The Yellow Wallpaper [1892]
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
24 pages, Kindle Digital Edition
Rating 5/5 🔮🎉
Genres: Horror, Short Story
Was getting goosebumps while reading this short story. Although it is only 24 pages in length, it has given the creeps and struck horror in my heart that a lengthy novel might have failed to do. I see similarities to this novel with The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson where the house slowly takes mental possession of one of its residents. And with a more recent boon The Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno which has a a living mold in a house that takes possession of its residents.
A wife and husband with his sister as housekeeper take residence in a palatial bungalow for three months to get a change of atmosphere. The wife has a condition of mental nervousness and feels that being in company of lively people will help her. But her husband who is a physician barely listens to her and practically locks her in a room with a yellow wall paper that is in tatters. The wall paper is ripped at places and has strange patterns on it. It shows different shades of yellow and orange based on light and direction of light. What grows as a time passing routine for the wife to escape from her boredom becomes an obsession. She increasingly pretends to sleep and incessantly watches for hidden patterns and patterns within patterns in the wall paper. She eventually becomes .. one with the wallpaper? Deranged and lost from reality ..
It's a scary book to say the least. To have the narrator describe something as a third party and then refer herself as they entity builds up the fear of what's happening to her. Even having read the Mexican Gothic which is along these lines, this material is very fresh and in its own right holds high. Love this!
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