A feminist classic, the hazards of letting doctors make all your life decisions, and a Finnish whiskey that apparently tastes like a campfire got put out with old person candy. Plus, genuinely alien aliens, literary reputation whiplash, and a reminder that the scariest rooms aren’t always the haunted ones. Welcome to Whiskey and the Weird, a podcast exploring the British Library Tales of the Weird series! This season, we're pondering what could have been with our ninth book in the vast collection, Roads of Destiny: And Other Tales of Alternative Histories and Parallel Realms, edited by Alasdair Richmond. In this episode, our featured story is: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Bar Talk (our recommendations):
Jessica is reading Baldwin: a Love Story by Nicholas Boggs; drinking Freeland Spirits Rye.
Damien is watching Mother of Flies (2025; dir. Adams Family); drinking Kyrö Wood Smoke Whisky.
Ryan is reading Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky; drinking Ardbeg Uigeadail.
If you liked this week’s story, read Lakewood by Megan Giddings.
Up next: "Scarrowfell" by Robert Holdstock
Special thank you to Dr Blake Brandes for our Whiskey and the Weird music!
Like, rate, and follow! Check us out @whiskeyandtheweird on Instagram, Threads & Facebook, and at whiskeyandtheweird.com
Ryan: [00:00:00] this is the trouble with Gilman, friends. When you start to look beneath the surface, things don't look the way you would expect them to for this well-known feminist and social reformer.
Sure, she wrote against slavery, but she recommended then that poor Black Americans be enlisted into a paramilitary state labor force- ... which sounds remarkably like- Welcome back, everybody. I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Berg.
Damien: And I am Damien Smith,
yeah.
Ryan: And together- Oh, God ... we're Whiskey and the Weird, the podcast that for the past eight seasons has been bringing you unrivaled literary critiques- ... of the best of yesteryear's weird fiction.
Jess: Yep.
Ryan: I said, "Unrivaled," Jess.
Jess: Uh-huh. I heard.
Ryan: At least as collected in the British Library's Tales of the Weird series. Each season we have journeyed together through one edition of [00:01:00] this now voluminous series, and each episode we've turned to one story for some in-depth discussion, but never along the expected path. If you don't want the stories spoiled, make sure you read them before the discussion.
S- stands to reason. Alternatively, you can let our summaries-
Damien: Yeah, this is Spoiler Alert 101, you know?
Ryan: Right. Let our summaries do the job for you. But y- be warned, , we cover everything. This season, friends, we were fated to pluck the strings of the multiverse as we take a dimensional left at the corner of reality to trek through Roads of Destiny, and other tales of alternative histories and parallel realms.
Very long subtitle. Edited by Alasdair Richmond. But look there, through the fog.
Damien: Huh?
Ryan: Is that a road sign I see with an, with an arrow? But which way is it pointing, and to what time, [00:02:00] time or, or a place? Where am I? What's that shifting behind the wallpaper? Jessica, help. What are we doing?
Jess: Oh my God. Okay. We are covering-
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Ryan: I think I've heard of that story.
Damien: Yeah.
Jess: I think a few people might have read this one.
Damien: One or two.
Ryan: This is a, this is a big one tonight. This is a popular one.
Jess: This might be- This is a popular one ... our most read story,
Ryan: right? It might be.
Damien: Really?
Jess: Yeah. It's like-
Ryan: It could be up there with the Poe, with the, uh,
Damien: Lovecraft.
I thought
Ryan: we had a couple of
Damien: Algernon Blackwoods that were pretty popular.
Ryan: I think this one might be bigger than Blackwood.
Damien: All right.
Ryan: What? Never fails
Damien: Go to bed.
Ryan: Well, before we digress too far-
Jess: Uh-huh ...
Ryan: we've got some bar talk to do. Damian, what's in your glass- What is- ... bringing you so much frivolity this evening?
Damian,
Jess: what's happening?
Damien: Dang, I am sipping on an [00:03:00] absolute smoke bomb. Have you ever heard of Kyro or Kyro Wood Smoke Whiskey, either of you? No. No. No. Either of you? Let's Google it. It says it's 100% malted Finnish whole grain rye. That's right, straight out of Finland. Ooh. The land of Finns. It is a, it is a punch in the face.
It's born in a sauna. It, it really is, a sauna. It's, it's delivering a lot of hygge. I don't know if that's, if that's necessarily in Finland as much as it is in the Nordics, but- I'm
Ryan: gonna need subtitles.
Damien: Yeah. This one, when they say wood smoke whiskey, they are not joking. So this is my first foray into Finnish whiskey.
I decided to go with an absolute-
Ryan: Good ... shot. It might be the Finnish's first foray into whiskey
Damien: too, for that matter. Emmett, I know, seriously. It might be. But this is, everything that you love about Islay scotches, except for the salinity. Mm-hmm. I mean, these are just, it's an absolute smoke bomb.
But I guess they take a lot of, pride into the smoke that they use, [00:04:00] 'cause it's, like, smoked in a 100-year-old barn. Yeah, that's what it says right here. An older one. Yeah. So it's- French oak. It's, it's pretty wild.
Ryan: It'd be more hardcore if it was just the French.
Damien: Big, big, big pepper on the nose. Like, huge spice on the nose, and then when you take a sip, you're licking an ashtray.
It is crazy smoky. Oof. I don't know if it's one that I would buy a full bottle of.
Jess: Was it in your little sampler?
Damien: It was in my sampler, yeah. But it's, it was worth giving a shout-out, because if you do appreciate those wee beasties or, you know, those mega smoke bombs, those Islay scotches-
Jess: I do not
Damien: give this one a try. I wanna try it. I wanna try it, Damian. But be, be forewarned. It, it, it is like you're eating a, a burnt out cigarette. It is just- Mm. Woo.
Jess: What
Damien: a fun time. It's a tough one. A little bit of sweetness. Little bit of sweetness, just a bit, but it's crazy. So that's- Burnt out cigarette
Ryan: with an
Damien: after-dinner
Ryan: mint
Damien: that's, with a Werther's Original. So that's [00:05:00] Kyro. It's K-Y-R-O with a umlaut over it, Wood Smoke Whiskey. So give it a shot if that's your jam. As far as things that I've read or things that I want to read or have watched, okay, I got one. Just, so I know that Ryan at least is a big fan of the Addams Family films.
Ryan: Yeah.
Damien: The Addams Family, not, not, not those Oh, I was
Jess: thinking the da, na, na, na.
Damien: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Single D- Listen, those are also good So I watched their newest called Mother of Flies on Shudder, and it stars them, as always. They're not the best actors, but man, I'll tell you what, they can tell a story. And while it didn't have all the rock and roll horror dread that I think Hellbender had-
Ryan: Hellbender, yeah.
It's... This is a quieter story, for sure.
Damien: This one is a much [00:06:00] quieter story. Puts their daughter at the center, Zelda Addams. She's the central figure, and essentially it's this, you know, early 20s gal and her dad go out to find this forest witch who is a last course of action for a tumor that she has that's inoperable- Mm-hmm
and it's gonna take her out, and she's just like, "I wanna go do it." So they find her. Her name's Solveig. And some craziness ensues. Some- And the craziness involves a lot of thorns. Mm. A lot of- Yeah ... a lot of mature and immature flies. Mm. A couple dead foxes. There's a salad. The thorn
Ryan: magic, though, was strong in this.
Damien: The thorn magic is very strong. It gave um, weapons. You know, there's a little- Yeah ... thorn magic in weapons, too. So the witchery is powerful in this one. I thought that the story, like I d- I honestly had no idea where it was going, and then it gave a nice little couple switchbacks a few times on the, on the plot and made sense of some of the early visual [00:07:00] chicanery that you were just like, "What the heck was that?"
So appreciative of it. I think I still prefer Hellbender, but I think this was a little bit more of an artier piece, and it was an enjoyable watch. So that was The Addams Family's- ... 2025 release, uh, called Mother of Flies. How about you, Jess? What are you reading and drinking?
