The Yellow Wallpaper Intro
The beginning of a short series on a very interesting short story I thoroughly enjoy!
So for this video. I started off with a general introduction into The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It is very important to get you guys thinking about the themes and topics that the piece is going to cover. This way we can have an enriching discussion about these topics and themes!
Much like I stated in the video, I had originally discovered this piece in high school. Funny enough the pieces I often re-read over and over again are often past reading assignments. Maybe it’s because I actually have time to thoroughly enjoy them without the fear of a time crunch making me plow through them? Or perhaps it’s because I am older and have a different perspective on these sorts of things compared to when I was in high school? Who knows?
Anyway, Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a very interesting figure in her own right. Much like other women in the 19th century, she was concerned about getting the vote. I can’t blame her for wanting the vote, because voting is such an important way to make your voice heard and to get important social changes made. Well, in theory anyway but I digress.
Her short story was covered in the same unit that I studied another controversial piece of early feminist literature The Awakening by Kate Chopin. Both fall into that same category of controversial because they each discuss a topic that was taboo back then and is even taboo today in modern media. I mean when is the last time you heard someone being candid about their struggles with postpartum depression? I really only know about it from the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper and Aarti Sequeira talking about it when she competed on Guy’s Grocery Games.
The Awakening, on the other hand, talks about female infidelity without outright condemning female infidelity. In fact, the author makes it look like being unfaithful is the key to our protagonist’s journey of self-discovery and formation of her own independent identity outside of marriage and motherhood. The very same struggle that the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper goes through during the course of the short story.
Kinda interesting how both also feature the downfall of the protagonist and succumbing to their mental health struggles. Maybe that was why my teacher had decided to group them together in the same unit?
Some interesting sources that I looked at for this video were the Charlotte Perkins Gilman page on connecticuthistory.org, and of course the full text version of the Yellow Wallpaper put out by Project Gutenberg. However, there are many more resources out there for those of you curious enough to look into it further.
Feel free to check out the video and comment your thoughts on it. I’m brand new to the whole YouTuber and blogging scene, so any advice you can give will be really helpful! I’ll see you all next time when I post part one of the dramatic reading of our tale.
