In the late 19th Century, Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper,” considered over a century later to be a longstanding example of horror fiction.
The Augusta University Libraries received “The Literature of Prescription,” exhibit through the National Library of Medicine which focused on the novel. As the exhibit’s time at Reese Library comes to a close, English Professor Anna Harris-Parker gave a lecture about the history of the book and its role in American literature.
The short story, which Gilman wrote during a California heatwave in 1890 was first published in 1892 in The New England Magazine. The story follows the narrator, who is a young wife sent home for a rest cure after what a doctor decides is a “temporary nervous depression.” As the short story continues, she imagines a woman is behind the wallpaper in her bedroom and eventually starts to tear through the paper to search for the person. It is written as a series of journal entries, with sporadic dates because her husband had forbidden her from writing during her rest.
Harris-Parker’s lecture focused on the story and provided a context of feminism when the novel was written.
Meanwhile, the exhibit focuses on the history of the story, traditional practices by doctors on depressed women at the time and showcases rejections of the story before it got published.
The exhibit will remain at Reese Library through Saturday, Sept. 21. If you are unable to see the exhibit, the accompanying information can be found here.
For those who have never read “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the story is available here.
