Storymusing: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

 

The Yellow Wallpaper

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Last month, my thematic book club did something a little different — we all read a short story together for discussion.

I had always thought of The Yellow Wallpaper as a story where the main character is suffering from post-partum depression. Her husband locks her in an attic room to “rest” and she slowly goes insane, fixating on the yellow wallpaper. After reading it again, I have a very different perspective. This time I looked at it as a potential crime, and maybe even a ghost story.

One of the funny things that came out of the discussion was that two of us, who had read it before, had the same mistaken memory —that the main character had been locked in an attic room by her husband. Now, he does choose the upper-level room for them as a bedroom, but she is not locked in until she does that herself toward the very end.

The narrator and her husband have secured “ancestral halls for the summer. A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate.” She says it might be haunted but laughs it off.

There’s a beautiful garden and nice rooms that open on it, but her husband insists they take the upstairs nursery because it is airy and big. The narrator thinks it was “a 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.”

In the article “House of Horror” (linked at the end) there is even the suggestion that enslaved people may have been kept restrained in this room and “By the end of the story the narrator has spotted ‘so many’ women who she believes have scrabbled free from the garish yellow prison.”

About her husband, she says, “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.” Which can be seen as being kind or nit-picking, depending on your perspective.

“If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression — a slight hysterical tendency — what is one to do?”

She is able to go out and walk in the garden or down the lane a little, but as the story progresses, she spends more and more time resting in the bedroom. “It is getting to be a great effort to me to think straight.”

She says her husband loves her so much “But he said I wasn’t able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there,” when she suggests a visit to her cousin. It sounded very much like house arrest.

She tries to convince her husband that she is not getting better and they should leave, but he insists on staying because they have three weeks left.

Of the wallpaper, she says, “It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.” This was a light bulb moment for me. Green? Could arsenic be at hand?

The wallpaper is torn off in spots, the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, and there’s a heavy bed bolted down. Very strange for a nursery.

“But there is something else about that paper — the smell!” The rain makes it worse and it gets in her hair. She even notices it when she’s outside if she turns her head quickly.

A little searching around told me that it was widely known at that point in time that wallpaper with arsenic often had a “mouse-like” odor in damp rooms or smelled like garlic, especially in damp conditions.

I couldn’t help thinking that if he is such a learned physician, was he suffering from a God complex, or just stupid? I mean, did he really not even consider the fact that arsenic might be in the wallpaper, since it was widely known by the 1890s, or was he trying to drive her insane? Only his behavior at the very end seems to absolve him.

And she is stuck there, getting weaker, while he is out of the house working.

She mentions her husband threatening to send her to Weir Mitchell in the fall if she doesn’t get better. “But I don’t want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, but only more so!” So, she does realize how domineering and condescending they are, I think. Gilman contended that her own experience with Weir Mitchell nearly drove her insane and this story resulted.

There are very distinct aspects of the story that merit a great deal of praise. The details are developed in beautiful fashion. It’s perfectly creepy and even quite horrific when you consider how much her situation is out of her control.

Here is a young woman suffering from post-partum depression, made to endure a rest cure in a house that may well be haunted by at least the collective trauma of enslaved people, and set up to spend most of her time in a room that has arsenic wallpaper, which can flake off and even become gaseous under damp conditions.

It's a master class of a story, from my perspective.

You can read the full short story yourself at https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/theliteratureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf

I also read

The Feminist Gothic in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

https://www.lonestar.edu/yellow-wallpaper.htm

House of horror: the poisonous power of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/feb/07/charlotte-perkins-gilman-yellow-wallpaper-strangeness-classic-short-story-exhibition

Death on the doorstep: Arsenic in Victorian wallpaper

https://www.slam.org/blog/arsenic-in-victorian-wallpaper/

Book Review: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

 

The Haunting of Hill House

My book club’s theme this month is “Gothic” so I went in search. I’d never read The Haunting of Hill House, but I was interested in a solid literary story so I thought I’d give it a try.

This was a fantastic work of fiction that far surpassed my expectations. When I write, I too often find myself giving in to the most logical sequence of events or dialogue, but Jackson moves beyond that. Perhaps it’s a product of her times, but I was constantly amazed and enthralled by the level of her prose, the surprise of what people chose to do and say, and the events. The level of characterization and the manner in which it was done, as well as the slow building of psychological tension and the bizarre but believable events made for a perfect Halloween read.

