Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” originally published in 1892, fell into obscurity until 1973, when the Feminist Press reprinted it. Since then, scholars have suggested a range of compelling interpretations, suggesting it’s a condemnation of constricting women’s roles and the silencing of women under patriarchal medicine. In American Breakdown I add my own, first by describing Gilman’s own experience with neurasthenia, and then pointing out the story’s many allusions to arsenical wallpapers.
