excerpts from
The Yellow Wallpaper
from
The Best American Short Plays 2001–2002
SHE I wish I could get well faster. [] But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!
[Seeing it for the first time, a major discovery. Perhaps SHE begins to project onto the paper the feelings for JOHN she can’t or won’t admit.]
There is a recurrent spot where the pattern looks like a broken neck.
And two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down.
The impertinence of it!
And the everlastingness!
Up and down and sideways they crawl.
And those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere.
[Discovers a particular wallpaper seam for the first time and inspects it.]
There is one place where tow breadths don’t match.
The eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other.
I never saw so much expression in an inanimate object before.
[Backs away from it toward bed. Lies on bed.]
I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy store.
I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big, old bureau used to have.
There
[Notices her writing chair.]
was one chair that always seemed like a strong friend. I used to feel that if any of the other things looked too fierce I could always hop into that chair and be safe.
[SHE does so. Pause. SHE notices the paper beside her.]
This wallpaper, as I said before, is torn off in spots.
It sticks closer than a brother.
[Noticing the floor for the first time.]
The floor is scratched
[Walking and examining each thing SHE notices emphatically.]
and gouged and splintered.
[Looking at the ceiling.]
The plaster is dug out here and there.
[At her bed.]
And this great heavy bed looks as if it had been through the wars.
But I don’t mind it a bit—only the paper.
[Offstage sounds of trays of dishes being dropped.]
There comes John’s sister.
[Sarcastically.]
Such a dear girl.
I must not let her find me writing.
She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, who hopes for no better profession.
She probably thinks the writing made me sick!
But I write when she is out,
[Crossing to her writing desk.]
and see her a long way off from these windows.
[Crossing to window.]
This is one that commands the road.
[Noticing the wallpaper, as if discovering something very important about it for the first time.]
This wallpaper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one. You can only see it in certain lights.
[Gets candle, lights it, and uses it to examine the wallpaper more closely.]
And not clearly then.
But in the places where it isn’t faded and where the sun is just so—
I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure.
It seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design.
[Sound of a tray of dishes dropped.]
There’s sister on the stairs!
[Lights down and up. SHE has a small American flag to wave.]
Well, the Fourth of July is over!
The people are all gone.
And I
[Sits on the bed.]
John thought it might do me good to see a little company.
So we just had Mother and Nellie and the children down for a week.
Of course I didn’t do a thing.
[Bitterly.]
Jennie sees to everything now. But it tired me all the same. [] But I don’t want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once. []
And she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so!
Besides, it is such an undertaking to go so far.
I don’t feel that it is worth it.
[Fighting back tears.]
I cry at nothing. And cry most of the time.
Of course I don’t when John is here or anybody else.
But when I am alone . . .
And I am alone a good deal just now.
John is kept in town very often by “serious cases.”
And Jennie is good and lets me alone when I want her to.
[Trying to talk herself into believing it to be true.]
I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper.
Perhaps because of the wallpaper. It dwells in my mind so!
I lie here on this great immovable bed—it is nailed down, I believe—and follow that pattern about by the hour.
It is as good as gymnastics.
I start at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time to follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion.
But, on the other hand, they connect diagonally.
And the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror.
The whole thing goes horizontally, too. At least it seems so.
It makes me tired to follow it. I will take a nap I guess.
[Lights fade and up.]
I don’t know why I should say this.
[Starts, but decides against it.]
I don’t want to.
[Again starts, but can’t.]
I don’t feel able.
And I know John would think it absurd.
[Tries again, fails again.]
The effort is getting to be greater than the relief.
Half the time now I am awfully lazy, and lie down ever so much. []
He has me take cod liver oil.
And lots of tonics and things.
To say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat.
Dear John!
He loves me very dearly.
He hates to have me sick.
I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day:
Let me go and visit Cousin Henry and Julia.
• • • •
SHE I’m feeling ever so much better! I don’t sleep much at night. I watch—developments.
There is something else about that paper—the smell!
I noticed it the moment we came into the room. But with so much air and sun it was not bad. And whether the windows are open or not, the smell is here.
It creeps all over the house. It gets into my hair.
