The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman. December 2006. rating: 5 (other stories in collection = 3,4)

I almost typed in "the yellow wallaby". hmm this should be very interesting.

first off, you must read The Yellow Wallpaper. it's only 20 pages and it's online here, very accessible. and it's about (a probably irretrievable) descent into madness. what more could you want?

I find myself comparing it to The Bell Jar. it's much shorter and even more swift and sure than The Bell Jar. also, TBJ ends with the character at least temporarily overcoming the problem (which might or might not be levenned out by the fact that everyone knows it's an autobiographical work and that Sylvia Plath did attempt suicide again, that time succeeding) while there is probably very little chance that the character in The Yellow Wallpaper, or the multiple characters that she becomes, ever manages to put things together again.

I like The Bell Jar, but I love The Yellow Wallpaper.

also I find myself comparing TYW to Fight Club. brill, that movie. primarily because it also handles the fracturing of the main character as sublty as the character himself perceives it. so, watch Fight Club, read The Yellow Wallpaper.

The Yellow Wallpaper = 5

ok. um. the other stories in the book are meant to be didactic pieces; ideas presented in the most palatable form. the utopian novel Herland is not meant to be 100% realistic (so don't give crap about the virgin births). it's just an avenue to display ideas. the other writings (treatises) including Women and Economics and Our Androcentric Culture are, basically, revolutionary feminism... or what was considered revolutionary feminism in the 1890s.

it's worth paying attention to the fact she wasn't necessarily pushing political emanicpation or sexual emacipation for women but rather economical emancipation. she makes very good sense and many of the changes that have come about between now and then in this quarter have been just that---women are more free to work and live and have families outside the then-traditional home; women are no longer absolutely dependent on their fathers/brothers/husbands for money and upkeep; women are outgrowing their role as manipulative seducers of men and as ravenous consumers of ridiculous petty pretty things such as feathered hats... although this has a long long way to go still. I rather agree with her on the old male-female economic relationship, in all ways, esp as encouraging materialism--- I have only one pair of shoes thank you; it's all I need! um if that made sense, let me know.

other writings are worth reading = 3, some more 4.

oh and she published her own magazine known as the Forerunner, which for some reason I kept thinking of as Foreigner... time to logoff now and go take a nap or something.