Jess: Well, in honor of feminism, because of the story that we're reading, I'm drinking a Freeland Spirits rye.
I usually get their bourbon, but I splurged a little bit on the rye. How tall is the bottle? Uh, it's- It's short. I can tell you that ... it's not very tall.
Damien: Good.
Jess: And it's... Okay, so, like, the rye is good. I like the bourbon more on this one. But this one I have almost always bought exclusively for the bottle, 'cause it has this really beautiful teardrop shape.
Damien: Oh, nice.
Jess: Yeah, it's really pretty. But it is women-run, women-owned, women-brewed, distilled, whatever. And it's from Portland, so I [00:08:00] pick it up whenever I am there, and I got a nicer bottle this time, again, for feminism. And I just read Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs- Mm-hmm ... which is the newest James Baldwin biography.
It's this big, beefy 700-pager, but it has a really interesting way of recapping his life, where most biographies, and honestly I have not read that many, sort of recap his work. This one focuses on, like, where he was and who he was with and how that's reflected in his plays and fiction and nonfiction and stuff, and what he was shuffling in between, and keeping tabs on all of the people cycling around him in a really interesting way.
It's good. It was a, a big old book. It took a while-
Damien: A big old honking
Jess: book ... to get through.
Damien: What a tome.
Jess: I think it's, I think it's back there.
Damien: Oh, yeah, look at that. It's, it's bowing down your, the shelf.
Jess: But it was good. That one, I think it just came out, oh, the very end [00:09:00] of last year maybe. So that was a really cool read.
I don't read as much nonfiction as I feel like I should, and so I'm trying to remedy that a 700-page book at a time. Ryan- That's one way to
Ryan: start.
Jess: You know, go big, et cetera. Ryan, what are you drinking?
Ryan: Well, I h- I have a lovely whiskey tonight, and I'm, I'm joining Damian in the, in the smoke world of whiskeys.
We recently had our, at the time of recording anyway, recently had our Burns night celebration, and so that always brings- Ooh ... a whole bunch of new whiskeys to our house, and this was one of my offerings for the evening. This is the Ardbeg Uigeadail, sometimes just called the Ardbeg- Ooh ... Oogie.
Damien: Gosh.
Ryan: Oogie. This is their, this is their, it's not their, their top-shelf offering from Ardbeg, but it's the mid-shelf. It's b- it's between their initial 10-year offering and, and their top-shelf stuff. This is very good. Ardbeg was once described to me by a friend as tasting of blood and earth and salt, and that's a good description.
That, those intense [00:10:00] flavors are a bit more mellowed in this more matured whiskey. This has a lot more flavor to it than a, than the Ardbeg. Just regular Ardbeg just hits you over the head with the smoke and the salt.
Damien: So when you say flavor, I mean, if you say blood and salt and earth, like-
Ryan: This is, yeah, this, this is-
Damien: what
Ryan: flavor does this come out as? Uh, is that, like, a mellow- This is, this has got some caramel notes to it at the, at the end. So right up front is- Oh ... it's got that salinity, and it's, and it's got that peatiness that y- you would expect from an Islay whiskey, but this definitely has some sweet caramel notes at the end.
This is, this is a whiskey that's very easy to drink. Right. I'm en- I'm enjoying it quite a lot, so Ardbeg Oogie if you're, if you're in the, in the mood for something smoky and a little sweet at the end- When you say- ... coming from the, the Islay region.
Damien: When you say Oogie, I think of Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas.
Mm-hmm. That, yeah, of course. And that might
Ryan: not be what you guys were thinking about. That might be intentional.
Damien: Yeah. And that's, that's just fun. Like, it makes me wanna try it even more. He's the brewer. Yeah. He's the brewer. Squeezer. I don't know. How do you make whiskey? Do you, do you drip it? You stir
Jess: it.[00:11:00]
He's in there stirring it up.
Damien: With a big wooden paddle
Ryan: I don't even know where we are anymore.
Damien: Sorry, Ryan.
Jess: Yeah, that Oogie Boogie.
Ryan: I don't know
Damien: if it's out. I don't know if you've
Ryan: read or
Damien: watched-
Ryan: Anyway, yeah, I, so I just finished a, a book by Adrian Tchaikovsky, who's a sci-fi/fantasy writer that I wanna read more of.
I've read a couple of things by him, and I've liked each one. This was one of his latest novels called Shroud. It was not at all what I was expecting. I was expecting a first contact alien story, and it is that- Mm-hmm ... but it is much more in the vein of something really classically sci-fi like Arthur C.
Clarke. Do not read this book if you're interested in any way, shape, or form in character development because the characters- ... are just there as, as, as stand-ins for things to happen to them.
Damien: Perfect. Great. You know, one of those core components in storytelling, but-
Ryan: Right. Yeah. Can't have everything
I'm not even sure I could tell you the main character's name at the end of the book
Jess: Doug [00:12:00] probably.
Damien: It
Ryan: was
Damien: Doug.
Ryan: But fascinating... I think it was a woman, so I don't think it was Doug, but maybe it was. Fascinating things happen to these people, and what I loved about what Tchaikovsky was able to do here was to make the aliens so incredibly alien.
Like, it's so different from, from anything that we have any commonality with. These are-
Damien: I love that. I love when someone-
Ryan: Yeah ...
Damien: takes an alien, like you wanna talk alien? It's just bizarre. No, it's not a little gray or it's not a- No ... gray man or whatever. No. It's just like a c- it's like a vapor or it's like a, you know, like a concept.
Ryan: Yeah. These things were... They lived in a, they lived on a moon that was so saturated with electromagnetic energy that to try to, to, to listen through that, it was just, it was just like turning on your TV to, to, to snow- All right ... and then just jacking the volume all the way up. And so the way these things communicated was by crossing tones against the snow.
It was really wild, and they were like maggots in these exoskeletons that they had built. It was [00:13:00] weird. Wow. So it's the, it's- Mm. The s- the story is the, the, the journey of these two astronauts, I guess you can call them, who crash land quite by accident on this planet, Shroud, and have to make their way across the planet to the other hemisphere in order to find the window that, that they can then be rescued by the, by their, their mothership, I guess.
Damien: All right.
Ryan: So yeah, cla- it's really classic hardcore sci-fi. It moves along at a, I would call it a moderately brisk pace. So just when you're starting to, to get a little tired of this section of what's going on in the world- All right ... he, he moves you on to the next one. So like a suburban speed walker pace.
So Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Yeah. Cool. Suburban speed walker pace. Weight on the ankles. Swinging those weights. All right. Good, good, good. Yeah, swinging those weights.
Damien: All right. All right.
Ryan: Um, I wanna read more Tchaikovsky still. I like, I like his style. All right. So that's Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Damien: All right.
Ryan: And that's gonna take us to our author and publication info for this evening, and, and as we mentioned before in the intro, we've got a doozy. We've got Charlotte Anna [00:14:00] Perkins Gilman, who was born on July the 3rd, 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut, as the United States stood on the brink of the Civil War.
Her parents were Frederick Beecher Perkins and Mary Fitch Westcott. She had one older brother called Thomas. When they were both very young, their father abandoned the family- ... leaving them destitute. After that, the family got a lot of help from Frederick's sisters, who included Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.
That, I didn't know that tidbit. Because of this fraught childhood, Charlotte's schooling was rather haphazard and incomplete. Somewhat oddly, Charlotte's mother forbade her reading fiction, but you know what they say about forbidding children anything, and Charlotte developed- ... a fondness for reading anyway, courtesy of, Jess will like this part, the public library.
Whoop, whoop. She grew up in Providence, Rhode [00:15:00] Island, and eventually attended the Rhode Island School of Design. Charlotte's young love life was fraught as well, as it was widely believed she had a romance with a woman in college. Oh. She did what? Say it ain't so. In college? But when that ended, you're not gonna believe how this story ends either.
