The Yellow Wallpaper

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

1892

It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and

myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.

A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a

haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity--but

that would be asking too much of fate!

Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer

about it.

Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood

so long untenanted?

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in

marriage.

John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with

faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at

any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in

figures.

John is a physician, and PERHAPS--(I would not say it to a

living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief

to my mind)--PERHAPS that is one reason I do not get well

faster.

You see he does not believe I am sick!

And what can one do?

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?

My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing,

and he says the same thing.

So I take phosphates or phosphites--whichever it is, and

tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely

forbidden to "work" until I am well again.

Personally, I disagree with their ideas.

Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement

and change, would do me good.

But what is one to do?

I did write for a while in spite of them; but it DOES

exhaust me a good deal--having to be so sly about it, or else

meet with heavy opposition.

I sometimes fancy that my condition if I had less opposition

and more society and stimulus--but John says the very worst thing

I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always

makes me feel bad.

So I will let it alone and talk about the house.

The most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well

back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes

me think of English places that you read about, for there are

hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little

houses for the gardeners and people.

There is a DELICIOUS garden! I never saw such a

garden--large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined

with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them.

There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now.

There was some legal trouble, I believe, something about the

heirs and coheirs; anyhow, the place has been empty for years.

That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don't

care--there is something strange about the house--I can feel it.

I even said so to John one moonlight evening, but he said

what I felt was a DRAUGHT, and shut the window.

I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I'm sure I

never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous

condition.

But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper

self-control; so I take pains to control myself--before him, at

least, and that makes me very tired.

I don't like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that

opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such

pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings! but John would not hear of

it.

He said there was only one window and not room for two beds,

and no near room for him if he took another.

He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir

without special direction.

I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he

takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to

value it more.

He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to

have perfect rest and all the air I could get. "Your exercise

depends on your strength, my dear," said he, "and your food

somewhat on your appetite; but air you can absorb all the time."

So we took the nursery at the top of the house.

It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows

that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. 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 paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it.

It is stripped off--the paper--in great patches all around the

head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place

on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse

paper in my life.

One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every

artistic sin.

It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following,

pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and

when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance

they suddenly commit suicide--plunge off at outrageous angles,

destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.

The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering

unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.

It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly

sulphur tint in others.

No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if

I had to live in this room long.

There comes John, and I must put this away,--he hates to

have me write a word.

We have been here two weeks, and I haven't felt like writing

before, since that first day.

I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious

nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as I

please, save lack of strength.

John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases

are serious.

I am glad my case is not serious!

But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing.

John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there

is no REASON to suffer, and that satisfies him.

Of course it is only nervousness. It does weigh on me so

not to do my duty in any way!

I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and

comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already!

Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little

I am able,--to dress and entertain, and other things.

It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear

baby!

And yet I CANNOT be with him, it makes me so nervous.

I suppose John never was nervous in his life. He laughs at

me so about this wall-paper!

At first he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he

said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing

was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies.

He said that after the wall-paper was changed it would be

the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that

gate at the head of the stairs, and so on.

"You know the place is doing you good," he said, "and

really, dear, I don't care to renovate the house just for a three

months' rental."

"Then do let us go downstairs," I said, "there are such

pretty rooms there."

Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little

goose, and said he would go down to the cellar, if I wished, and

have it whitewashed into the bargain.

But he is right enough about the beds and windows and

things.

It is an airy and comfortable room as any one need wish,

and, of course, I would not be so silly as to make him

uncomfortable just for a whim.

I'm really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that

horrid paper.

Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious

deepshaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes

and gnarly trees.

Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little

private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful

shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy

I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John

has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says

that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making, a

nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of

excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense

to check the tendency. So I try.

I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a

little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me.

But I find I get pretty tired when I try.

It is so discouraging not to have any advice and

companionship about my work. When I get really well, John says

we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit; but he

says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let

me have those stimulating people about now.

I wish I could get well faster.

But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as

if it KNEW what a vicious influence it had!

There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a

broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down.

I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the

everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those

absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one place where

two breadths didn't match, and the eyes go all up and down the

line, one a little higher than the other.

I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before,

and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie

awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of

blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in

a toy store.

I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big, old

bureau used to have, and there was one chair that always seemed

like a strong friend.

I used to feel that if any of the other things looked too

fierce I could always hop into that chair and be safe.

The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious,

however, for we had to bring it all from downstairs. I suppose

when this was used as a playroom they had to take the nursery

things out, and no wonder! I never saw such ravages as the

children have made here.

