Medusa
When I saw this exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art ~ Sydney, Australia, passages from "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman began floating through my mind. Had Gary Carsley evoked / invoked Gilman intentionally or by coincidence? Either way, one glance at Carsley's "talking heads" brought Gilman's text to life. Re - reading the story, I felt almost convinced that the narrator was staring at the Carsley exhibit:
"The front pattern does move -- and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over.Whether or not Carsley's exhibit explicitly mentions Gilman's story, I felt a subtle connection and knew that I had to share it with my friend Rebecca, who has studied Gilman extensively and is the one who urged me to study "The Yellow Wallpaper" more thoroughly years ago in graduate school.
Then in the very ' bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard.
And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern -- it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads.
They get through, and then the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside down, and makes their eyes white!
If those heads were covered or taken off it would not be half so bad." (654)
As I was getting ready to share with Rebecca, the next coincidence came along. I turned to her facebook page and discovered that her most recent post contained a link to:
A Brief History or, Why I Teach "The Yellow Wallpaper"
By Terri Kapsalis
Rarely does the phrase "wandering uterus" come into my conversation, but
-- another coincidence! -- here it was twice in two weeks. A couple of weeks ago, Gerry and I started watching a new series, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, the very first episode of which contains a quasi-medical, half - joking reference to treating the "wandering womb." I remarked at the time whether "wandering womb" might be a pre - scientific term for "endometriosis"? As it turns out, yes, that is one important explanation.
Kapsalis suggests a few others:
"The uterus was believed to wander around the body like an animal, hungry for semen. If it wandered the wrong direction and made its way to the throat there would be choking, coughing or loss of voice, if it got stuck in the the rib cage, there would be chest pain or shortness of breath, and so on. Most any symptom that belonged to a female body could be attributed to that wandering uterus. 'Treatments,' including vaginal fumigations, bitter potions, balms, and pessaries made of wool, were used to bring that uterus back to its proper place."A google search will yield numerous insights into the disturbing tale of "The Yellow Wallpaper," and into the mind, life, and times of the author. Before checking out any of the others, read this one! Explaining the course she teaches ~ “The Wandering Uterus: Journeys through Gender, Race, and Medicine” ~ Kapsalis moves through history, literary criticism and fiction, medicine, mental health, gender issues, hate crimes, contemporary politics and economics, leaving no stone unturned -- even the weather plays a part:
"We know that the social toxins of living in a racist, misogynist, homophobic, and otherwise economically unjust society can literally make us sick, and that sickness is no less real than one brought on by polluted air or water. In actuality, both social and environmental toxins are inextricably intertwined as the very people subject to systemic social toxins (oppression, poverty) are usually the same folks impacted by the most extreme environmental toxins. And the people who point fingers and label others “hysterical” are the ones least directly impacted by said toxins."Kapsalis concludes that "I teach 'The Yellow Wallpaper' because I believe it can save people," echoing Gilman herself, who wrote: "But the best result is this. . . . It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked."
As Gilman's distressed narrator explains from the outset, "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a ghost story, although her husband is always ready to offer a practical explanation that "spoils my ghostliness." After a few more paragraphs, it becomes clear that the reader is also bearing witness to a descent into madness. Isolated from the family, denied meaningful work, and banned from creative expression, the narrator spends hour after hour sequestered in the yellow - papered, prison - like room, growing increasingly obsessed with the confusing random movement of the design. She hopes for order to emerge from the chaos, but it never does. Instead, a phantom woman appears, at first within the intricate design, then at the windows, then beyond. The narrator feels connected to this wandering yet trapped figure because their plights are similar:
" . . . there is something strange about the house - I can feel it. I even said so to John one moonlight evening, but he said what I felt was a draught, and shut the window." (648)
“There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will.” (652)
“It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight.” (654)
“I often wonder if I could see her out of all the windows at once. But, turn as fast as I can, I can only see out of one at one time. And though I always see her, she may be able to creep faster than I can turn! I have watched her sometimes away off in the open country, creeping as fast as a cloud shadow in a high wind.” (655)
Last week, another annoying, local coincidence reinforced the message of Gilman's story. Well in advance of garbage day, an ugly old yellow - patterned couch appeared out on the curb of our street, just a few houses down from us, a sorry sight for the neighbors to endure for several days. Truly, every time I biked past, it was driving me a little crazier than the time before! It seemed to embody the reason that Gilman chose yellow for the offending wallpaper!
Remember Hailstones and Halibut Bones, the enchanting childhood poetry collection in which each color "has a taste . . . a smell . . . a wonderful story to tell?" Yellow, for example, "is the color of the sun / The feeling of fun / The yolk of an egg . . . And a daffodil . . . sweet corn / Ripe oats . . . Summer squash and / Chinese silk . . ." (Mary O'Neill). If only Gilman's imprisoned heroine could lay hold of such nostalgic joy, but to her dismay, and ours, her reaction is the exact opposite:
"It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw – not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things. But there is something else about that paper – the smell! ... The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell." [654]
And for one last connection: in searching for material on Gilman and "The Yellow Wallpaper," I came across this collection, featuring a painting of Gilman herself, nursing her newborn:
and more about the cover painting:
"Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Breastfeeding her Baby Katharine"
How timely that my friend Brendan had recently spoken out against the latest misogynistic incident of breastfeeding hysteria, and I had posted this photo of what it looks like, more often than not, to breastfeed a baby in public:
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