The Literature of Prescription: Home page

In the late 19th century, at a time when women were challenging traditional ideas about gender that excluded them from political and intellectual life, medical and scientific experts drew on notions of female weakness to justify inequality between the sexes…

CONTINUE to Introduction A woman at seated at a desk, turning towards her left to look at viewer.

Founded a year before Charlotte enrolled, the Rhode Island School of Design offered a place for her to hone her creativity. Women played a prominent role at the school. Many of the founders, leaders, and financial supporters were women.

CONTINUE to The Author’s Life Illustration of a woman drawing at a desk in a room filled with art.

After a month of treatment by Mitchell, Charlotte was sent home to continue the regimen of rest. Far from getting better, she became increasingly distressed and began to fear that the method was bad for her health. She decided to end the rest cure and her marriage.

CONTINUE to The Woman Question Dr. Mitchell examining a male patient in left foreground while a group of men and women look on.

The story ends with the narrator’s husband discovering his wife maniacally circling the bedroom, surrounded by the tattered shreds of paper she has torn from the walls. He faints at the sight.

CONTINUE to A Terrifying Tale Illustration of a woman leaning over an unconscious man

Scudder rejected the piece outright. Instead, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” was published more than a year after it was written, in The New England Magazine, in January 1892. Readers were intrigued and disturbed.

CONTINUE to Reading “The Yellow Wall-Paper” Handwritten letter.

While some 19th-century readers did appreciate the message hidden in “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” the story also resonated with many in the women’s movement of the 1970s. Since their rediscovery of the tale, the text has been republished many times…

CONTINUE to The Author's Legacy A woman in dress and hat standing in front of a train car.