Such a peculiar odor, too!
It is not bad—at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met. It used to disturb me at first. I thought of burning the house.
But now I am used to it.
The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper!
A yellow smell.
There is a very funny mark on this wall, low down, near the mop-board. A streak that runs round the room. It goes behind every piece of furniture.
Except the bed.
A long, straight, even smooch. As if it had been rubbed over and over.
I wonder how it was done. Who did it. What they did it for. Round and round and round and round and round and round. . . .
[Dizzy, falls into the bed. Lights fade and up.]
[JOHN is now himself the gossamer figure moving around the room’s perimeter.]
I discovered something. I found out.
The front pattern moves!
The woman behind shakes it!
Sometimes I see many women behind.
Sometimes only one.
She crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over.
She is all the time trying to climb through.
But nobody could climb through that pattern—it strangles so.
If that head were only covered or cut . . .
[Lights fade and up.]
I think she leaves in the daytime!
I’ve seen her! I can see her out of every one of my windows! It is the same woman.
[Looking at one window.]
I see her in that long shaded lane, creeping up and down.
[Looking at the other window.]
I see her in those dark grape arbors, creeping all around the garden.
[Back at the first window.]
I see her on that long road under three trees, creeping along.
I don’t blame her a bit. I always lock the door when I creep. I don’t do it at night. John would suspect something.
And John is so queer now. I don’t want to irritate him.
I wish he would take another room!
Besides, I don’t want anybody else to get that woman but myself!
[Lights fade and up.]
I have found out another funny thing.
But I won’t tell you this time!
I can’t trust you with too much.
There are only two more days to get this paper off.
John is beginning to notice.
I don’t like the look in his eyes.
John knows I don’t sleep very well at night.
He asks me all sorts of questions, too, and pretends to be very loving and kind.
As if I can’t see through him!
[Lights fade and up.]
Hurrah! This is the last day.
John is staying in town overnight, and won’t be out until this evening.
Last evening, as soon as it was moonlight, that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern.
I got up and ran to help her.
I pulled, she shook. I shook, she pulled.
Before morning we had peeled off yards of this paper.
[SHE reveals a bucket of yellow strips of paper.]
And when the sun came that awful pattern began to laugh at me—
[Laughs at the paper in the bucket.]
I will finish you today!
We are going away tomorrow.
Jennie was amazed, but I told her merrily that I did it out of pure spite.
She laughed and said she wouldn’t mind doing it herself.
[To the bucket of paper.]
But nobody touches you but me! Not alive, anyway.
She tried to get me out of the room.
[Lies down on bed.]
But I said that I believe I would lie down again and sleep all I could; and not to wake me even for dinner. I would call when I woke.
Now she’s gone.
The servants are gone.
The things are gone. And there is nothing left. But must get to work.
I have locked the door and thrown the key down into the front path.
I don’t want to go out, And I don’t want anybody to come in. Till John comes.
I want to astonish him.
[SHE takes rope with noose from a secret place, perhaps the rope used to manipulate the gossamer figure.]
I’ve got a rope that even Jennie did not find.
If this woman does get out, and tries to get away, can tie her!
I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try.
Besides I wouldn’t do it. Of course not.
“People don’t do such things!”
I don’t even like to look out of the windows—there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast.
I wonder if they all come out of you as I did?
[Ties end of rope to bed leg and puts noose around her neck.]
But I am securely fastened now. You won’t get me out in the road there!
I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern tonight.
That is hard!
It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please!
I don’t want to go outside.
[Sits on floor.]
I won’t.
[Hears something we can’t hear.]
Why there’s John at the door! Calling and pounding!
Now he’s crying for an axe.
It would be a shame to break down that beautiful door!
“John dear, the key is down by the front steps.”
[Listens again.]
That silenced him for a few moments.
[]
The key is down by the front door.
[SHE repeats it again, several times, very gently and slowly.]
[]
I’ll just keep on creeping.
I’ve got out at last.
In spite of you.
And I’ve pulled off most of the paper. So you can’t put me back in!
[Listens. Then to audience.]
Did he faint?
So now I have to creep over him!
[Blackout as SHE creeps up and out.]