the yellow wallpaper - charlotte perkins gilman (π 6/10)
that darn yellow wallpaper ruins everything!! [6/10]
i'm embarrassed to say this extremely short book took me a few days to read when it could easily be finished in a few minutes. in my defense i was very busy!!
anyway, i'm sure this was revolutionary during its time, and that i can't deny that it had something significant to say about the oppression of women, of mental illness, the medical malpractice at the time, and how women were isolated in all sense of the word (physical, emotional, mental - i hate how john infantalizes her at times and hate john in general). also arsenic poisoning!! the text captures all these in the short time it has quite alright, but honestly i feel very bad in saying that while the concept is GOOD, it just doesn't capture me as a story.
is it because of the language? i'm not exactly a native english speaker, and so my flow was interrupted by me scratching my head over some parts. and the flow in general loses me, because i couldn't properly tell the transition of time apart from what the narrator writes to us. even then, each transition to me felt abrupt. as a literary experience, i just didn't find myself enjoying it too muchβi appreciate it more as text than a story... if that makes sense??
i'm sure it has much more going for it. maybe i just couldn't see it yet? but i went into this book already knowing the context, that the woman's mental illness spiral warps the yellow wallpaper so bad and yet no one seems to take her mental illness seriously because they're all too dismissive of her fantasies and fascinations. and i came out of this book thinking that i could have just... stuck with that context and went on in my life, since i don't think the book added anything new to that idea. apart from that ending, i guess! i feel like this is too mean to say.
oh and jane should have killed john with a rock.