That ended in that woman's marriage to a man.
Damien: Oh, get out of Dodge.
Ryan: Yeah. When that happened, the lovesick Charlotte forswore all romance forever and ever, amen. But this didn't last- Hmm ... as she met and married Charles Walter Stetson in 1884. Less than- Sounds funky ... a year passed. Maybe, maybe not. Less than a year passed before she gave birth to her daughter, Katherine.
Motherhood sent Charlotte spiraling into a postpartum depression that is generally acknowledged to be the source material for our story tonight. It was only when Gilman was away from Stetson that her [00:16:00] cloud of depression dissipated.
Damien: Hmm.
Ryan: 1888 saw their formal separation, with the divorce being finalized in 1894.
Gilman then met Adeline Knapp, and they had a romance, but it didn't last either. Following her divorce, she sent her daughter to live with her ex-husband and his new wife, and demonstrated, at least for the time, some remarkably progressive ideas about divorce and remarriage, and parental rights. She then became heavily involved in the feminist movement and other social reform groups, eventually representing California at the 1896 National American Women's Suffrage Association convention in Washington, DC.
She did a lot of lecturing, as well as writing, ultimately publishing six books of nonfiction, as well as a novel and several works of short fiction now known to be classics. Her nonfiction essays spread her [00:17:00] ideas on social topics such as women's rights, feminism, anti-slavery, and economic reform for Black Americans, animal rights, and unfortunately, eugenics.
Jess: Yep.
Ryan: Yeah. And I'm afraid that this part of the biography is just gonna be a consistent disappointment for Jess.
Jess: Oh, no, I know what's coming.
Ryan: Okay. At least you're forewarned.
Jess: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ryan: That's why I bought the book. This is, this is the trouble with Gilman, friends. When you start to look beneath the surface, things don't look the way you would expect them to for this well-known feminist and social reformer.
Sure, she wrote against slavery, but she recommended then that poor Black Americans be enlisted into a paramilitary state labor force- ... which sounds remarkably like- It's because of these disturbing findings that The Yellow Wallpaper is often separated out from her other work. But a few critics, at least, [00:18:00] suggest that that may not be good enough Gilman had plenty of good ideas, but also plenty of bad ones.
Now, on this podcast, we're no strangers to the concept of separating art from artist. But I feel like with folks like Lovecraft and Howard, at least their poor ideas are generally more well-known. With Gilman, I'd never heard anything about her except unadulterated praise. Perhaps fodder for more discussion, but it is time now to wrap up this bio.
Gilman was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer in 1932.
Damien: Ah.
Ryan: Always an advocate for euthanasia for the terminally ill, she died by suicide, an overdose of chloroform for the curious, in 1935. Oh my God. The Yellow Wallpaper was originally published in the January 1892 edition of The New England Magazine.
And Jess, I believe, has the honor of presenting our summary tonight. [00:19:00]
Damien: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. A lot to unpack there, first of all.
Ryan: There is a lot to unpack,
Damien: absolutely. That's a lot to unpack. Interesting because the- I, I see what you're saying, Ryan, and it's unfair, but it's true. Like, I've only heard praise for Gilman.
Right. Right. And this, that sort of like- This
Ryan: comes out of left field for me.
Damien: Yeah, that sort of- It was a shock ... that sort of reveal is a gut punch similar to Daphne du Maurier's accusations of plagiarism. Oh,
Ryan: the plagiarism
Damien: stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Where it was like, what? But then that's another female author, and I feel like I'm being a little gender-skewed here because I'm not attributing that same level of shock and surprise to, you know, to the, the Lovecrafts and-
Ryan: Right.
But I don't know that that's unfair, Damien, because, you know, things being what they were at the time, the male authors were much more well-known. But- So the
Jess: flip of it would be, too- And still currently, right? And s- yeah. Like, there's, there's not a Charlotte Perkins Gilman convention that- No ... that you go to eugenics via- Which would be, which would also be in
Damien: Providence, Rhode Island, which
Jess: is where the Gilman- It [00:20:00] would also be in Providence.
Ryan: See, they, they've got all the good conventions up there.
Jess: Well, what if I... Maybe I'll stage-
Ryan: You could start it.
Jess: Yeah, but during the Lovecraft one. I'll just start my own- ... in the hallway.
Damien: You, you'll have these, you'll have these-
Jess: Hi, gentles Just start putting up
Ryan: Yellow Wallpaper
Jess: everywhere. Yep. Everyone'll get it.
Damien: And then you're like, "Look, hear me out. Paramilitary force by, well, let's just call indentured Black servants. I don't know." God. "Just hear me out."
Jess: I think it's just safe to assume that most ye olde timey authors- Right ... probably had some real, real terrible thoughts about something.
Ryan: Yeah. Even the ones that may have been trying to say something good.
Damien: Right.
Ryan: I mean, right? Which makes you think about our own times. Like, are, are people 200 years from now gonna look back at some of the things we thought were progressive- Oh, yes ... and think they were just ridiculous? Yes.
Jess: Yeah. I think you can look at a lot of them now and be like, "That's bad." Far
Damien: and ever.
Well, and Ryan's, Ryan's trying to give it out and say that they'll look back and say, "Well, I see what they were trying to accomplish," and it's like, eh. Mm. I don't know. [00:21:00] Yeah. I don't know. The writing's on the wall. Anyway, sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt.
Ryan: No, but it, it really, it really did come as a shock as I was, as I was looking into, to Gilman, that, you know, I just heard nothing, nothing but good things.
And then it's like there, there, there were several other things that I didn't put into the bio, so,
Damien: ugh,
Ryan: I think, I think one of the stories she wrote is a mosaic novel called Herland, which is- Yep ... a big feminist thing. But, but the things that she...
Damien: Big old feminist thing.
Ryan: Oh, I see. Yes.
Well, it is. Uh, and, and, and the things that, that she presents as solutions in that are, are just pretty bad.
Damien: Yeah. Tune into our bonus episode where we pick apart all those assertions and- Yeah,
Jess: take
Damien: that,
Jess: Charlotte ...
Damien: high falluties. Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah, our new podcast, forthcoming, Big Ol' Feminist Things.
Damien: Up yours, Chuck.
Takedown of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's best. Anyway...
Ryan: Well, Jessica, would you like to proceed with [00:22:00] your summary?
Jess: Oh, heck yeah. Okay, here we go. Our unnamed narrator is celebrating the absolute bangin' party mansion that she and her husband John have rented for the summer. It's a colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, with ancestral halls, et cetera, et cetera.
Mm. But also, maybe haunted.
Ryan: Mm.
Jess: Probably not, but it is a little weird, and has been emptier longer than you'd expect a bangin' party mansion like this to sit empty. She shares her- There's your first
Ryan: clue. Yeah.
Jess: She shares her thoughts with her dear hubby, and we get the sentence that immediately sets the tone for our story, "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in a marriage."
Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Anyway, John is practical in all ways, and those ways include dismissing his lovely wife's illness. He's a physician who doesn't really think his wife is sick, she's just hysterically nervous. Our narrator's brother agrees, so the narrator takes meds and tonics that she's not [00:23:00] really clear on, gets some air, and is forbidden from working until she's better.
Even though they don't think she's ill, we're resting. Folks, it's a rest cure. Our narrator believes that a little work would probably actually do her good. She's not supposed to be writing, but here she is taking notes in her journal. She's also not supposed to think about her illness, so she writes about the house instead.
It is big, back from the road, has hedges and gates and outbuildings. The garden, it's amazing. We're talking arbors, we're talking paths. Greenhouses once, but they're looking a little smashed at the moment. But she can feel something strange about the house.
Damien: Ooh, what's that?
Jess: Again, when she tries to tell John, he dismisses her.
She gets angrier at him than she used to, but supposes it's just this condition. Anyway, the house doesn't really matter because she's mostly confined to one room. Not the big first-floor room that she wanted with the doors that open to the rose [00:24:00] garden, but a room upstairs that she immediately dislikes.
