Drawn to Darkness

15 - The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• Anne Azano • Episode 15

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In this episode, we discuss Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s gothic gut-punch, The Yellow Wallpaper—a claustrophobic descent into isolation, medical misogyny, and one very cursed interior design choice. Expect talk of gaslighting physicians, barred windows, nailed-down beds, and that unforgettable last line.

Spoiler and Content Warning:

We cover the full plot of The Yellow Wallpaper. If you’ve never read it, pause here and come back after. Content include post-partum depression, gaslighting, horrible horror husbands, confinement, suicidal ideation, racism and eugenics, and a descent into madness.

Synopsis:

Published in 1892, Gilman’s psychological horror invites us into the journal of an unnamed woman sequestered in a country estate by her physician-husband, John. Forbidden from “work” (writing), starved of stimulus, and overseen by his compliant sister/housekeeper Jenny, she fixates on the room’s revolting yellow wallpaper—first as an ugly pattern, then as bars, and finally as a trapped, creeping woman she begins to identify with. By the time John forces the door, she is circling the room, “creeping” over his fainted body "every time". Our discussion explores whether the room is effectively a locked ward (barred windows, nailed bed, gate at the stairs), the possibility of toxic wallpaper, and how the story functions as a rebuttal to the rest cure that nearly drove Gilman mad herself.

Palate Cleanser:

Trainwreck docuseries binge (e.g., storming Area 51; “Poop Cruise”). Disaster TV that entertains without plunging you into Victorian despair.

Recommendations:

  • Classics of gothic literature like Rebecca; Jane Eyre; The Fall of the House of Usher; The Haunting of Hill House; Mexican Gothic (modern mould horror)
  • The Handmaid’s Tale (Series)
  • Black Mirror: White Christmas
  • American Horror Story: Asylum
  • Don’t Worry Darling
  • Heretic with Hugh Grant (he has yellow wallpaper!)
  • “The Husband Stitch” (Carmen Maria Machado).
  • Great Stories with Trev Downey (audio of classic short stories including The Yellow Wallpaper).
  •  The Awakening and he Story of An Hour by Kate Chopin
  • Gaslight with Ingrid Bergman and Titanic (Cal would be a terrible husband)
  • The podcasts Novel Pairings and Breaking Down Patriarchy (both have episodes on The Yellow Wallpaper)
  • The Dollop episode on Women in Transportation
  • Girl, Interrupted
  • Greta Gerwig’s Little Women
  • Dickinson (series)
  • Sleepwalking (novel)
  • Verity (Colleen Hoover) - both bite the bed!

Recommendations:

Next up: Rosemary’s Baby (1968). We’re staying with gaslighting husbands, maternity horror, and lots more yellow. Bonus connection: Mia Farrow is Ronan Farrow’s mum, tying back to our Catch and Kill episode. Watch before the next show. Until then, don’t let anyone spoil your ghostliness.

Credits & Contact

Cover art: Nancy Azano — Instagram: @nancyazano
Intro and outro music: Harry Kidd — Instagram: @harryjkidd 
Email: drawntodarknesspod@gmail.com
Follow us on Instagram/Threads/Facebook @drawntodarknesspod
 




Anne:

Welcome back to Drawn to Darkness, a biweekly podcast where we discuss our favorite horror and true crime. If you ever thought you'd simply go mad if you couldn't renovate, we're here for you. My name is Annie and I'll be introducing Caroline to my favorite horror movies, podcasts, TV shows and books.

Caroline:

And my name is Caroline, and I'll be doing the same thing from the true crime side of things.

Anne:

So I wanted to start with the question. Caroline, do you keep a.

Caroline:

No, I used to keep diaries, as a young girl. and then when my mother passed away I went through the house and I had all of hers, I read all of them. And then I decided to read all of mine one last time and throw them all away so that my children could never read them.

Anne:

I did a similar thing. I, I had diaries, throughout high school and college, and a few years ago I found them and I reread my college ones and I just come off as such a pathetic whiner like, I don't want anyone to ever come across these. So I got rid of them all and it felt really cleansing to not have to worry about someone, finding them at some point. my second question, how often are you stimulus free? Never.

