unsettled…a little crazed by another day of the same shivers and the many layers donned. Rather than fight it, I’m going to lean in with a rather unusual story.
Charlotte Perkins Stetson’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” snares us into the psyche of a woman retreating to a country home with her family so that she may recover the steadiness of her mind. Through Stetson’s masterful narration, we witness the narrator disappear and reappear on the spectrum of sanity, as she is kept almost entirely isolated in one room in the spirit of getting well. As we see so often in our own therapy-speak-laden culture, focusing on the restlessness of the mind to the avoidance of the work of living is destined to backfire.
Please enjoy…
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