It Could Happen Here - CZM Book Club: "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Part One

Episode Date: February 11, 2024

Margaret reads you a classic feminist horror story about the madness caused by patriarchy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and

expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. of Google search. Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Cool Zone Media.

book club book club book club book club hello it's the cool zone media book club i'm your host margaret killjoy and with me today as a guest is you the listener you're the guest today and you can respond out loud to the people around you as you listen. It'll be especially funny if you have headphones on. Every Sunday, I bring you a different story. This time, I'm bringing you a different story. You might have heard of this one before. It's a feminist classic from 1891. It's called The Yellow Wallpaper, and it was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

It was actually published in 1891. It's called The Yellow Wallpaper, and it was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was actually published in 1892. Charlotte couldn't find a publisher for it for a while because the first person who rejected it was like, everyone who reads this will be driven mad. So, content warning, you'll be driven mad if you listen to this. But eventually it was published by the New England Magazine, which is a literary magazine that there's been like eight magazines with that title. And it was written by a rather interesting woman, an early feminist and zinester, Charlotte Perkins Gilman. And I'm going to tell you about her really quick. Also, we're going to

split this story up over two weeks because it's a little bit longer than the average story. But I'm really excited about bringing you all classics sometimes. One of my goals with this book club is to read you some of the stories that stay in my mind, some of the stories that I think about a lot. mind some of the stories that I think about a lot. So Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in 1860, and she grew up poor as hell with her mom and her brother, but also her father's aunts. Her father had fucked off and ditched the family, basically, but his aunts kind of stepped in. And this included Harriet Beecher Stowe, is the woman who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. So clearly she has some literariness in her family. But her mom was incredibly emotionally distant and wouldn't let her have friends or read books. So anyway, she grew up a tomboy.

She was smart as hell, but bad at school, which I fucking love for her. She was also bisexual. She loved and lived with different women and men over the course of her life. She had a girlfriend when she was young, but that lady left Charlotte to marry a man, and Charlotte swore off romance after that until she wound up married herself. And she had a kid. As a result of having a kid, she wrote the story we're about to read. And then she left her husband to go back with living with women and then eventually married a man and et cetera, et cetera. She was a lifelong activist. She was a socialist feminist, and she spent her life traveling around and talking about feminism. She edited a newspaper

and wrote books and shit, including her own magazine called the forerunner in which she published her fiction she also published a serialized novella that's too long for book club which i'm sad about because it's how i first heard about her myself it's this book called her land and i highly recommend it not as like go out and do what this book recommends but as like a way to understand early 20th century utopian feminism. It's really fascinating. It's about an all-woman socialist utopia that uses like food forestry and basically permaculture and just is way ahead of its time and has all the problems with utopianism, some of which we'll talk about in a second. Her feminism overall was pretty cool. She was against gender essentialism. She said, quote,

there is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver. She also fought for communal housing so that you don't have to get married to be financially stable. Basically, she was not excited about the nuclear family. Or rather she was like not excited about the

nuclear family or rather she was not excited about the nuclear family as being like the default and it being she acknowledged that families exist as a economic relationship as much as anything else and so she was always looking for ways to break the the prisons of that economic relationship but she was also a weird old-timey racist in a more complicated way normally when you say old-timey racist you mean somebody's like real real bad and i mean she was trying but not incredibly well you know or didn't didn't know it okay i'll just tell you about. She was a eugenicist in that classic early feminist 20th century way. If you want to hear me talk way too much about that, you can listen to any number of my episodes about early feminists and also early socialists and folks of

all kinds and how people interacted with eugenics over the course of the early 20th century. She did fight for the rights of interracial marriage and she spoke for racial harmony. She spent a lot of her time condemning the US's racist history. And she thought that the problems with black people were the fault of white people because of slavery and racism and that it was white people's responsibility to help black people but the ways in which she came up to do it is where you get into her racism she was like she had real sketchy solutions like conscript all unemployed black folks into a quasi-military state labor force for job training which is is not a good look. That's not a good,

you were wrong person who died a long time ago. But yeah, she wrote this story and a bunch of others. And then, well, actually in a lot of ways, her and her stories were largely forgotten until they were brought back into print in the early 70s by feminist publishers and in this case that was the still existent feminist press and i think about this story all the time and at the end of the story we'll talk about some of the influences it had so get ready for the story the yellow wallpaper by charlotte perkins gilman The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Written in 1891, published in 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 this 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 that 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, and air, and exercise, and I'm 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 in 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. And talk about these sweet, sweet deals from the advertisers that interrupt this thing. Oh God, here they are. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if

you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.

Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds

and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award.

Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards.

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 co-heirs. 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 moonlit evening, but he said what I felt was a draft 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 and he takes all care from me and I feel so basely ungrateful not to value it more.

And he takes all care from me, and I feel so 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 playground and gymnasium, I should judge,

for the windows are barred for little children and there are rings and things in the wall. The paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it. It has 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 smoldering, unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulfur 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. 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 order 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 wallpaper. At first, he meant to repaper the room. But afterwards, he said 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 wallpaper was changed, it would be the heavy bedstead and then the barred windows. He said that after the wallpaper 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-month's 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 cellar if I wished And have it whitewashed into the bargain

But he is right enough about the beds and the windows and things It is as airy and comfortable a room as 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 deep-shaded 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, 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 can ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit. But he says he would soon put fireworks in my pillowcases 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's a recurrent spot where the pattern lulls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down. 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 the two breaths 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. But you know what else will keep you safe? Buying objects and or services from these advertisers. with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more.

After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the

real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. to the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising,

and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals.

You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards.

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 wallpaper, as I said before, is torn off in spots and 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 looks just off over the country, a lovely country too, full of great elms and velvet meadows.

This wallpaper 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, where the sun is just so, I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to sulk 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. Jenny 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 worthwhile to turn my hand over for anything, far. I don't feel as if it was worthwhile 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'm alone. And I am alone a good deal just now. John is kept in town very often by serious cases, and Jenny 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 wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper, it dwells on 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 conclusion. I know a little of the principle of design, and I know that this thing was not arranged on any laws of radiation or alternation or repetition or symmetry or anything else I have ever heard of. It is repeated, of course, by the breaths, but not otherwise. Repeated, of course, by the breaths, but not otherwise. Looked at in one way, each breath 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 wallowing seaweeds in full chase. The whole thing goes horizontally too, at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself and trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction. They used to have 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, where the cross lights 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 center and rush off in headlong plunges of equal distraction. It makes me tired to follow it. And we'll 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 mustn'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 from me. There's one comfort. The baby is well and happy and does not have to occupy this nursery with the horrid wallpaper. 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 anymore. I am too wise, but I keep watch of it all the same. There are things in that paper nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind the 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. And that's the end of the first part of The Yellow Wallpaper. And there's no way you could spoil it yourself by going and reading this thing that's totally in the public domain you can

find on Project Gutenberg. But what's going to happen? You're going to have to wait. You're going to have to wait till next Sunday for another episode of Cool Zone Media Book Club. In the meantime, I'm your host and your reader, Margaret Kiljoy. And you can find me on, if you listen to this on the It Could Happen Here feed, you can find me with my history podcast, Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff. And if you are listening to this already on Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, you can listen to Not Me on It Could Happen Here. It's all part of Cool Zone Media, which is what provides you your book club. I'm just going to press stop now.

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast Post Run High is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories,

their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships,

and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. all that talking, it's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards.