Maybe the best horror short story I've read: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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I remember reading this in American Lit class. It was wonderfully unnerving. Leaving a daunting aftertaste.
Yeah it's so well done
Yellow can be associated with sickness, such as bile, infection discharge, jaundice-type symptoms, etc. Also sulfur (used to treat illness as well as with brimstone/demons) is bright yellow.
"The four humors, or fluid substances, of the body were blood, YELLOW bile, black bile, and phlegm. This theory was closely related to the theory of the four elements: earth, fire, water, and air. Earth was represented by black bile, fire by yellow bile, and water by phlegm".
One hundred years later and medicine still didn't know what to do with postpartum depression much less psychosis. It was terrifying. I don't know if I can read this but I appreciate your take on it. Thank you, Olly.
Sorry you went through that, Linda
It really is an excellent story and for ease of mind nothing happens to the baby. It isn't that kind of horror.
Fantastic review!
I think I might have some idea as to why the color yellow keeps showing up in creepy stories. During the Victorian era arsenic was a common ingredient in dyes for clothing and wallpaper. The arsenic would be absorbed by a person's skin as they wore clothing made with these dyes and wallpaper would break down over time releasing arsenic into the air. This was extremely common in yellow and green dyes. Today we usually think of the green dyes of that era as poisonous but it seems the Victorians associated arsenic dye poisoning most closely with yellow.
Particularly, in the Yellow Wallpaper, the protagonist has been put on the "rest cure", something prescribed to women where they were meant to be on strict bed rest and avoid all stimulation. No reading, no entertainment, no physical activity. This could last for several weeks or a couple of months. So, in the case of this story, the woman is trapped in a room with nothing to occupy her mind except the wallpaper which is disintegrating and filling the room with poison.
Nice touch of horror yourself in that last sentence.
great insights into the Victorians there. love it!
This one was really creepy, wasn’t it? I love these types of stories that portray a descent into madness from the perspective of the one doing the descending. Very sad one. Great analysis 👏
Not much creeps me out in books but this story does.
One of the genuinely scariest things I've ever read. The lack of credibility given to the one actually having such an experience is terrifying as it just seems to seal the "no way out" claustrophobia of the whole hellish thing. I felt amazed that the author had the guts to put it out there. And yellow! I know Gestalt considered a yellow room to provoke anxiety and I don't have an argument with that! It sort of lurks between "okay" and "red alert!" like a sort of unstable question. 😂 Well done commentary on a heck of a potent 30 pages!
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was one of the founding women sociologists. She saved a lot of people from a similar fate by writing this story and sending it to the doctor who prescribed her "rest". It's such a poignant story, especially for women's mental health. And mental health treatment in general.
It's great that the story had a positive social experience
@@CriminOllyBlog Yeah! So maybe it can balance out some of the negative externalities from her work in eugenics.
Yes, I read The Yellow Wallpaper years ago. Like you I felt it was written before its time and I am sure it is relatable to many people today.
Definitely
I read the yellow wallpaper for the first time last year. As soon as I finished it, I started it over again for a re-read immediately . I loved it and feel like I could re-read it again and again.
I can definitely see why
I also like stories like this too. What can be more scary than not being able to trust your own mind.
Good point. But most people who are mentally ill never do that. They project their misgivings onto others.
@@frankmorlock9134 True,true 😉
This has been on my radar for a while. Glad to hear you talk about it. Now I need to move it up my TBR. 😊💙
It's super short and definitely worth reading!
One of the best short stories I’ve read.
I read this years ago and it has stuck with me more than a lot of modern short stories. I'm so glad you are able to cover it!
It was so great - it's not often I'd make a video about a short story, but this had so much going on
I read this as a kid and it creeped me out so intensely that I never forgot it. Maybe a reread is in order.
