# What story? Girl goes crazy because walls are yellow.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-story-girl-goes-crazy-because-walls-are-yellow/249293>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 8, 2004, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-story-girl-goes-crazy-because-walls-are-yellow/249293 "2004-06-08T16:20:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2004, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-story-girl-goes-crazy-because-walls-are-yellow/249293/1 "2004-06-08T16:20:25Z")

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Somebody told me of a story in which the central character, a girl, goes crazy becaus her walls are all yellow.

Anybody know what story this is? Who wrote it? Is it a short story or a novel or what?

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**Author:** ![Papermache\_Prince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@Papermache\_Prince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Papermache_Prince)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2004, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-story-girl-goes-crazy-because-walls-are-yellow/249293/2 "2004-06-08T16:27:04Z")

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That sounds like the short story [The Yellow Wallpaper](http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med-db/webdocs/webdescrips/gilman87-des-.html) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

> [@](#):
>
> . . . The narrator, a new mother, has been brought to a country house for a “rest-cure” by her husband; he selects for her the room with the yellow wallpaper, the (former) nursery, where the “windows are barred for little children” and the bed has been nailed to the floor.  
> . . . She obsesses about the yellow wallpaper, in which she sees frightful patterns and an imprisoned female figure trying to emerge. The narrator finally “escapes” from her controlling husband and the intolerable confines of her existence by a final descent into insanity as she peels the wallpaper off and bars her husband from the room.

The full text is available online, through the above link and elsewhere.

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**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2004, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-story-girl-goes-crazy-because-walls-are-yellow/249293/3 "2004-06-08T19:37:48Z")

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Yep. She doesn’t really go crazy because of the yellow wallpaper but because she’s been confined to inactivity and insulated from all excitement. You’ll see a similar theme in the movie _The Hours_.

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**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2004, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-story-girl-goes-crazy-because-walls-are-yellow/249293/4 "2004-06-08T21:26:10Z")

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If I recall, she was suffering from Post-Partem depression and was then confined to bed rest, which eventually led to her going nuts.