The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman (a.k.a. Stetson)
(Above title links to story)
This is not really more than a short story but it's place on the 1001 Books allows me to award myself another book read and move towards a less ignominious failure in my attempt to read 100 books this year.
Short though it is The Yellow Wallpaper is remarkably rich in symbolism and almost feels like the birth pangs of a consciousness. The conjugal bed and the nursery are combined into a mixture between a prison cell and a psychiatric ward.
"It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls."
The titular wallpaper has a pattern that the narrator cannot make out, and the story is driven by repeated phrases and images.
The narrator is staying in this quiet country house as a 'cure', her husband and brother united in the belief that she is suffering from a 'temporary nervous disposition' although she believes 'that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.' But excitement is not to be hers because 'He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.' 'He' is her husband, and jailer.
