Library Exhibition: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Each term, the Academy Library features an exhibit on the first floor, its topics spanning from Harry Potter to women’s rights. An exhibit from the National Library of Medicine was recently installed on the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
“I think it’s so important not just to say that diversity is important, but to actually engage with the works of women.”
Published in 1892, the short story is about a woman who is separated from her baby and told to stop expressing herself through writing. Gilman fictionalized her own history of mental illness in a haunting tale which depicts a woman, prescribed bed rest by her doctor, who becomes trapped within the walls of her own bedroom. According to Reference Librarian Virginia Rohloff, the woman in Gilman’s short story suffers from an undiagnosed mental illness, which has been speculated to be neurasthenia or postpartum depression.
Coviello also saw Gilman’s defiance and determination as an inspiration. “She decided, after a month, to dismiss the doctor and do what she wanted to do. And I thought that was very interesting,” Coviello said.When one walks onto the first floor of the library, surrounding them are posters detailing Gilman’s life story, writings and thoughts. The posters affixed to each side of the room educate the reader on Gilman’s struggle, from shunning, to bedrest and eventually, suicide. “It was very interesting to read about how she grew up and how she was diagnosed with the [mental] disease,” prep Rose Coviello said. “And how her doctor decided to justify bedrest and isolation, because she was getting overeducated and working beyond the societal limits for a woman.”
In the story, the doctor’s prescription of rest made the main character’s pain and suffering worse. Rohloff believes that one of Gilman’s main reasons for writing the story was to prevent others from having similar experiences to the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” “I think she really fought for the fact that you didn’t have to stay in these traditional roles of wife and mother,” Rohloff said. “And she believed in women being able to not marry. So you don’t have to be a mother at all, you don’t have to get married, you can work.” At the time, Gilman’s effort to defy gender inequality was a new concept to many readers. Today, we can appreciate her work as the beginning of an ongoing battle against gender inequality while celebrating the victories of women since that time. “In terms of how women are treated, and in terms of mental health, I still think some of the things that Charlotte Perkins Gilman was dealing with back in the nineteenth century are still somewhat of a struggle today in terms of how women are treated.” Rohloff said. According to her, this topic has been neglected and needs to be addressed as a pressing issue.
English Instructor Courtney Marshall, who will be delivering a lecture on “The Yellow Wallpaper” in the library on Apr. 19, thinks that it is important to connect the struggles displayed in Gilman’s story with the struggles women face today. “So everything from how women might feel silenced in a relationship, how women might be dealing with depression or mental illness, because that’s still a debate in the story, but also how do women fight back against that,” she said.
Others publicize works such as Gilman’s for the purpose of educating readers on what was happening so many years ago. “I think that educating modern readers about a very timeless work I think was published over a hundred years ago is very important,” senior Ali Hassani said. “I think it conveys the helplessness and madness that some women face when put in a situation like the protagonist of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ was.”
Marshall agreed with Hassani’s sentiment, explaining why she believes that students should read feminist literature. “I think it’s so important not just to say that diversity is important, but to actually engage with the works of women,” Marshall said. “You can’t really say you care about women without reading the stories that they write.”
One of the main goals of the library exhibits is to provide material for students to utilize in the classroom and in their course work. “I think that with any exhibit we bring, our hope is that they’ll be able to use their knowledge in class discussion,” Rohloff said. In fact, the exhibit provided the opportunity for Marshall to put “The Yellow Wallpaper” on the syllabus of some of her English classes. “I thought this exhibit would be so great to get out and see and touch and learn about the actual writer,” she said. “I also hope it will get people writing their own stories, certainly thinking about what it means to be a woman in 2017. For example, what things are different, what things are the same.”
For lower Abby Zhang, the posters helped her compare the way things are now to the way they were in the 1800’s. “I think it just shows how far we’ve come. But obviously there’s still work to be done,” she said. “Most of this is in the past, however it applies to life today, just because I think what she was pushing for and her ideas, that fight for [equality] is never really going to be over.”