She's overruled by John, obviously. Our upstairs room used to be a nursery, and then a playroom, and eventually a gymnasium. So even though the room is full of windows, they're barred to keep the past residents' children safe. And the wallpaper, brother. Ugh. The paper is all scraped off around the bed and in another big patch across the room, which is probably for the best because it's the ugliest wallpaper she's ever seen in her life.
We're talking big, ugly, intricate patterns on a revolting, unclean, and inconsistent yellow. Yuck. All right. We're checking in again two weeks later. John is not around much actually because he's a busy doctor, and our narrator is still just chilling in the same room. Thank God for Mary. She's so good with the baby.
Yeah, our narrator, she's a new mother, but because she's so nervous, she can't be around her baby. Mary is the baby's nanny, and then [00:25:00] there's John's sister who's also around as the housekeeper. But our narrator complains to John about the wallpaper, and he says he'll repaper it. But because she dares mention it again when he hasn't gotten to it, he then decides he doesn't wanna give in to her fancies and leaves it.
Out of one of the windows, she can see a shady lane through the garden. She would like to imagine being a little less alone, and that people are around strolling through the garden. But that's another fancy that John forbids Has she mentioned that there's a spot in the wallpaper pattern that looks like a broken neck with two bulbous eyes?
And in some places, the paper doesn't line up, so the eyes are uneven. The floors are also all gouged up and splintering. Most of the furniture they've brought from downstairs, except for this massive bed, which was the only thing in the room when they moved in. Seems like it's nailed to the ground. Is that a figure in the wallpaper?
[00:26:00] Kinda seems like it's sulking. Well, can't think about it. Here comes John's sister. Now, after the Fourth of July, our narrator's journaling again, and she mentions she cries now all the time, any time she's alone which is, of course, all the time. All the time. And she's growing fond of the room despite the wallpaper or maybe because of it.
She follows the patterns for hours, but there's no pattern. There's no symmetry or repetition, and anything that would make sense is missing, and following it makes her tired. Next entry. It's getting to be a great effort to think straight. She wants to visit family. John says no. He treats her like a child, but at least their actual child is happy and healthy and doesn't have to spend any time in this horrible yellow nursery.
If she wasn't in the room, the baby would be. Our narrator would never mention it to John or his sister, but the shapes in the wallpaper, they're getting clearer. The figure she saw before, yeah, it's definitely a woman, and [00:27:00] she's creeping around behind the pattern. And at night when John is around and sleeping, the woman in the paper shakes the pattern like she's trying to get out.
And our- one night when our narrator got out of bed to see if she could feel it, John was awake and watching her. She tells him, "Ugh, I'd really like to leave," but he says, "Babe, we got three left, three weeks left on this lease, and we're staying." He thinks she's probably getting better, and he's the doctor, after all.
She knows she's not, obviously, but he doesn't listen, also obviously. The wallpaper pattern, it looks fungal in places. When the sun hits it, it seems to change, and that's why the narrator needs to always watch it. It's different, the outside pattern, she means. The woman behind it, she's always the same. John is making her sleep more, but he doesn't know that she doesn't sleep.
And she's getting a little afraid of John. She's caught John looking at the paper, and his sister too. They don't see [00:28:00] her watching them, but when she asks the sister what she was doing, she looked like she'd been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to. But she just said that the yellow paper stains everything, and it's all over her and John's clothes.
All right, we got a week left before we leave, and our narrator, she's feeling great. She's almost got it all figured out. The wallpaper, it's still changing, and the color is worse. And also, now it smells, and the smell creeps all over. But the smell is like the color. There's also a smooch on the wallpaper- Oh, wow
which is, of course, a smear around the bottom, going behind every piece of furniture. But she's also confirmed at night that the pattern is moving because the woman is shaking it. She crawls around really fast. She's trying to crawl through. Actually, now our narrator thinks that the woman gets out in the daytime because she sees her.
She can see her out there, out of every one of her windows. How do we know it's the same woman? Well, because of how she creeps. Most [00:29:00] women do not creep by daylight. But there she is, creeping under the arbors and down the shady lane. Our narrator knows better. She always locks the door when she creeps by daylight, and she can't creep at night, obviously.
John would know. But she wonders if she could see the woman out of all of her windows at once. But no matter how fast she turns, she can only see her he- out of one at a time. But maybe the woman can creep faster than our narrator can turn. If only she could get on top of that pattern. She only has two days left now to try.
John is getting more suspicious and knows she's not sleeping, but everyone thinks she's sleeping during the day. It's the last day, and John has stayed in town the night before. Hurrah. The sister wants to sleep in the room to keep her company, but she has company. And as soon as it was dark, the woman began to crawl and shake the pattern, so our narrator got up to help.
She stripped as much of the paper as she could. She tears wallpaper all the next day so that on their last night, all that's in the room is mostly scraps and, of course, the gnawed [00:30:00] bed and mattress. She locks the door and throws the key in the garden to give herself time to prepare. She has rope to catch the woman in the wallpaper, obviously.
She tries to get that last bit of paper off, but is so frustrated that she just wants to throw herself out the window. No, not like that. She'd never do that. And besides, there are so many creeping women out there that she doesn't even wanna look out the windows anymore. Did they all come out of the paper, as I did?
She'll have to figure out how to get back behind the pattern at night, but it's so pleasant to be out in the room, creeping as she pleases. Her shoulder perfectly fits in the smear along the wall. Well, John is home now, but too bad, man, she chucked the key. He threatens to axe down the door, so she relents and tells him the key is in the garden.
And when he gets in, he doesn't know what he's looking at, but our narrator has escaped the wallpaper at last, and his fainting is very inconsiderate, right in her path. Now she has to creep over him every [00:31:00] time The end.
Damien: The end.
Ryan: Yay. I, I think you should do a, a, a modern retelling of this, Jessica, that- ... a published audio version perhaps.
The party pad that no one wants
Damien: to buy.
Ryan: Well, I, I, I'd like to begin with what might be an obvious question, but this is a pretty famous story, as we've already said and, and as you fair listeners already know. Damien and Jessica, how did reading this quite famous story meet with your expectations? Jessica, you've probably read it before.
Damien, I don't know if you have. I haven't read it before. Oh, really? So... Yeah, I have not. So I, I'm curious to know what, what your thoughts were about how it, how it lived up to the hype, if you will.
Damien: Lived up to the hype. Well, I have read it before, and I appreciated its creepiness from the get-go and knew what I was getting into, but also I came in with a heavily skeptical eye because I didn't see, from my recollection of my last read, I didn't see how it fit the theme with- Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm ... the alternative realities, parallel courses, et [00:32:00] cetera. And upon reading it again, it was like, okay, maybe the argument could be made that, you know, there's this identification with this woman behind the wallpaper, this, you know, this creeper that becomes an army of creepers, you know, at the end, and a little bit of a, a, of a, a, of a torn psyche, right?
But I still, even after reading, I still feel pretty affirmed that no, this isn't an, an ideal story for the, for the theme of the novel. Mm-hmm. So when we get to the, spoiler, when we get to the does it alternative, you know? Right. My answer's gonna be in the- Does it
Jess: reality?
Damien: My, my, my ans- ... my answer is gonna be in the negative.
However, is it just a really baller, classic, early, you know, mania, hysteria, whatever you wanna call it story? It still rips. It's still pretty rad. So I like it. Does it belong here? No. Was I questioning it from the get-go? Yes, because I [00:33:00] had read it. Mm-hmm.
Jess: So I read this for the first time junior high-ish, 'cause I had found at a garage sale one of those Dover Thrift classics.
Sure. You know, that's a dollar normally, so I'm sure it was, like, 25 cents at a garage sale, and I read it. They may
Ryan: have paid you to take it.
Jess: And I was reading at that point already some, some creepy Stephen King-y fiction, but I remember reading this one and just being like, "I'm so smart." Just because it's like, it's written to be fairly...
