About this audiobook
This is the full text of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), read aloud word for word in about 37 minutes. The video highlights each word as it is spoken, so you can follow the original wording, and adds a who’s-who, five hard words and a short recap after each of 5 parts. The narration is a synthetic voice (Kokoro text-to-speech). The text comes from the public-domain Project Gutenberg edition, ebook 1952, and nothing is cut.
Who is who
The narrator: She is never named. She keeps a secret journal while she is told to rest. John: Her husband, a doctor, who is sure that he knows what is best for her. Jennie: John’s sister, who keeps the house.
Five hard words
- Felicity: Great happiness.
- Hereditary: Passed down in a family.
- Piazza: A veranda.
- Flamboyant: Showy and bold.
- Arabesque: A flowing, decorative pattern of curves.
Part 1: The house
Listen for how the narrator describes John, and how often she says she should not complain.
Part 2: The paper
Listen for the first time she says the wallpaper looks back at her.
Part 3: Doctor’s orders
Listen for what changes in her voice after the Fourth of July.
Part 4: The woman behind the paper
Listen for what she says she sees, and what she stops telling John.
Part 5: The last days
Listen for the last pages, where the sentences get short and the narrator speaks plainly about what she has done.
A note on the story
The story is told as a diary, so you only ever see the house through the narrator. It is worth listening for how her sentences get shorter and stranger as the weeks go on.