The wall-paper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and

it sticketh closer than a brother--they must have had

perseverance as well as hatred.

Then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the

plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy

bed which is all we found in the room, looks as if it had been

through the wars.

But I don't mind it a bit--only the paper.

There comes John's sister. Such a dear girl as she is, and

so careful of me! I must not let her find me writing.

She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for

no better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the

writing which made me sick!

But I can write when she is out, and see her a long way off

from these windows.

There is one that commands the road, a lovely shaded winding

road, and one that just looks off over the country. A lovely

country, too, full of great elms and velvet meadows.

This wall-paper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different

shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in

certain lights, and not clearly then.

But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is

just so--I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure,

that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front

design.

There's sister on the stairs!

Well, the Fourth of July is over! The people are gone and I

am tired out. John thought it might do me good to see a little

company, so we just had mother and Nellie and the children down

for a week.

Of course I didn't do a thing. Jennie sees to everything

now.

But it tired me all the same.

John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir

Mitchell in the fall.

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, only more so!

Besides, it is such an undertaking to go so far.

I don't feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over

for anything, and I'm getting dreadfully fretful and querulous.

I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.

Of course I don't when John is here, or anybody else, but

when I am alone.

And I am alone a good deal just now. John is kept in town

very often by serious cases, and Jennie is good and lets me alone

when I want her to.

So I walk a little in the garden or down that lovely lane,

sit on the porch under the roses, and lie down up here a good

deal.

I'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the

wall-paper. Perhaps BECAUSE of the wall-paper.

It dwells in my mind so!

I lie here on this great immovable bed--it is nailed down, I

believe--and follow that pattern about by the hour. It is as

good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we'll say, at the

bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been

touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I WILL

follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion.

I know a little of the principle of design, and I know this

thing was not arranged on any laws of radiation, or alternation,

or repetition, or symmetry, or anything else that I ever heard

of.

It is repeated, of course, by the breadths, but not

otherwise.

Looked at in one way each breadth stands alone, the bloated

curves and flourishes--a kind of "debased Romanesque" with

delirium tremens--go waddling up and down in isolated columns

of fatuity.

But, on the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the

sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic

horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase.

The whole thing goes horizontally, too, at least it seems

so, and I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order of

its going in that direction.

They have used a horizontal breadth for a frieze, and that

adds wonderfully to the confusion.

There is one end of the room where it is almost intact, and

there, when the crosslights fade and the low sun shines directly

upon it, I can almost fancy radiation after all,--the

interminable grotesques seem to form around a common centre and

rush off in headlong plunges of equal distraction.

It makes me tired to follow it. I will take a nap I guess.

I don't know why I should write this.

I don't want to.

I don't feel able.

And I know John would think it absurd. But I MUST say

what I feel and think in some way--it is such a relief!

But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief.

Half the time now I am awfully lazy, and lie down ever so

much.

John says I musn't lose my strength, and has me take cod

liver oil and lots of tonics and things, to say nothing of ale

and wine and rare meat.

Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me

sick. I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him

the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go and

make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia.

But he said I wasn't able to go, nor able to stand it after

I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself,

for I was crying before I had finished.

It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight.

Just this nervous weakness I suppose.

And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried

me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me

till it tired my head.

He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had,

and that I must take care of myself for his sake, and keep well.

He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must

use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run

away with me.

There's one comfort, the baby is well and happy, and does

not have to occupy this nursery with the horrid wall-paper.

If we had not used it, that blessed child would have! What

a fortunate escape! Why, I wouldn't have a child of mine, an

impressionable little thing, live in such a room for worlds.

I never thought of it before, but it is lucky that John kept

me here after all, I can stand it so much easier than a baby, you

see.

Of course I never mention it to them any more--I am too

wise,--but I keep watch of it all the same.

There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or

ever will.

Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every

day.

It is always the same shape, only very numerous.

And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about

behind that pattern. I don't like it a bit. I wonder--I begin

to think--I wish John would take me away from here!

It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is

so wise, and because he loves me so.

But I tried it last night.

It was moonlight. The moon shines in all around just as the

sun does.

I hate to see it sometimes, it creeps so slowly, and always

comes in by one window or another.

John was asleep and I hated to waken him, so I kept still

and watched the moonlight on that undulating wall-paper till I

felt creepy.

The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as

if she wanted to get out.

I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper DID

move, and when I came back John was awake.

"What is it, little girl?" he said. "Don't go walking about

like that--you'll get cold."

I though it was a good time to talk, so I told him that I

really was not gaining here, and that I wished he would take me

away.

"Why darling!" said he, "our lease will be up in three

weeks, and I can't see how to leave before.