You know, like, there's tons of stuff we could talk about and, and argue about, but it's not written to be a mis- You know, like, nobody's- It's
Ryan: not obtuse, yeah.
Jess: Yes. There's- We'll probably argue it a little bit, but it's f- it's fairly clear this woman is going crazy and her husband is directly causing it.
But I just remember reading it and just being like, "My God, I, I get it. This woman, this poor woman." It was, like, the first time I had read anything f- honestly, probably [00:34:00] explicitly feminist.
Ryan: Uh-huh.
Jess: And then I think we, you know, probably read it in college a few times 'cause I did an English degree with assorted feminist classes.
And each time it's just... it's such a delight to read. It's fun. It's, it's usually someone's first time reading it too, which makes it fun, just because it's a quick little read. It's written to be pretty digestible.
Ryan: Yeah. I wish I had had your English teacher. We, I think our, our introduction to feminist literature was The Awakening by Kate Chopin,
Jess: which is- Oh, yeah, yeah, you're gonna read both, I think
Ryan: she's not, not in this league as far as I'm concerned. That's- With her
Jess: little whip
Ryan: it. Yes.
Jess: That's so funny.
Ryan: God, terrible. Well, this was my first time reading it, and, and I always approach stories like this which come with a lot of expectation- Mm-hmm ... with a certain amount of trepidation. In, in some cases, I would almost rather never read it and just understand that it's great, rather than-
like read it and be let [00:35:00] down by it. Right. Which, which has happened a couple times. Oh, sure. Like, uh, you know, there's, there's, there's, there's several examples of that. But that didn't happen for me here. I, I read this. I felt like it, it stood up to it. One of the things I really appreciated and, and maybe Damien and I can talk more about this when we get to the end about whether it, whether it altern-
Damien: I heard it alternated.
Ryan: Or it went, went through the AC/DC, I don't know. But I really appreciated the profound weirdness of this story. Like some of, some of the stories that are not just in this volume, but some of the stories that are in many of the other volumes that we've covered in this series, they're f- they're fine stories, but they're just not weird.
Jess: Right.
Ryan: Not in the way that I want them to be weird. And so what I liked about this, thank you, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, you, you made it- You're welcome ... weird in the way that I like. You know, thank you for, for living up to the expectations of this 21st century man. 'Cause I- I'm sure that's what your goal was.
Damien: That, that's the goal. Always is, always will be. [00:36:00]
Ryan: I think that, I think that it does absolutely stand the test of time. And there's two kind of standard interpretations of this story, and so I'd like to start with the one that, as Jessica said, suggests that this is the story of a woman slowly going mad in an oppressive relationship.
Let's talk about that. What do you make of this interpretation, and where do you see the evidence for that interpretation in the text?
Jess: I think this is, for me, you know, like I know you could go deeper and more surface level. I feel like this is about the only interpretation. We can argue haunted house after this.
But the, the medical language of, you know, I'm just a little bit nervous, and my husband is keeping me locked in this room, and literally the only thing I have to look at all day, every day is this peeling wallpaper, and every concern is dismissed, and , every complaint I have is, like, m- medicalized, right?
So it's not just that... It's not possible that she's just bored and in [00:37:00] a room. It's she's taken to flights of fancy, and her nervousness, and all of this is causing her issues. You know, just sort of like the old rest cure stuff. So to me, that's just sort of- That's what the reading is
Ryan: I'm shocked that that's your opinion.
Jess: Right. Believe it or not.
Ryan: Damien, what do you see in this, in this text? Uh, is, is, is this reading appropriate? Is this the only reading possible?
Damien: Is what reading appropriate?
Ryan: The way Jess just described it. This is the story of a woman slowly going mad in an oppressive relationship.
Damien: Versus- I would say, I mean, yes, I think, I, I think, I think classically it is.
But, you know, seeing as how I've read it before, seeing as how it's been under a pretty intense literary scrutiny, and everything that I know now about Charlotte Perkins Gilman I want to do an exercise where we try and come up with the most bat poop insane take on this story and what's really driving the arc, and try and sell the other [00:38:00] two on it.
Because I think-
Jess: I actually have another one that I think is really good.
Damien: Okay, good.
Ryan: Hang on to it for a second- Okay ... 'cause we're gonna, we're gonna get, we're, you're gonna get your shot here. Oh,
Damien: okay. Are we gonna get our shot? Okay. You're gonna get
Ryan: your shot.
Damien: , Just on reading, yes, it's very apparent that that's what this is.
It's, it's a descent into madness caused by, propagated by everyone who this woman is supposed to know and love. Is the baby ex- does the baby exist? Is the baby still alive? There's a ton of questions that I like to ask when I go through and read this story every time.
Ryan: Why has no one rented this house before?
Damien: Yeah, why, wh- what's up with this house?
Jess: Why is the bed
Damien: nailed down? It's a party pad. Yeah, why is it... Exactly. Bars on the door. Yeah, you gave a credible excuse. It's because, you know, to, to protect the children, right? But really- Mm ... you know, it's an asylum, right? So yeah, I, there's a lot of nuanced components to it.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. But the overarching theme and, and the general flow that, that Jess mentioned is, is pretty mu- it, it's undeniable, I guess- Right ... is probably the best way to put it.
Ryan: I think that, that this is the generally accepted reading of the story and, [00:39:00] and there's lots of textual evidence for it, much of which both of you have just cited.
I was gonna come back to the bars on the, on the windows, because I once lived in a house that had a very strange... There was an upstairs bedroom, and it had a bolt lock on the outside of it-
Jess: Mm.
Damien: Ooh ...
Ryan: which was never explained. Yeah. And it was way up high towards the ceiling, towards the doorframe.
Damien: Really?
Ryan: Yeah. It was really weird. Did
Jess: you leave it on?
Ryan: Yeah. I'm not gonna mess with that sort of thing.
Jess: Might need it.
Ryan: The, uh, the priest- I was gonna say- ... who followed me in that house removed it within the first week. I was gonna say- I said, "What'd you do with that
Damien: lock?" ... if you got a bolt lock on high, don't touch it, my guy.
That's right. That's what they used to tell me.
Ryan: No, I, I asked him, I said, "What did you do with that lock on the bedroom door?" He says, "I took that off. That was weird." Yes. I was like, "I guess I should've done that."
Jess: Clouted on it before I moved in.
Ryan: So I, I do think that, um, there's lots and lots of textual evidence right from the very beginning, from the, from the quote that Jessica shared a- about that's what you expect in a marriage.
Like, we know where this story is going. On [00:40:00] the other hand, some say that this is a story about a haunting or even a demon possession, or a possession of some kind, and so I wanna see if you can support that interpretation as well.
Damien: Well, and maybe this is where we get into the, you know, how many different angles can we take because to the point that, that big pace of a woman's descent into madness or a person's descent into madness, like even if it were a haunting, it still probably is preconditioning the reader to understand how this woman came to be a spirit perhaps- Mm-hmm
or how she attained this breaking point- Mm-hmm ... whether it was caused by a demon or caused by mental decay. I think that that's pretty legit. Is it really a house? Is it an asylum? You know, it- there's like the, the the gray areas that exist in interpretation for some of those elements. I think this is a perfectly viable approach, right?
Is, is she a spir- did she [00:41:00] really emerge from the wall? Like, you know?
Ryan: Right.
Damien: From behind the paper, are there an army of other spirits that she can see ute and aboot?
Jess: Ute and aboot.
Ryan: Well, we know there's one in the well. We, we know that.
Damien: Samara's after you.
Ryan: Yeah.
Damien: But to say that and to say it as like a, is, is this plausible?
Yes. Anything is plausible because there is... Aside from , that undeniable path that our protagonist, that our main character takes- Mm-hmm ... everything else can, can be tied to unreliable narration, can be tied to a lack of self i- self-identity because they're demon-possessed, because they're a ghost, because they're just loopy, insane in the membrane, right?