Dr. Montague decides to study Hill House and very carefully chooses a few people to accompany him. One has to be from the owner’s family, a young man named Luke, and one is the housekeeper, Mrs. Dudley. The other two are chosen for the events that occurred when they were young — Theodora and Eleanor. Eleanor had stones falling on her house after her father died, which seems like a fairy tale element to me, but would fit right in with magical realism. Indeed, for three quarters of the book, there didn’t seem to be anything of horror about the book. It is a very slow building of dreadful anticipation.

In the beginning the tension seemed to be very lax, but the prose carried me along with evocative descriptions. Then the characterization really kicked in, with the outrageous, dismissive bickering between Eleanor and her sister, plus her sister’s husband, over whether she could use the car they had bought together. Eleanor, it appears, is a late bloomer. She has been caring for her recently deceased mother for 11 years and now lives with her sister’s family. It seems dreadfully old-fashioned, but now Eleanor is finally escaping! Will she regret that decision? 

It becomes apparent on her drive to Hill House that Eleanor is rather fanciful, which might not bode well in a haunted house. Later, when she sees her room, it becomes apparent, this is a rocky start. 

“. . . this is where they want me to sleep, Eleanor thought incredulously; what nightmares are waiting, shadowed, in those high corners – what breath of mindless fear will drift across my mouth . . . .”

She seems horribly susceptible to the atmosphere. In fact, as time goes on, she and the others seem to destabilize. Eleanor has more and more violent thoughts and erratic tendencies. Was she always like this or did she become unhinged by the house itself or some kind of phantasm?

There are wonderful bits of humor throughout the story, such as when Luke jokes that he wouldn’t expect Mrs. Dudley to murder him for oil, that it should at least be Uranium.

Mr. Dudley and Mrs. Dudley, the caretaker and housekeeper at Hill House, are a strange and yet humorous couple. In an old Scooby Doo cartoon, they’d be running some side scam and be unhappy with people arriving because it might foil their plans. For most of the book, in fact, they just seem rather one dimensional, until Dr. Montague’s wife arrives and we overhear a conversation with Mrs. Dudley. Then she appears in a new light.

We are kept guessing throughout the book – are the events at Hill House real, caused by some spirit, the house itself? Are they all the in minds of some highly suggestible people? The fact that some experiences are seen by more than one person makes it more likely that they are actually taking place. Do different events have different origins? The uncertainty greatly adds to the atmosphere of the book where everything is kept off kilter, like the house itself.

After reading the book, I tried to watch the Netflix series and it's okay, but completely different with a lot more modern horror elements, like flashes of scary images that don’t seem to fit with the novel. I'm not sure whether I'll continue or just get an older film that's more of a period piece and true to the novel. However, I highly recommend the book.

Book Review: Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

 

Once Upon a River

by Diane Setterfield

Diane Setterfield is masterful at weaving the shimmering threads of a simple tale, richly told, into a complex and beautiful tapestry. There is a saying, variously credited in different places, that easy reading is hard writing. I suspect that is very true of Setterfield’s stories.

Her writing, in its’ pacing and richness of language, reminds me very much of Neil Gaiman, and though it is in a gothic vein, there is a touch less horror to it. There is both the fantastical but also the scientific here.

This story opens in the local drinking house of a village on the Thames, where a stranger appears, broken nose and eyes nearly swollen shut, carrying the body of a 4-year-old girl, who is generally acknowledged to be dead. His burden discharged, the stranger collapses and the local nurse, Rita, is sent for. A few hours later, the little girl returns to life, or so it seems. But who is she? No less than three different people claim to know who she is, but are any of them correct?

Helena Vaughn believes it is her daughter who was kidnapped two years before, but her husband is woefully certain it is not. Robin Armstrong claims she is his little girl, who he has not seen for a year, and whose mother attempted to drown the little girl then took her own life, a week before. His stepfather, Robert Armstrong sets out to learn the truth. Lilly White, the housekeeper for the parsonage, is certain she is Ann, her little sister, but Lilly is middle aged and her sister disappeared when Lilly was a child herself.

Who is this child? And why does she not speak and tell them? Was she fished out of the river by Quietly, the boatman who it is said haunts the river, fishing out the drown and carrying those in need to either their rest or back to the living?