"The repairs are not done at home, and I cannot possibly

leave town just now. Of course if you were in any danger, I

could and would, but you really are better, dear, whether you can

see it or not. I am a doctor, dear, and I know. You are gaining

flesh and color, your appetite is better, I feel really much

easier about you."

"I don't weigh a bit more," said I, "nor as much; and my

appetite may be better in the evening when you are here, but it

is worse in the morning when you are away!"

"Bless her little heart!" said he with a big hug, "she shall

be as sick as she pleases! But now let's improve the shining

hours by going to sleep, and talk about it in the morning!"

"And you won't go away?" I asked gloomily.

"Why, how can I, dear? It is only three weeks more and then

we will take a nice little trip of a few days while Jennie is

getting the house ready. Really dear you are better!"

"Better in body perhaps--" I began, and stopped short, for

he sat up straight and looked at me with such a stern,

reproachful look that I could not say another word.

"My darling," said he, "I beg of you, for my sake and for

our child's sake, as well as for your own, that you will never

for one instant let that idea enter your mind! There is nothing

so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is

a false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician

when I tell you so?"

So of course I said no more on that score, and we went to

sleep before long. He thought I was asleep first, but I wasn't,

and lay there for hours trying to decide whether that front

pattern and the back pattern really did move together or

separately.

On a pattern like this, by daylight, there is a lack of

sequence, a defiance of law, that is a constant irritant to a

normal mind.

The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and

infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.

You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well

underway in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you

are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples

upon you. It is like a bad dream.

The outside pattern is a florid arabesque, reminding one of

a fungus. If you can imagine a toadstool in joints, an

interminable string of toadstools, budding and sprouting in

endless convolutions--why, that is something like it.

That is, sometimes!

There is one marked peculiarity about this paper, a thing

nobody seems to notice but myself,and that is that it changes as

the light changes.

When the sun shoots in through the east window--I always

watch for that first long, straight ray--it changes so quickly

that I never can quite believe it.

That is why I watch it always.

By moonlight--the moon shines in all night when there is a

moon--I wouldn't know it was the same paper.

At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candle light,

lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The

outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as

can be.

I didn't realize for a long time what the thing was that

showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it

is a woman.

By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is the

pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me

quiet by the hour.

I lie down ever so much now. John says it is good for me,

and to sleep all I can.

Indeed he started the habit by making me lie down for an

hour after each meal.

It is a very bad habit I am convinced, for you see I don't

sleep.

And that cultivates deceit, for I don't tell them I'm

awake--O no!

The fact is I am getting a little afraid of John.

He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jennie has an

inexplicable look.

It strikes me occasionally, just as a scientific

hypothesis,--that perhaps it is the paper!

I have watched John when he did not know I was looking, and

come into the room suddenly on the most innocent excuses, and

I've caught him several times LOOKING AT THE PAPER! And Jennie

too. I caught Jennie with her hand on it once.

She didn't know I was in the room, and when I asked her in a

quiet, a very quiet voice, with the most restrained manner

possible, what she was doing with the paper--she turned around as

if she had been caught stealing, and looked quite angry--asked me

why I should frighten her so!

Then she said that the paper stained everything it touched,

that she had found yellow smooches on all my clothes and John's,

and she wished we would be more careful!

Did not that sound innocent? But I know she was studying

that pattern, and I am determined that nobody shall find it out

but myself!

Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You

see I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to

watch. I really do eat better, and am more quiet than I was.

John is so pleased to see me improve! He laughed a little

the other day, and said I seemed to be flourishing in spite of my

wall-paper.

I turned it off with a laugh. I had no intention of telling

him it was BECAUSE of the wall-paper--he would make fun of me.

He might even want to take me away.

I don't want to leave now until I have found it out. There

is a week more, and I think that will be enough.

I'm feeling ever so much better! I don't sleep much at

night, for it is so interesting to watch developments; but I

sleep a good deal in the daytime.

In the daytime it is tiresome and perplexing.

There are always new shoots on the fungus, and new shades of

yellow all over it. I cannot keep count of them, though I have

tried conscientiously.

It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me

think of all the yellow things I ever saw--not beautiful ones

like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things.

But there is something else about that paper--the smell! I

noticed it the moment we came into the room, but with so much air

and sun it was not bad. Now we have had a week of fog and rain,

and whether the windows are open or not, the smell is here.

It creeps all over the house.

I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the

parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.

It gets into my hair.

Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and

surprise it--there is that smell!

Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours in trying to

analyze it, to find what it smelled like.

It is not bad--at first, and very gentle, but quite the

subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met.