All these are viable, and I think that's part of the majesty and the, and the lastingness of this story, is that it really does open the door for it c- it could be anything. So yeah, to, to your point, could this be a haunting? With very few changes to anything that either Jess or I have said so far, we [00:42:00] could put the- Yeah, totally.
Yeah. We could put the, "Yeah, it's a haunting," or- ... "Yeah, it's a demonic possession," over top of it, and not much changes.
Jess: This is also... It's been a while since I read A Head Full of Ghosts, Paul Tremblay's book. Mm-hmm. Ah, Tremblay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But I feel like early in that novel, one of his characters references this book-
Ryan: It's the same sort of thing going on, right?
Yeah The
Jess: questioning of- Where it- Yeah, yeah ... kind of as a like, oh, is she crazy, or is it possession or, or whatever. And I, I remember reading that and just being like, I- at no point did I ever read this as that she's possessed, and so it immediately took me out of that book. I wish you all could see
Ryan: Jessica's face when she says this.
Like- Like, dude ... if you read, if you read Paul Tremblay's A Head Full of Ghosts and thought that, that it was a story about possession, Jess just dismissed you out of this universe- No,
Jess: no, no, no, yeah ... with
Ryan: that
Jess: side-eye.
Ryan: This story,
Jess: no, Yellow Wallpaper. No, this story. I read it- This
Ryan: story, this
Jess: one. That was very obviously- Yeah, yeah, yeah
a story about possession. A Head Full of Ghosts can be whatever, but I remember [00:43:00] being like, "Well, that's a weird example," because at no point would I have read it that way. So it, it makes- Hmm. Hmm ... your story seem less like this.
Damien: Tremblay also ended that book with a, with a non-ending, and I'm still mad at him about that.
Ryan: Yes, yes.
Jess: Yes.
Ryan: That happens several times in his writing. So I went through with a highlighter as I was reading this, and I said, "I wanna read this-" Was it
Jess: yellow?
Ryan: No, it was orange, in fact. And I wanna read this- You're reading The Room, bro ... as a haunting story.
Damien: Okay.
Ryan: I know, I know the way that th- ... you're supposed to read this, but I wanna read this as a, as purely a haunting story, and can I find textual evidence that supports that?
Damien: There we
Ryan: go. So I found, I found eight quotes or paragraphs, I mean, not just single sentences, but sometimes paragraphs, where if you wanted to read it that way, here's, here's the eight places you might-
Jess: Mm-hmm ...
Ryan: you might turn to. Right. So I think it's possible. Give us a few. I think it's possible.
Damien: Give us the, give us the- And I-
top ones. Don't give
Jess: us all of them ... and I think that was the intention when she wrote it. Right. Right. Exactly. Right? Is to make it seem like it [00:44:00] could be either option.
Damien: Which just, which just, you know, reinforces, again, the unreliableness of a narrator who, at least on the surface, is going insane or has broken and has gone insane.
Right. And so maybe they do believe that they're a ghost. Maybe they are, but also maybe they don't. And,
Ryan: and maybe that's the reason the ghost can, can appear to this person, because their mind is broken in such a way that it opens them to the possibility that-
Damien: Sure ...
Ryan: this thing's coming out of the wallpaper.
So here's just a couple. This is, this is brilliant on the part of, of Gilman, because these two come back to back. So the first one is what is highlighted in the color for textual evidence to support the women going insane on account of oppressive relationship. "There are things in the paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will."
Right? So this is, to me, this is a classic sign of, of ensuing insanity. One sentence later, she writes, "And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. [00:45:00] I don't like it a bit." So i- i- in, in just that short space she provides for us, if you wanna read it this way, here you go. If you wanna read it in this alternative fashion, here you go.
You have a choice. It's a choose your own adventure.
Damien: Don't
Ryan: No, no, no, no, no. I'm not suggesting that at all because I'm with you on that. But I am saying that I think that If you wanted to read it as a haunting story only- Mm-hmm. Sure ... it's, it's there for you to do that. So here's the question that maybe you've been dying to get to. Are there any alternative reasons, or excuse me, are there any alternative readings besides those two?
And Damon, you hinted at one that I think was interesting, which is that this isn't a house at all, but that this is an asylum.
Damien: Yeah, I think, yeah.
Ryan: Je-
Damien: Jess. So one of, one of, one of the big takeaways that I had the first time I read this was she's a committed patient. The relationships that she says are not true.
Yeah. Her sister is not her sister, it's a care nurse. The doctor is not her husband. Not her
Jess: husband.
Damien: [00:46:00] Mm-hmm. She does not have a baby. She is not in a house. That's a party pad, and the reason that nobody owned it before her is because it's an asylum. She's in a committed room. Things like the nailed down bed, the bars on the windows, et cetera, et cetera.
All indicates that. Mm-hmm. The lack of care that's being conducted. So she's already past the breaking point. She's fabricating these relationships and existence based on the people who are around her. And whenever I read this story, I always think of a Perfect Circle song, The Nurse Who Loved Me, which if you haven't read before, you should.
It's just, it's this ethereal tune, and the, the lyrics are very much to this, to this story. But that's, that's what I think of. I think that everything that she's saying is, is false and completely fabricated, and, um- Okay ... she's placing herself- I like it ... at, at, at a spot in society that doesn't exist. And, and then we, we finally see through the veil because she starts commenting on this horrendously ugly wallpaper, and then all of a sudden the wallpaper hides secrets and hides other entities.
And then I do think that the doctor breaks in, and she's crawling around on all fours- ... or whatever and, like, skittering, you know? Because that's kind of her, her current mental state. So my... [00:47:00] It doesn't, it doesn't place it into the supernatural, it just places it into the she's already far gone, and everything that she says- She's that far gone, yeah
is complete bogus.
Ryan: Jess, any alternative readings besides the two main ones that you, you came up with?
Jess: Yeah. The dye that they used to use for yellow wallpaper was, like, arsenic, so she's just being poisoned.
Ryan: She's poisoned.
Jess: Yeah. It's both more fun and less fun, where she's just going crazy 'cause she's in a room with tox.
Damien: So there's kind of a smell. 'Cause I... There's the mold angle, too, right?
Ryan: Yeah.
Jess: Yeah, yeah, same thing. Kind of moldy, musty. Yeah, just like you're in an under-ventilated room- ... for months at a time.
Ryan: Why does no one ever suggest that this is just a story about a woman with, with the vapors? I mean, she is, she's hysterical.
She's got the
Damien: vapors?
Ryan: She's... This is a hysterical woman. This is what happens.
Damien: This is what happens. You know how you, you know how you gotta treat them women sometimes? You just put them in a room.
Ryan: Make sure there's bars on it.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: Well, I'm glad you brought up the color yellow, Jess, because I, uh, I [00:48:00] wanted to go there next.
Is, is the yellow color an intentional choice? It's gotta be an intentional choice, right, on the part of Gilman? Why is it intentional? Why is this wallpaper yellow?
Jess: I think we've got the two sides of yellow, which is, like- Flowers and happiness and sunshine Mm-hmm, mm-hmm And, and all of that. And then the other side, which is like decay and rot, right?
And stain. So you have stained teeth and- Yeah. Yeah ... pus and-
Ryan: Yellow, yeah, yellow
Jess: pus-
Ryan: Yeah ... illness.
Jess: So we actually have a yellow dining room. Our dining room is painted bright yellow, and there are some times where just, like, the light hits it weird, and you're just like-
Ryan: Ooh ... "
Jess: That was, that was a weird color choice."
Ryan: That's a bad idea. Yeah, I, so I looked, I looked up, like, how artists think about yellow, and I found a couple of cool websites about how artists think about, think through color, and they brought up all of those things. Like, one person said co- "Yellow is the color of clowns and caution, but it is also the color of [00:49:00] brightness and warmth."
So I, I think this person must not have liked clowns- Yeah, that's so funny ... putting that in the negative category.
