‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a short story first published in January 1892. The psychological thriller by the renowned US women’s rights writer and campaigner is an autobiographical-inspired novella based upon her own experience of severe postnatal depression, leading to post-natal psychosis. At the time, women with PND (known in America as postpartum depression) were seen as hysterical and were often dismissed by doctors who overlooked treatment options through lack of understanding of the condition. In Perkins’ short story, written tellingly from the first-person perspective, the nameless female protagonist is forced to sleep in an attic with yellow wallpaper and is driven mad by her enforced imprisonment following the birth of her first child. The book describes in detail how she sees imagined beings and ghostly sightings in the house. Disturbing in its nature yet utterly realistic to the heroine, the protagonist offers a diary-style narrative detailing her experience as a new mother suffering with severe mental illness: "I don’t know why I should write this. I don’t want to. I don’t feel able. And I know John would think it absurd. But I must say what I feel and think in some way—it is such a relief! But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief." Evoking gothic themes of Charlotte Bronte’s 'Jane Eyre', in both Jane Eyre’s own tortuous and notorious Red Room and Bertha Mason's confinement in her loft prison, the book was made into a film in 2011 – directed by Logan Thomas and starring Aric Cushing and Juliet Landau. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, also known as Charlotte Perkins Stetson, was born on 3rd July 1860 in Connecticut, USA. Her early family life was troubled, with her father abandoning his wife and family; a move which strongly influenced her feminist political leanings and advocator of women’s rights. After jobs as a tutor and painter, Perkins – a self- declared humanist and ‘tom boy’ – began to work as a writer of short stories, novels, non-fiction pieces and poetry. Her best known work is her semi-autobiographical short story, inspired by her post-natal depression, entitled ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ which was published in 1892 and made into a film in 2011. A member of the American National Women's Hall of Fame, Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a strong believer that "the domestic environment oppressed women through the patriarchal beliefs upheld by society". A believer in euthanasia, she was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer in January 1932 and chose to take her own life in August 1935, writing in her suicide note that she "chose chloroform over cancer".

黄色い壁紙（きいろいかべがみ、原題：The Yellow Wall-paper. A Story）、黄色の壁紙は、1892年1月にThe New England Magazine において最初に公表された、アメリカの作家シャーロット・パーキンス・ギルマンによる6,000語の短編である[1]。本作は、19世紀における女性の身体的・精神的な健康に対する態度を描写するものとして、アメリカのフェミニスト文学の初期における重要な作品とされている。物語は一人称で記載されており、医師である夫（ジョン）が借りた古い邸宅で一夏を過ごす女性が書いた日記いう体裁となっている。主人公らは、邸宅のほかの部屋は使わず、2階の子供部屋で暮らすこととした。主人公は、「一時的な神経衰弱ー軽度のヒステリー傾向」と夫が称するもの（当時の女性に対する一般的な診断であった）から回復できるよう、治療の一形態として、働くことを禁じられ、よく食べ、よく運動し、たくさん呼吸をするよう勧められていた[2][3]。主人公は、身体に過度の負担をかけているとして叱責されるのを恐れ、夫と、家事を手伝いに来ている夫の妹には、日記を隠している。 部屋の窓は子どもたちが登ってくるのを防ぐために格子がかけられており、階段の上には門があるが、主人公とその夫は邸宅のほかの場所や隣接する土地に立ち入ることができるようになっている。「黄色い壁紙」『フリー百科事典　ウィキペディア日本語版』。2023年5月19日 (金) 22:41　UTC、URL: https://ja.wikipedia.org