I read this years ago, but just recently listened to it on audio. For a short story, it does build in amazing tension and the progression of her mental state is so masterfully done.. Plus, as you said, it feels very very modern. I'm listening to Mexican Gothic right now, and there is yellow wallpaper in it, which I am sure is no coincidence.
I liked Mexican Gothic a lot!
I might have to read Mexican Gothic now.
This was one of the texts I studied at University, as part of an American literature module. I loved it, and am so glad you have read it and are talking about it. I agree, it really does seem to be ahead of it's time.
Such a great story. I read Herland by her also and it’s a super interesting book.
Someone else just recommended that to me - definitely need to pick it up
I think yellow is maybe subconsciously connected to sickness, which might give it a kind of negative overtone. Of course, that does depend on the shade and the context, as yellow can also be a very happy color, evoking images of sunflowers, sunshine and so on. Interesting question, definitely!
Ah that does make sense.- the colour of bile and so on!
I read this, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, and The Lottery by Shirley Jackson in high school. They really stuck with me and I still think about them (and occasionally re-read) nearly 15 years later. I’m glad you enjoyed reading The Yellow Wallpaper!
I’m so glad you enjoyed this. It’s one of my favorite creepy stories.
It really is great
A favorite of mine. Read the entire story during a bath, a few months before starting BookTube. 😂 Î’m glad you finally got around to reading it. 👏🏻
- 📚MJ p.s. the color yellow is sometimes associated with illness & madness.
I tried that during a bathroom re-decoration. Ended up huffing too much wallpaper paste. My partner found me that evening curled in a corner and screaming about little men in the walls…
@@jackthereader 😂😂😂👏🏻👏🏻
I really really loved this story!!
Yes! My absolute favorite short story.
Absolutely agree that this is one of the best horror short stories I've ever read.
Now that you've read this and The King In Yellow, maybe you should seek out The Brain Drips Yellow, which Pax Panic reviewed on her channel a while ago. Then you'll have done a sort of 'yellow horror trilogy'.
Really great, insightful review.
The man who came down the attic stairs by Celine Loup also revolves around postpartum depression and fears associated with new motherhood. Maybe you should give it a try.
Have been keen to read this since your review and today I listen to it on audiobook while drawing on my lunch break and my GOD was it good! So creepy and it just crawled under my skin. I want more! 😊
So glad you enjoyed it
I knew you'd like this one! :) It's one of the greats. The old stuff is the best stuff.
I read it based on your recommendation and enjoyed it. Thanks, Olly!
I love this story. Read it in college. I also read her novel “Herland”. The novel was not scary, but definitely interesting.
I remember this one always feeling profoundly sad to me. Like when I saw A Thousand Years of Longing and there was a plot about a Dutch trader’s slave bride, more naturally gifted at intellectual pursuits than most of her generation, but doomed to live as a caged bird.
I love that movie! Really beautiful fantasy
Sad indeed.
I also listened to the audiobook version of it. I agree, it's really creepy.
This story creeped me out to the core. VERY effective.
Yes, I had to read this for my English degree and it’s a great story.
Great recommendation thanks. Horror stories with colours in the title! Always reminds me of Orange is for Anguish, Blue for Insanity By David Morrell, better known for First Blood. A fantastic horror story, in the 88 anthology Prime Evil, edited by Douglas E Winter, one of the best stories I've ever read and some of the others are great too, especially Coming to Grief by Clive Barker and the deeply weird The Pool by Whitley Strieber.
I love this one!! Very good overview!
This is such a classic! One of my favs too 😊
Finished this short story last night and haven't stopped thinking about it. It feels so modern for being written in 1892 (the language and story) and I loved how atmospheric it is. It made me sad to know it's somewhat autobiographical and that even know postpartum depression isn't taking as seriously as it should be. Definitely a thought provoking and haunting piece of literature
A Sarah Waters interview first put me into this story. I suspect you would really like a novella Waters recommended in the same interview - The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns. Short but impacting uncanny fiction by an author now often forgotten
Thank you! I’ll have to check that one out as well
Hi Olly , I am so glad you did a video entirely on this fantastic book and Im also glad you enjoyed it as much as I did .
