I finally started the Halloween bingo that is currently being hosted by Obsidian Blue and Moonlight Murder. I saw some peeps had done “The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman” So I picked that as my starter read. I wanted to reread The Exorcist as the Locked Room mystery, but chose this instead. I have to admit I was quite shocked! I wasn't expecting it to be such a short tale, but it really does leave you with a wtf did I just read. Even now i'm still thinking about it. So lets get into this tale a bit.

The story details the descent of a young woman into madness. Her supportive, though misunderstanding husband, John, believes it is in her best interests to go on a rest after the birth of their child. The family spends the summer at a colonial mansion that has, in the narrator's words, "something queer about it". She and her husband move into an upstairs room that she assumes was once a nursery, having it serve as their bedroom due to its multitude of windows, which provide the air so needed in her recovery. In addition to the couple, John's sister Jennie is present; she serves as their housekeeper. Like most nurseries at the time the windows are barred, the wallpaper has been torn, and the floor is scratched. The narrator attributes all these to children, as most of the damage is isolated to their reach. But is it though!?

I wanted to read this tale for a while and one thing I noticed while looking it up is that it's a classic and that it has been classed as a feminist written work for how women were treated at that time. But to me, I read this from a point of horror. As Jane, the main character of the tale, falls into a decent of slowly succumbing madness, that comes from an almost maniacal fascination of the rooms yellow wallpaper.

I honestly loved this tale it was short but left so many thoughts in me afterwards. A truly spooky horror classic and a fantastic start to the Halloween bingo and a tale I think that will stay with me for a while.

Scary Women (Authors) : The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Seeing as people are talking about The Yellow Wallpaper which is my 'Scary Women Authors' square, I thought I might as well add my voice to the discussion.

I've posted about this story before, but it really was the first one I thought about when I saw the 'Scary Women Authors' square. And every time I read it, it creeps me out a little more.

 
The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman (click link to read it)

“First published in 1892, The Yellow Wall-Paper is written as the secret journal of a woman who, failing to relish the joys of marriage and motherhood, is sentenced to a country rest cure. Though she longs to write, her husband and doctor forbid it, prescribing instead complete passivity. In the involuntary confinement of her bedroom, the hero creates a reality of her own beyond the hypnotic pattern of the faded yellow wallpaper – a pattern that has come to symbolize her own imprisonment. Narrated with superb psychological and dramatic precision, The Yellow Wall-Paper stands out not only for the imaginative authenticity with which it depicts one woman’s descent into insanity, but also for the power of its testimony to the importance of freedom and self-empowerment for women.”

I first read this when I was about 14 years old and getting into all things Gothic, and I loved the creeping sense of menace. But then when I re-read it a couple of years later, I got goosebumps from realizing this short, but powerful story was based on the author’s own experience of how women with post-natal depression were treated.

Gilman had suffered from depression for years, and had been prescribed a rest-cure; she wasn't allowed to pick up a pen, pencil or brush, and had to have a bare minimum of mental stimulation. For a writer this must have been a living hell. After three months, she went against her doctor's advice and started writing again. She wrote The Yellow Wallpaper and sent a copy to her doctor.

She said The Yellow Wallpaper was "not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked". 

"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! ... The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell."

It starts so simply...a couple is on vacation. She is ill and taking a rest in the country. But is that true? She is scared, and trapped, and not allowed to leave. Her fear is palpable. Or, maybe, she is an extremely unreliable narrator?

So uhm.. September wasn't what I was exptected it to be. I didn't read much at ALL. School drove me nuts and I went to college for the first time in my life so everything was quite overwhelming (also with traveling and stuff) so I was tired for most of the time. But anyways, here are the books I've read:

 - The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown 4/5 ★ review

- Me, Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews 3.5/5 ★ review

- Aphorisms on Love and Hate by Friedrich Nietzsche 4/5 ★ review

- Burmese Days by George Orwell 5/5 ★ review

- The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 2/5 ★ review

I did only read the last 152 of The Da Vinci Code because I read the rest in August. I also reread 270 pages of the last Harry Potter book. My favorite read this month was definitely Burmese Days!

Because I was tired for most of the time I did watch a lot of tv shows:

- Gilmore Girls S03E08 - S03E022 (I rewatched that)

- Great Expectation BBC mini series S01E02 - S01E03

- Orphan Black S02E01-S02E10 (so the entire season 2 and OMG!)

- New Girl s01e01 - S01E20

And I've also watched the episodes of these shows when they were airing (so they came onces a week):

- America's Next Top Model s22e05 - S22E08

- Expeditie Robinson (it's a Dutch tv show!) S16E01 - S16E04

- Nashville S04E01

- The Big Bang Theory S09E01

It's still not that much compared to August, but still haha.

What is your favorite read of September?

Goodreads summary:

'The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.'

Written with barely controlled fury after she was confined to her room for 'nerves' and forbidden to write, Gilman's pioneering feminist horror story scandalized nineteenth-century readers with its portrayal of a woman who loses her mind because she has literally nothing to do.

My opinion:

This edition has three of her short stories: The Yellow Wall-Paper, The Rocking-Chair and Old Water. I didn't like those stories that much and I don't see why this one got hyped up because of those Penguin Little Black editions that came out this year. I get the feminine and horror aspects but I wasn't shocked or involved with the story..

Have you read these short stories? Have you read any of her normal novels (if she has written some, I have no idea!) and if so would you recomment them?