A Head Full of Ghosts

Content Warning: This Symbols & Motifs section contains references to mental health conditions.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is the name of a celebrated short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892), referenced by “Karen Brissette” in her blog. It is also the actual wallpaper affixed to the walls in the front hall of the Barrett home. “Karen” believes that misogyny and patriarchal authority enabled Dad, Father Wanderly, the male-led production crew, and Dr. Navidson to exploit Marjorie Barrett, and that they constructed her illness according to their values.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a young woman with postpartum depression is forced to defer to the treatment implemented by her physician-husband. Amidst veiled threats of being committed to a psychiatric hospital, he encourages her to rest. He dismisses her concerns and need to be free of the room wallpapered in yellow, which once detained another person with an illness and is slowly contributing to her growing psychosis.

Like the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Marjorie’s concerns about her illness are swept aside as “hysterical” and “irrational,” largely due to her youth and the perceived expertise of the men involved. She too worsens until, like the