Patterns of despair. Yellow, very yellow.

 

Bilingual Edition.

The Yellow Wall-Paper (El Tapiz Amarillo) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

It is an itchy subject, being downplayed. I have experienced it for a long time, and found it frustrating, later annoying and now ungracefully funny, and it never had any terrible consequences, but it can and in some cases, also lead to very distressing situations. There are things that are being constantly tucked in under the rug with a wooden calm reeking of hidden unsteadiness. Eventually we discover that those things always tend to pour, breaking free, albeit transformed. Feelings, experiences, even people; boxed in horrible rooms with unnerving wallpapers. If you add to the mix some cringeworthy social factors like strict traditional gender roles, submission, economic and psychologic dependence, notions of inferiority, inequality… boom! An explosive mix.

Random mumbling.

We are in the 1890´s and the place of women was still terrible, and one may think, 1890? That was a long time ago! Is it? Just starting on year 0, mind everything else, 1890 years and that was the best we could make? It is a shame. And even now, there are places with horrible conditions, and in better places, there are still questionable notions, but well, getting back to the book… You must marry and be a mother, serve your husband, give him the properties you have, professional work is nonsense, he will make all the decisions because women are like children, also hysterical beings. In this mindset, we have the short telling of a woman´s psychological deterioration after having postpartum depression, she is creative and inquisitive, a writer in the hands of her husband that is a physician and of course, knows best.

And then...

It is a short story, so let’s stop there. A very good one, in a few pages, all those themes are portrayed tragically in this specific case. I found very interesting the constant internal battle of trying to reconcile her thoughts and feelings with the notions of her husband and the time. Guess which one wins.

It’s so easy to turn blind and deaf. I hope we keep learning.