Damien: Clowns and caution. Coming, coming next by Adam Cesare, Clowns and Caution.
Ryan: And so several artists I read through talked about the color yellow as being used in art as a threshold color.
That was the word they used, and I really latched onto that. Interesting. Hmm. A threshold color. So
Damien: it's like a border color. It could be- A
Ryan: border color ...
Damien: it could really dri- uh, you know, depending on its application and, and- Mm-hmm ...
Ryan: the rest of the palette, could be- And perhaps depending on the light that you view the painting in.
Yeah. Right?
Damien: Interesting.
Ryan: It changes the way... And so if, if we apply that concept of threshold to what's going on in this story, I think it's very enlightening.
Jess: Mm-hmm. I like that.
Damien: That is interesting, yeah. I do. I like that. '
Jess: Cause, like, you
Ryan: would-
Jess: I also- ... paint a nursery yellow, right? Sure. Like-
Damien: Right. Why, why not?
Jess: No reason not to. Yeah. Yeah. But then it's- Just- ... sitting in the sun and fading and is moist and bubbling and- Oh, God ... yeah, it just doesn't take long for it to get gross. I'm
Damien: never painting anything yellow now. Thank you. [00:50:00] Egg whites only.
Ryan: I remember as a child, I went to, to one of my dad's client's houses with him once, and she was a smoker.
Jess: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: Yeah,
Damien: the yellow dinge,
Ryan: right? Everything in the house. Everything's stained. I just remember how- That's why it's a stain, yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. It was so yellow. Everything was yellow.
Jess: Yeah, old plastic. Like, it's that- I- ... yellow, crinkly look.
Ryan: I also was put in mind, , and many listeners may be as well, of another famous story of incipient madness that involves the color yellow, which is The King in Yellow s- stories by Robert Chambers, The Yellow Sign stories.
And so I, I don't know if something is going on in this time period because The King in Yellow stories were written just three years after this one.
Jess: Hmm.
Ryan: If there's something going on in the United States about the color yellow.
Damien: Well, I mean, let's talk, i- in addition to stains from tobacco or smoke or whatever, or sun fading, it's also a pretty prominent mildew color.
Just there are, you know- Hmm, mm-hmm ... species of, of mold and, and, and, you know, I guess depending on [00:51:00] when white gets moldy, which is a pretty popular color, right? So if white gets moldy, white fabrics or whatever- Mm-hmm ... it can start to take on that orange-ish yellow tinge as well. I-
Ryan: I thought about mustard gas, but then we're a little early for- Mm-hmm
for World War I.
Damien: Right. Yeah, just a bit. Also, I don't know if mustard gas is yellow. I could be-
Ryan: Isn't that why they called it mustard gas?
Damien: Well, I could be wrong. I'm not a historian, all right? I'm a
Ryan: present- If you know why it's called mustard gas ... gas guy.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah. Uh, yeah, I just... A- and The King in Yellow is actually, the, the first King in Yellow story, The Repairer of Reputations, is actually an example of one of those stories that I was relatively disappointed by.
It built up and built up and built up, and I read it, and I was like, "Really? That's, that's it? Okay."
Jess: That's funny.
Ryan: Some of the other Chamber stuff is, is more interesting. So what's, what's going on in this story as it- What's up with this
Jess: story?
Ryan: Well- As it relates- What's up with
Damien: airplane food?
Ryan: That's right.
Right? As it relates to agency and fate, , those [00:52:00] were two opposing themes that came to my mind as I read this. This woman has no agency-
Damien: Yeah ...
Ryan: and is, and is consigned to, to a fate. Is there a way that this story could have turned out different?
Damien: You know, we talk about, y- we, we talked about fate, I think, before, and you know, and i- if, if there's, if you could alter fate, and I think this is a perfect story of a predestined result, right?
It... We knew where this story was going very soon after it started. What can you
Ryan: expect from a marriage?
Damien: It took us there. He laughed at me, which- Tell me about it ... go figs. We knew where it was going, and so, yes, she had no agency. Why? For when... Not just because she was a woman in this time period, not just because her husband was of stature, "husband" in quotes, but also just because we knew that she was predestined to have this terrible end.
Or, uh, n- and you know I say an end. That, that last scene about kicking open the door where the guy faints and then she's [00:53:00] creepy crawling over him, it's just so icky. You know, it's like, all right, we knew this was coming. It was a building dread. So I think it's fair to say that there is no sense of agency whatsoever.
Nobody has it. And that fated by predestination, sure. I don't think fate for any other reason. She didn't incur it. When I think of fate, I think it's like something you've earned almost, you know, you're bad in life or you did something wrong. If that's the case, did she kill her baby? Did she have a baby and murder it or something?
Is that why she's in this asylum? Like, there could be a lot of reasons that build up to it, but nothing that I think is, is concrete in the text. So I think your observation is pretty strong, right? The agency and, and fate, I would call... I would merge them both together and say it was a story of predestination.
Jess: So okay, our wonderful narrator in this story has no agency, just is at the whims of her husband. But I think the what if she had agency part of the story is then she's Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who wrote this story. So- [00:54:00]
Ryan: That's meta ...
Jess: well, in an article published in 1913 entitled Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper-
Ryan: Oh, yes, I read that one.
Yes. Yeah.
Jess: Which is just, like, a really good title.
Ryan: It's clear.
Jess: She basically was this woman, right? So she was put on a rest cure- Yeah ... after having a baby and falling, you know, postpartum depression, and was forbidden from reading, thinking, having stimulating conversation, going outside, you know, anything. She just had to lay there, and was very hurt by it, right?
Like, it made everything worse. She wasn't allowed to work. It just
Ryan: crushed her. It
Jess: had to have. Right. And so, you know, eventually she got her way out of it, and she wrote this story and sent it to the physician who recommended the rest cure to her. So if our character had agency, she would have written this story [00:55:00] and sent her journals, I guess, to her husband, who was the doctor in this
Ryan: case.
It's like, it's like two mirrors back to
Jess: back. Yes.
Ryan: They just keep going and going.
Jess: And so she says in the article that she sent this to the physician, and he never wrote back. But she was told many years later that the great specialist had admitted to friends that he had altered his treatment since reading The Yellow Wallpaper.
How about that? So bas- Yeah, so she, she wrote this about how it drives you crazy, sent it to the doctor, and then in theory and hopefully he stopped prescribing the rest cure, or at least, you know, this harshest variation of the rest cure. Yeah, I thought that was interesting.
Ryan: These early days of psychology were wild times.
Jess: I mean, wild times, but also, I mean- This is also still a thing that people have to deal with, like their medical diagnosis as being both nuts and not being taken seriously. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. True. It's, it's fairly common knowledge that even in this year, if [00:56:00] you're, like, a woman trying to get... Well, well, more this year than every other year- More than ever
perhaps. You know, if you're a woman trying to make healthcare decisions, even in the best of times, you were told to ask your husband first, like very recently. Like, "We can't do this because what if you wanna have more children?" You know, "You can't do this because it might affect your husband later." So-
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm ...
Jess: you know. We're not necessarily prescribing rest cures for postpartum women, but things, things are still real grim.
Ryan: I don't know how to follow that- ... except to just completely move, move away.
Jess: Moving on.
Ryan: I, I think if there's agency for this character in this, within the bounds of the story, within the confines of the story, it is in releasing whatever is behind the wallpaper.
Damien: Interesting.
Ryan: That that's, that is the only place of... I don't think the story could have ended any differently, but if she l- if something's back there and she let it, lets [00:57:00] it out, that's the only agency she has
Jess: I like it.
Damien: It's the personification of her-
Ryan: Yeah ...
Damien: dementia or break point. Right. And once it's out, it's not going back.
Ryan: It's not going back in.
Damien: Right.
Ryan: Yeah. How about the writing? How's the writing stand up for you all?
Damien: It's dang good.
Jess: Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan: I
Jess: agree. It's, it's sparse. It is what you would write in a journal if you're, you know, writing two sentences at a time, and then your nosy- No
Ryan: wasted ink here.
