Q: How does this [story] hit differently in the light of Offred’s narrative, Bertha mason’s story or of Harriet Jacobs?
The story of The Yellow Wallpaper is another sobering example of female narratives being questioned or just flat out being suppressed and silenced. It’s a wonder that the narrator of the Yellow Wallpaper’s story got out at all, same with Offred’s as well.
It’s a sad reality of many non-fictional stories we haven’t heard from real women who have and are still suffering. Harriet Jacobs, the only non fiction narrative in this group. Jacob’s story is so horrifying and awful that it seems to be unreal, like the many other fictional ones that echo it. I mean Handmaid’s Tale seems to be the closest and that’s a fictional narrative based on true events. It’s just baffling that stories like these, of tragedy and loss and exploitation, whether true or not continue to be culturally belittled and pushed aside in favorite of much more “greater” stories.
It’s not that the Yellow Wallpaper hits differently, it more reinforces this tragic narrative of female stories throughout all of history and how little progression has been made when handling female stories. I think in much more recent years, with books like The Handmaid’s Tale, people have started to turn around and begin giving these stories the respect they deserve.
Womens Lit. Blog 