It was interesting to hear your view points on this and especially one from a male perspective too . I can’t really put into words here for fear of giving away spoilers my different thoughts and analysis of the overall story .
There is so much going on with the main character , but moreover I felt there was a lot more sinister things going on behind her narrative , especially with the Husband and the other characters in the book .
I thought it interesting that you took the room she was in to of had previous creepy things going on in there , and again without spoilers , so keeping it brief , I took it to of been her scratches on the floor , and bars put there for her only . There is soooo much in this short story, not only did I get strange creepy vibes , but also a deeply disturbing sense of domestic mental abuse. It certainly was extremely dense and one I will be revisiting again soon enough . Short but extremely well written stream of consciousness stories are always good to chat about , especially when they offer many , many different perspectives. I think this is a book I might discuss on my channel when I eventually get the time & courage to start it up LOL .
You may enjoy The girl on the landing by Paul Torday and the The hours before dawn by Celia Fremlin. Both subtle psychological thrillers with similar themes to the yellow wallpaper
This is a classic! I read this in undergraduate school and I have revisited it very frequently since
A similar story was featured in Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White which was quite revelatory as to the treatment of some women, confined to their bedrooms at that time. Doctors would literally play with the ladies to relieve their hysteria! I was drawn to watch a dramatisation of The Yellow Wallpaper, based on what I'd read in Faber. It must have been very confusing to people before an understanding of psychology was developed.
It's really shocking the way medicine can be influenced by the prejudices by the people who practice it
I still remember being freaked out when I read this for the first time. As far as the color the decade in terms of literature is referred to as the Yellow Nineties (I can't do basic math in my head but I do know that for some reason). Trashy French novels with bright yellow covers were all the rage in the UK and inspired Wilde, Beardsley, etc. to push the boat out a little further.
Yellow journalism?
I am always amazed by the fact that this was published a good while before Freud did his theorizing. And, as the first commenter here noted, eugenics was a very popular area of what I will call ideological exploration back in Gilman's time. A great many people were very intrigued by it, and a lot of what we now know about human evolution and populations was absolutely unknown at the time - they were sticking their toes into the water fairly randomly. I expect that in 120 to 130 years, people (if we make it that long) will have similar opinions about some of the ideas currently obsessing us - ie, wtf were they thinking?
I first read "The Yellow Wallpaper" in college and was blown away. Have you read Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" or William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily?" They're both Southern gothic and have that same feel. I highly recommend them as thought-provoking, well-written, and well, disturbing, too.
I just re-read “A Good Man…” two days ago! Creepy.
This one is on my TBR. Thanks for the vid.
My pleasure!
I can recommend 'The Dualists' by Bram Stoker, too, for those who have not read it. I would easily put this in the top 5 creepiest stories I have ever read. Really unsettling stuff but a great read nevertheless!
I read The Yellow Wallpaper a couple of times in the 1990s for two different college courses. I definitely felt like the main character may have had what we know today as postpartum depression after giving birth. Not sure this was a know medical term back in the author’s time.
I suspect it wasn't
This sounds fascinating! Adding it to my list! 💛
Hi, Olly. I've had this book on my Kindle for ages and it's been on my TBR just as long. It sounds like I need to fast track this one up the queue. I'm currently reading Love by Angela Carter. It's very short, so I'll read this one next. Thanks!
Hope you enjoy it!
I’ve got this book and I’ve just started it ❤😊
Hope you're enjoying it!
I am learning to use color pencils, so...yellow has many different shades. Thus, depending on the shades, themselves have different meanings. It's associated with autumn, but pastel yellow is also associated with intellectual work. In the USA, the pads used by lawyers are traditionally light yellow. In creepy horror, brownish yellow is associated with rotten, decay and death. Bright yellow is the color of joy and cheerfulness. If too bright is an obnoxious color.