In this damp weather it is awful, I wake up in the night and

find it hanging over me.

It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of

burning the house--to reach the smell.

But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that

it is like is the COLOR of the paper! A yellow smell.

There is a very funny mark on this wall, low down, near the

mopboard. A streak that runs round the room. It goes behind

every piece of furniture, except the bed, a long, straight, even

SMOOCH, as if it had been rubbed over and over.

I wonder how it was done and who did it, and what they did

it for. Round and round and round--round and round and round--it

makes me dizzy!

I really have discovered something at last.

Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I

have finally found out.

The front pattern DOES move--and no wonder! The woman

behind shakes it!

Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and

sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling

shakes it all over.

Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the

very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them

hard.

And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody

could climb through that pattern--it strangles so; I think that

is why it has so many heads.

They get through, and then the pattern strangles them off

and turns them upside down, and makes their eyes white!

If those heads were covered or taken off it would not be

half so bad.

I think that woman gets out in the daytime!

And I'll tell you why--privately--I've seen her!

I can see her out of every one of my windows!

It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping,

and most women do not creep by daylight.

I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along,

and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines.

I don't blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be

caught creeping by daylight!

I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. I can't do

it at night, for I know John would suspect something at once.

And John is so queer now, that I don't want to irritate him.

I wish he would take another room! Besides, I don't want anybody

to get that woman out at night but myself.

I often wonder if I could see her out of all the windows at

once.

But, turn as fast as I can, I can only see out of one at a

time.

And though I always see her, she MAY be able to creep

faster than I can turn!

I have watched her sometimes away off in the open country,

creeping as fast as a cloud shadow in a high wind.

If only that top pattern could be gotten off from the under

one! I mean to try it, little by little.

I have found out another funny thing, but I shan't tell it

this time! It does not do to trust people too much.

There are only two more days to get this paper off, and I

believe John is beginning to notice. I don't like the look in

his eyes.

And I heard him ask Jennie a lot of professional questions

about me. She had a very good report to give.

She said I slept a good deal in the daytime.

John knows I don't sleep very well at night, for all I'm so

quiet!

He asked me all sorts of questions, too, and pretended to be

very loving and kind.

As if I couldn't see through him!

Still, I don't wonder he acts so, sleeping under this paper

for three months.

It only interests me, but I feel sure John and Jennie are

secretly affected by it.

Hurrah! This is the last day, but it is enough. John is to

stay in town over night, and won't be out until this evening.

Jennie wanted to sleep with me--the sly thing! but I told

her I should undoubtedly rest better for a night all alone.

That was clever, for really I wasn't alone a bit! As soon

as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake

the pattern, I got up and ran to help her.

I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before

morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.

A strip about as high as my head and half around the room.

And then when the sun came and that awful pattern began to

laugh at me, I declared I would finish it to-day!

We go away to-morrow, and they are moving all my furniture

down again to leave things as they were before.

Jennie looked at the wall in amazement, but I told her

merrily that I did it out of pure spite at the vicious thing.

She laughed and said she wouldn't mind doing it herself, but

I must not get tired.

How she betrayed herself that time!

But I am here, and no person touches this paper but me--not

ALIVE!

She tried to get me out of the room--it was too patent! But

I said it was so quiet and empty and clean now that I believed I

would lie down again and sleep all I could; and not to wake me

even for dinner--I would call when I woke.

So now she is gone, and the servants are gone, and the

things are gone, and there is nothing left but that great

bedstead nailed down, with the canvas mattress we found on it.

We shall sleep downstairs to-night, and take the boat home

to-morrow.

I quite enjoy the room, now it is bare again.

How those children did tear about here!

This bedstead is fairly gnawed!

But I must get to work.

I have locked the door and thrown the key down into the

front path.

I don't want to go out, and I don't want to have anybody

come in, till John comes.

I want to astonish him.

I've got a rope up here that even Jennie did not find. If

that woman does get out, and tries to get away, I can tie her!

But I forgot I could not reach far without anything to stand

on!

This bed will NOT move!

I tried to lift and push it until I was lame, and then I got

so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner--but it hurt my

teeth.

Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on

the floor. It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it!

All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus

growths just shriek with derision!

I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To

jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars

are too strong even to try.

Besides I wouldn't do it. Of course not. I know well

enough that a step like that is improper and might be

misconstrued.

I don't like to LOOK out of the windows even--there are so

many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast.

I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did?

But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope--you

don't get ME out in the road there!

I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when

it comes night, and that is hard!

It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep

around as I please!

I don't want to go outside. I won't, even if Jennie asks me