Caroline:

Pretty much. Almost never. I have in my ear all day listening to podcasts all day.

Anne:

Yeah, I would say I'm similar. I do listen to a lot of podcasts. I make an effort to go for a walk probably a few times a week with nothing and just, I don't know, like look at nature. but yeah, most of the time I am entertained in some way. my third question for you, if I were to tell you about a woman who was bisexual, a feminist, divorced remarried, campaigned for voting rights, better treatment from doctors for women, part of an anti-capitalist society protest movement. Worked as an editor on a magazine where she published her own writing, advocated for euthanasia for the terminally ill, and Ultimately chose euthanasia. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, what decade would you say she was living in?

Caroline:

The nineties.

Anne:

you're kind of right, but I'm talking about someone who was writing and working and living and getting married and protesting in the 1890s. Charlotte Perkins, Gilman. I keep wanting to say Gilmore, like Gilmore Girls, even though I'm not even a Gilmore Girls fan. I've never even watched an episode, but every time I think of her, I think Gilmore, Charlotte Perkins, Gilman. probably if I'd given you some more specifics about how she, chose euthanasia. She OD'ed on chloroform, that would've dated her a little bit, but otherwise you would think this woman was super ahead of her time.

Caroline:

Absolutely.

Anne:

before we continue, We are discussing the yellow wallpaper, content. And spoiler warning, we will be discussing gaslighting, horrible horror husbands and a descent into madness. The Atlantic rejected this story because it would make people miserable. such a story ought not to be written. It was enough to drive anyone mad to read it. So if you're worried about being driven mad, don't read this. And if you're worried about spoilers, go read it before we begin. okay, here we go. published in 1892, the Psychological Horror Novella. The yellow wallpaper invites the reader into the mind of an unnamed woman who's staying in a country estate with her husband, a physician who has prescribed the rest cure for her postpartum depression or hysteria. Nerves, melancholia, whatever they wanted to call it back then. She can take air, go for walks, but mostly she has been instructed to rest in her room. problem is that this room has the most appalling yellow wallpaper as our unnamed protagonist spends more and more time without stimulation or distraction, trying and failing to get her husband to listen to her. She focuses more and more on this wallpaper, eventually discovering that there is a woman creeping inside it, trapped by the pattern of bars. She starts to believe this woman is escaping and creeping through the gardens and eventually begins to conflate herself with this woman locking herself in the room, throwing the key into the garden to shock or astonish her husband who faints when he finally breaks in and discovers her creeping about the room. The story ends with the line. I had to creep over him every time. So basically we've got this woman in solitary confinement over roughly a three month period. the reason I asked you about how often you're stimulus free is imagine three months of literally nothing. Like she didn't have streaming, she didn't have podcasts, she doesn't mention reading, she has no friends, no messenger chats, and the only people around are her judgmental and mostly absent husband and his sister, the housekeeper. So her world is just so small, she has no sense of purpose, unlike her husband who gets to go to work. We know she wants to write, but she's hiding it. And so basically she's sitting in that room staring at the wallpaper, going mad.

Caroline:

It's enough to make anyone mad.

Anne:

Absolutely. What adjective would you use to describe this?

Caroline:

Okay. Well, I don't know if I've said this on this podcast yet, but it's often how I describe it to people in my life like that you are like the a. contingency, and I'm here to represent like the BB plus community. and so my first adjective was confusing because as I told you, when we were messaging about it, listened to it while multitasking then listened to it again immediately after, because I was like, did I miss something? and then, my second adjective was really bizarrely, it was kind of like victorious. At the end, listening to her be like, I, I threw the key out the window, I was just like, yeah, take that asshole,

Anne:

She says you can't put me back.

Caroline:

Right.

Anne:

I'm getting chills listening to you talk about that. I, I didn't think about the adjective victorious, but I like it. for me, the adjective was creepy.

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

I know creepy is probably an adjective we overuse,

Caroline:

that one.