Jess: No ... your nosy sister-in-law's poking her head in.
Right. And just, like, the transitions, Ryan, the ones you mentioned, the whole story is that, right? It's one sentence- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... that means one thing, and then the next sentence just, like, hits you so hard. Like,
Ryan: there- I love that. I love that clipped, that clipped approach- Mm-hmm ... to the writing.
Jess: Where she's finally like, "You know what?
Ugh, I think I'm finally feeling better because I let the woman in the wallpaper out." Mm-hmm. And you're just like-
Ryan: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Damien: I give it, I give it Shirley Jackson efficiency.
Jess: Yeah. Yeah. Very efficient. Yeah. That's
Damien: a good
Jess: term.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: This is a, [00:58:00] this is a story that's often compared with some of Shirley Jackson's writing, so there
Damien: you go.
I mean, I'm... I feel it. I see it. I smell it. I touch it.
Ryan: Well, Damien, this one's, this one's for you. Did it destiny?
Damien: No.
Ryan: On a scale- No. Wait a minute, let me give you the scale. Yeah, you can set it. The scale's the most important part of this.
Damien: Fine.
Ryan: Because there's four walls. On a scale of one to four wallpapers, how many destinies are you giving it?
Damien: Wallpaper removed, walls knocked down- ... rebuilt as an open floor plan- No walls ... to entertain guests.
Jess: No walls.
Damien: My budget is $487,000.
Ryan: I'm a middle school teacher.
Damien: No, it didn't destiny. I, I, I just... I feel like we're reaching for a little bit of extra star power in this, and maybe- Yeah. You know- Mm-hmm ... you could make the argument because it is such an interpretive piece.
But- No, it didn't destiny. It wasn't alternative history. It wasn't, it wasn't parallel universes. It did not destiny.
Ryan: I, I'm with you. I don't think this- It
Damien: predestined. It predestined ...
Ryan: yeah, I don't think I, I don't think there's any alternative realms here. I, I, I don't think there's, there's any [00:59:00] choice of destiny in this.
Uh, so yeah, negative, negative wallpapers.
Jess: What's our catchphrase for this one?
Damien: Our catchphrase?
Ryan: Phrase.
Jess: Other world is trauma. That's-
Damien: Description? Yeah. Okay.
Jess: That's, that's not my description. It's in the- That's the
Ryan: editor's description, yeah ...
Jess: intros. But yeah, this one it's a stretch. Like- It's a stretch
you have to kinda go past ghost story and see the ending as a splitting of her personality.
Ryan: Can I tell you what I didn't like about that? For people undergoing trauma, that is their reality. It's not another world.
Damien: Dang, dude. That's a really good point. That's a really good point. I'm feeling that.
It's really sensitive. Tell
Ryan: somebody that's in, that's in chronic pain- Yeah ... that that's not real. It is real.
Damien: Hey, your trauma, imagined. And you know what? Maybe. Fine. But who are you to say that, you editor?
Jess: Yeah. This one, I think, was a stretch. I'm thrilled the story was in here 'cause I like- Sure ... to talk about
Ryan: it.
Right. Right. Right. But it is. But- It's, it's reaching, it's reaching for the name recognition- [01:00:00] Yeah ... for the volume.
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: That's gonna take us to our whiskey ratings. This is how we rate our stories here on Whiskey and the Weird from zero fingers all the way to the coveted full fist or five fingers of whiskey.
Jess, we're gonna start with you because it's obvious. What are you giving The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman?
Jess: If we were reading this in a bubble, it would be five stars. Reading it as part of this collection, I'm giving it four and a half. I'm taking a half a point off because it doesn't make any sense in this collection.
But I still had a dang good time reading it.
Ryan: I love that. I love that. D.
Damien: Yeah, I'm four and a knuckle, so I'll go four and a quarter here. I don't know if we do quarter votes, but, eh. We can do whatever
Jess: we want. We do. We're, we're
Damien: in charge. So, you know, we have two, we have two knuckles per finger, right? So I guess that makes it four and a third.
Anyway, so yeah, similar to what Jess said. Um, in a bubble- ... this is a five-star story. But, you know, you can't throw it in here and just be like, "Hey, guys, look. It's The Yellow Wallpaper." Right. Uh, and expect it to alt universe. Come on, man. Come on, man. So four and a knuckle. What about you?
Ryan: I wrote four and a half.
I was all set [01:01:00] for this story to be over-hyped and for me to not enjoy it, and then it wasn't. It was really good. It's really good. I think the ambiguity is pitch perfect in this story, and that's one of the things that I really liked about it. I think I probably took a half finger away for the same reason that- Mm-hmm
the two of you guys did. It is an odd placement in this volume, but it, it is a banger of a story. Four and a half fingers from me for The Yellow Wallpaper. Well, if you really enjoyed this, Jess has got a novel that you might also enjoy. Jess, tell us about your choice here for our If This Then That segment.
Jess: If you like the story and, like me, leaned into the
Ryan: I thought you were gonna say, "If you like the story and you like me too." And you
Damien: like
Jess: me. And you like me- And if you like me ... and you wanna, would you like to read a book I like?
Damien: Read my book. I wrote it. It's called The Blue Carpet.
Jess: If you wanna lean in more to the kind of, medical misogyny side of the story, there is a novel that came out- And who doesn't?
in 2020 called Lakewood by Megan [01:02:00] Giddings which is about a woman who basically undergoes medical trials as a way to raise money- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm ... for the care of her mother. And so it's, it's, it's good. It's a story I really like, and I have made both of these two read it.
Damien: I liked it. Seek help.
Please, seek help. I liked it good.
Jess: But it has both the feminist aspect, it has some really interesting race things, class things- Yeah ... everything I like all wrapped up in this little sci-fi medical experimentation story. And it's a, it's a kinda good, fairly quick read. Anyway, that's Lakewood by Megan Giddings.
Ryan: I thought it was a, I thought it was a pretty good read, Justin. I think it's a great recommendation for this story. That's gonna do it for us here on Whiskey and the Weird for this episode. Thank you so much for joining us for The Yellow Wallpaper. You're welcome. We are glad that you did. And if you are glad that you joined us-
would you mind dropping us a rating or a review? Or better [01:03:00] yet, tell a friend about our podcast. Better yet than that, tell a friend publicly about our podcast- Better yet- ... so that others can find it ... put your
Damien: friend in the middle of a public square and shout at him or her or them, "You need to listen to- About our podcast
Whiskey and the Weird."
Jess: And then send me $5.
Damien: That's right. Better yet, send all of us $5, and send us your friend.
Ryan: In the middle of all of this, we don't wanna forget Dr. Blake Brandes for providing the music for Whiskey and the Weird. We're always grateful to you. Damien, if they wanna send all us that money- $5
uh, where, where can they do that?
Damien: I don't think you can send it via the Meta Properties that's Facebook-
Ryan: Fax us, fax us $5 ... Instagram.
Damien: Send us a purchase order. A bank note. No, you can find us on the socials, @WhiskeyandtheWeird, @WhiskeyandtheWeird on Facebook Meta Threads, Blue Sky. We spell our whiskeys with an E, and we hope you do, too.
If not, I think there's a certain young lady underneath your peeling wallpaper that's [01:04:00] gonna be coming out because you've been suffering the vapors.
Ryan: That went in a decidedly different direction.
Damien: I don't know. I'm kind of tinkering myse- ... I, I, I think I ASMR'd myself. Can I do that?
Ryan: Oh, Lord, Jess, what are we reading next?
Jess: Man, something called Scarrowfell by Robert Holdstock.
Ryan: All right. Can't wait. Good old Holdstock. I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Berg.
Damien: And I'm Damien Smith.
Ryan: And together we're Whiskey and the Weird. Somebody send us home.
Damien: Hey, keep your friends through the ages and your creeps in the pages.
Ryan: Bye-bye, everybody.