Happy new hair cut 🎉. Will ad this to my tbr
Thank you! Had a beard trim too!
TYW☆☆☆☆☆
Shirley Jacson is the only one that can compete, my favorite by her is the novel "We Have Always Lived in the Castle". I also like her novella "The Bird's Nest".
Two other favorites are Daphne du Maurier's "The Apple Tree" and "The Pool".
Next month I'll be reading "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" by Mary Wollstonecraft (Mary Shelley's mother)
On a less subtle note I've also got Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
Jackson is so great
That one I didn't like so much!
Just grabbed on gutenberg...
There's a very good reading of The Yellow Wallpaper here on YT, on Horrorbabble's channel.
Thank you!
I'm so happy you enjoyed it and discuss it so thoroughly!
Without spoiling too much
A hard boundary to toe
Thanks, Keri
Off to read it. Will report back.
yellow, I had an instinctive horror of my baby's poo!
LOL
I have read it twice and it was better the second go round. Definitely an Oct reread
You've convinced me to finally read this - after being aware of it's importance since I was a teen. Thanks!
Enjoy!
Have you ever read Hans Heinz Ewers? His story, The Spider, is quite good.
Yes, Yellow Wallpaper is a great read. About 2 years ago, I started writing a novel where the main character suffered a mental breakdown. I gave up on the story because the writers group I worked with went off on me for "using mental issues as a story element." (I mean there were several people in the group who were *really* really upset.)
Maybe you were striking close to home. Dopn't let others dictate to you what you can write or discuss.
Isn't bile the colour of yellow ? Doesn't get much creepier than that.
Good point!
I remember studying this story in college. Really excellent example of an unreliable narrator.
She was an activist, I do believe I a way it still is relevant today. Because how many times do medical professionals downplay and even ignore women's medical conditions and refuse to listen to women when they are seeking medical care.
Yeah it's definitely still a problem
I have just finished reading it. I didn't really enjoy it for a 'horror' book. Though interesting indeed.
Yeah I guess it's not typical of the genre
Most of us are gifted with the ignorance of living in ivory tower. There is dark, and ugly side to reality which our minds refuse to believe or grasp. If we are told of it, we just reject the truth we find to distasteful. It's like buying meat in grocery store, which is far cry from the reality of an industrial slaughter house. We hear of people who supported eugenics, and we know the Nazis backed eugenics. The levels of depravity that existed due to poverty was beyond they understanding of modern society. For eamaple, no wants to believe orphanage used to just kill children when they had to many. If they had room, and food for fifty children, and twenty new children came in, twenty children die that week. This was the reality before we had Social Services. What the authortain leaders did from world war two were just a large step from what was happening. That's why we support education, family planning, and social Services because there is a very dark history that we do not want to see again. They say "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a feminist story. No, it's a humanist story. This was how we treated all human mental illnesses. We can't allow or ignorance of our dark history lead us back into a dark future.
She describes having a rope does that mean she hangs herself at the end ?
I think it's up to the reader
Public domain?
Out of copyright - so you can get digital copies for free
Comment added 🦎
I read this story long ago, and I thought it was very good, though I really never thought of it as a horror story. You are much more into the genre than I am, but I would simply classify it as a Psychological story. The narrator lady seems to blame everything on her husband, as I recall. It is psychologically typical of schizophrenics and other types of mental illness to do just that. Even people who are very truthful when normal. And it does cause others to doubt a person they may have trusted completely all their lives. Sadly, I've known several women like this at close hand. And schizophrenia, though treatable, is uncurable.
No offense, but I hated that story.
The writer was a feminist? Tells me this horror story could be an actual true crime story
I get the impression that eugenics was quite respectable in previous times. The story sounds brilliant 🟨☠
It was the Climate Change hysteria of its time.