So. This story. Yea. I first read this about a year ago, and when I saw it on our syallbus, I was actually a little creeped out. (It's following me...) This story sticks with me.
It's awesome--in a really dark, gruesome way. We're basically watching a woman's mind turn to scrambled eggs. Brilliantly written, anyway; it's like the author herself was going insane while writing it. The unnamed narrator fixates on this yellow wallpaper. The words she uses to describe the paper are, for lack of a better word, horrifying. She says it is an unclean, smouldering color, bordering on revolting, with some places colored a "sickly sulphur tint." The pattern she describes as committing artistic sin (which is a beautiful choice of words), and says that if one follows the curves of the pattern long enough they--wait for it--commit suicide... Who the hell thinks of something like that? Then she obsesses over these figures she keeps seeing behind the pattern. She thinks the figure is trapped and that she needs to free it. She's certifiable at this point.
After reading through the entire story, I even felt crazy. The imagery was beautiful; it could not have been more realistic and dark. Possibly more macabre than the movie Se7en. I may be committing literary blasphemy by saying this, but I think this story is darker and more pyschotic than anything Poe ever wrote.
(Forgive me, literature gods)
The literature gods are going to kill you in your sleep. Or not.
ReplyDeleteI love that line about the pattern committing suicide, too. I can't stand it when the wallpaper doesn't match up, but I'm happy to say that I've never supposed myself to be trapped behind it. Can't say I love being creeped-out by stories, but I'm glad someone does. :)