The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.”

Told through a series of journal entries, The Yellow Wallpaper traces the slow withdrawal of a woman prescribed rest and isolation as treatment for her fragile nerves, a cure that gradually becomes something far more restrictive than restorative. As her time becomes empty of stimulation and purpose, her attention settles on the yellow wallpaper that surrounds her. The longer she is denied expression, the more her inner world claws to the surface, until the wallpaper seems to reflect the shape of her confinement back at her. 

This novel has such a gentle oddness to it all. Watching her learn to mistrust her own perceptions feels quietly painful and uncomfortably familiar. I suppose the lesson here is that oppressive domesticity (and dismissive husbands) will catalyse insanity. Best avoided, just in case.