Rita, the nurse, and Daunt, the photographer who arrived carrying the girl after his own mishap, are both enamored of the child and brought together by their interest in seeing her safe. Rita has her own scientific theories and barters with Daunt to help her in testing them in exchange for sitting for photographs.

Setterfield gives us the action but also gives us scenes which illustrate the backstory of the main characters in detail then sets about bringing them all together. It is a rich and engrossing tale told masterfully by a writer at the height of her abilities. I cannot recommend this story more.

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier

Jamaica Inn

By Daphne du Maurier

It is Cornwall in the 1820s. Mary Yellan’s mother dies after a particularly hard year on their farm in Helford but, before she does, she makes Mary promise to go to her Aunt Patience, whose husband owns the Jamaica Inn. It has been some time since they have seen her, but Mary remembers her Aunt Patience as a bright and cheerful person. She isn’t anymore. Under the brutal hand of her husband, Joss Merlyn, Patience constantly trembles and wrings her hands.

“The lovely giggling Aunt Patience is now a gaunt, shaky wreck, her spirit destroyed by abuse, and her husband, Joss Merlyn, is a monster: physically overwhelming, lumbering, violent and drunk.”

The first night she is there, Mary thinks she must leave but stays on because of her aunt, thinking she can help her or get her away from Joss Merlyn. It isn’t long before Mary suspects she overhears a murder but cannot be sure. There is no evidence of it except a rope left hanging from a beam.

Mary meets the local vicar when she gets lost following Joss one day and he is kind to her so she thinks she can confide in him. “There was always Francis Davey and his promise; there would be peace and shelter for her at the house in Altarnun.”

I can’t help thinking that this is the wrong direction. Where does the minister get his money for the horses and his fine clothes?

It isn’t until a while later that Mary finds out what her stepfather really is, as he confesses when he is drunk.

“… I have dreams, nightmares; I see things that never scare me when I’m sober. Damn it, Mary, I’ve killed men with my own hands, trampled them under water, beaten them with rocks and stones; and I’ve never thought no more about it; I’ve slept in my bed like a child. But when I’m drunk I see them in my dreams…”

Mary is properly horrified and thinks Joss’s brother Jem, who she has become somewhat enamored of, must be in on it too. She had known he was somewhat of a rogue and a horse thief but didn’t know this.

“No, Mary had no illusions about romance. Falling in love was a pretty name for it, that was all. Jem Merlyn was a man, and she was a woman, and whether it was his hands or his skin or his smile she did not know, but something inside her responded to him, and the very thought of him was an irritant and a stimulant at the same time. It nagged at her and would not let her be. She knew she would have to see him again.”

I watched the Alfred Hitchcock adaptation of the book into a movie recently and found some very large departures as well as some troubling inconsistencies.

In the movie, there is a point where the squire is kidnapping Mary, which never happens in the book. As directed by Hitchcock, Mary, played by Maureen O’Hara struggles very weakly, all but tickling the guy’s fingers while he ties her up.

Contrast that with this passage in the book –

“He nodded at her, reassuring her, smiling still, smirking and sly, and she felt his furtive hand fasten itself upon her. She moved swiftly, lashing out at him, and her fist caught him underneath the chin, shutting his mouth like a trap, with his tongue caught between his teeth . . . she jabbed at him swiftly with the full force of her knee, at the same time thrusting her fingers in his eyes. He doubled up at once, rolling onto his side in agony, and in a second she had struggled from under him and pulled herself to her feet, kicking at him once more as he rocked defenseless, his hands clasped to his belly. 

She grabbed in the ditch for a stone to fling at him, finding nothing but loose earth and sand, and she dug handfuls of this, scattering it in his face and in his eyes, so that he was blinded momentarily and could make no return.”

No, Mary is no delicate lady, but a strong farm woman who will take action to deal with the events and situations she finds herself embroiled in.

The book itself is very atmospheric. There are long passages of description interspersed with action. It can be a bit difficult to set down and pick up if time is limited, but an interesting read and worth the time.

Daphne du Maurier (1907 – 1989) published Jamaica Inn in 1936, when she was just 29. I’ll probably read another of her books in the future but they are definitely time intensive and I wouldn’t call them fast reads.