Anne:

but she creeps, right? Like she creeps around the room, whatever that means. I wanna go back to her biography a little bit more because I think it is really important, because this is semi autobiographical. She's a Rhode Island girl, like me, she went to RISD like my mom, and She had a message that she wanted to get through and that was to relay the dangers of the rest cure, which was prescribed to her after suffering from postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter. And her doctor's advice was to never do anything creative. To nap after every meal, to stay home to avoid stimulus and socializing. So she says, he sent me home with solemn advice to live as domestic, a life as far as possible, to have the two hours of intellectual life a day, and never to touch pen, brush, or pencil again as long as I lived. What an asshole.

Caroline:

I mean, it's the opposite of what we know to be your cure for whatever is happening in your mind, you know?

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

create is really the best form of therapy.

Anne:

However you need to do that, whether it's writing or art or anything. Right? you Just to have a sense of purpose

Caroline:

Mm-hmm.

Anne:

this doctor's advice removed. Having a sense of purpose and also socializing. Like if you're depressed, you probably shouldn't be locked up in your room, not talking to anybody that's only gonna exacerbate what you're feeling. So needless to say, in real life, this did not go well for her. eventually she says, I cast the noted specialist advice to the winds and went to work again. Work the normal life of every human being work in, which is joy and growth and service without which one is a popper and a parasite, ultimately recovering some measure of power. so she wrote a short article, why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper, and that's an excerpt from that. And she says, in response to the person who said, well, you know, people shouldn't read this. It will make them miserable. It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy.

Caroline:

Suddenly I'm thinking of Bo Burnham inside.

Anne:

Yes. That's a great.

Caroline:

I, I remember watching that at a moment where. The whole time I kept being like, how do you know what's in my mind? and just feeling like there's someone out there who can pinpoint a thing that you feel or describe an experience of yours. it's very saving, feeling lonely is the worst part of it. So understanding that you're not the only one, it can really save.

Anne:

Bo Burnham was feeling lonely and turned to creativity to combat that, right? So it's a perfect example of what could have saved our unnamed protagonist in the yellow wallpaper. But what she was not allowed to do, you I wanna point out something else in her biography. she really wanted equality for women. She wrote a book called Women in Economics, a study of the economic relation between men and women as a factor in Social Evolution. She points out the only animal species in which the female depends on the male for food. We are the only animal species in which the sex relation is also an economic relation that women's labor in the household has economic value, which is not compensated. And so she had all sorts of. really progressive opinions there on, things that we are still struggling with today. You know, the fact that household labor is not compensated. Having said that, she's not without fault. What do you think her fault was as a person in the 1890s?

Caroline:

Gosh, is she super religious? It doesn't sound like she would be.

Anne:

No, I don't think so. But she's pretty racist.

Caroline:

Oh, well, yeah.

Anne:

She, uh, certainly had an interest in eugenics. She thought that black people were inferior and though she wanted equality but her ideas for getting there included a plan where I quote. Any Negroes who do not progress, who are not self-supporting, who are degenerating into an increasing percentage of social burdens or actual criminals should be taken hold of by the state into a system of mandatory enlistment, encompassing men, women, and children, which is slavery, right? Like essentially what she's describing. So she wanted equality, but her views on how to get there were very problematic. Like so many thinkers and writers from the past who are product of their times

Caroline:

It's

Anne:

pretty horrendous prejudices jus.

Caroline:

Yeah, it's interesting and baffling when a person can have such insight. Well, and I guess narcissistic into their own reasons for not being able to achieve whatever, and the systemic issues that get in the way of that. And to be so ignorant as to why, institutional and slave trade, as you said, like would be why people of color are not able to achieve what people who are white can achieve. Or like people who are. Considered white because given the year, may or may not include Italians or Irish people or any other

Anne:

Yeah,

Caroline:

we now believe to be white, which is a social construct,

Anne:

having said all that, I love this story. it has lived in my head. Rent free since the first time I read it. I don't know when I read it. High school, college, but I love all the gothic tropes, which are established pretty much on the first page with that country estate with Rambling Gardens, the stern housekeeper and the typical horror movie, skeptical husband, these are things that we still see in horror movies today. And she was doing this in the 1890s, which I just love. It reminds me a lot of the novel Rebecca, which we'll definitely cover at some point, which was written later. we've got an unnamed sort of passive wife with a paternalistic husband who's just not listening. And it also reminds me of the great Houses of horror and gothic fiction like Manderly and Rebecca, you know, the Secret Garden, Thornfield and Jane Eyre. More recently, hill House, the Marsden House in Salem's lot. So just that gothic trope of the old, secluded gated mansion with gardens perhaps high on a hill.

Caroline:

This reminds me of a question that I guess I didn't ask you when we were covering ghosts in the verbs. Why are ghosts always from like the 18 hundreds?

Anne:

that's a great question and it is, explored in the British sitcom ghosts where there are caveman ghosts

Caroline:

Oh.

Anne:

that are haunting, haunting the house, the manor, because it's like, well, they've just been there for like 10,000 years or something.

Caroline:

Mm,

Anne:

but yes, that's a good question. Why don't we have 1990s ghosts? Probably because a lot of our imaginings of ghosts comes from these gothic novels and tropes.

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

Yeah. I love the way she establishes quite early a theme of so many haunted houses. Like she asks, and why should it be let so cheaply? Right? Like the haunted house is, is cheap, like it's a deal.

Caroline:

Mm-hmm.

Anne:

And that's one of those haunted house red flags. It also reminds me of a theme we've discussed, and you just mentioned ghosts in the burbs. how I mispronounced the mayonnaise of modern motherhood, the maez, the malaise, the maez of modern motherhood, because she's not into it, right? she doesn't wanna be cooking and cleaning and, she doesn't wanna be the domestic goddess.

Caroline:

Felt?

Anne:

I think in terms of setting, we should take into account views of women at the time which demanded marriage, children supporting the husband, the idea that a woman belonged in the home. There was a poem called The Angel of the House, which presented the ideal woman as submissive, fragile, selfless, modest, virtuous, dependent, and obviously staying in the house. Some people still have these ideas now, perhaps should have a read of the yellow wallpaper.

Caroline:

Yeah, I mean, as you were just describing that, I was thinking of the Barbie monologue,

Anne:

Yes.

Caroline:

the

Anne:

And the trad wife movement, which looks great on Instagram, but is probably really sucks in real

Caroline:

Yeah. Without question.

Anne:

Yeah. I think those people who are making it as trad wis on Instagram are faking it.

Caroline:

Yeah, let's cover Ruby Frankie at some point, speaking of,

Anne:

Okay. I don't know who that is, but I'll have to look into it.

Caroline:

will?

Anne:

Okay. one of the most famous passages from this poem is, man must be pleased, but him to please is women's pleasure. Down the gulf of his condoled necessities, she casts her best, she flings herself. So women were expected to fling themselves to make sure their husband's needs were met. So not just to do the work, but to do it enthusiastically and lovingly as this angel in the home. Which reminds me of that line from my husband, and I always say this to each other from the breakup where Jennifer Aniston says to Vince Vaughn, I want you to want to do the dishes. And he's like, nobody wants to do the dishes. Right. It,

Caroline:

I've never actually seen that movie, but I have seen that clip a million times.

Anne:

yeah, it's a good one. another thing that I think is important in terms of setting and beliefs at the time is the misunderstanding and mistreatment of mental illness as hysteria. Like we get this image of women swooning, you know, probably if you've seen it in old movies, like Gone With the Wind, and it was linked to this idea of having a uterus. So men couldn't get this so this melancholy depression, nerves anxiety could be diagnosed as female hysteria and that treatment was the rescue cure. And sometimes women could be committed to an asylum, which wasn't even necessarily for mental illness. It could be because a woman was deviating from the norms of society. And as we said earlier, we now know that the rest cure, which was avoiding stimulation, staying home, not thinking resting, is only going to exacerbate symptoms of depression and anxiety. And this is why she wrote this. Well, let's talk about characters. What do you think of our unnamed protagonist?

Caroline:

I mean, I really felt for her, I don't love the color yellow as as walls either. I mean, some of it, you know, I, you were talking about rest and lack of stimulus. Like I was sort of thinking about, our honeymoon for example, where, you know, we didn't have international phones or don't even know how, how smart or fast my smartphone was, but I definitely spent a

Anne:

I definitely spent a lot of time

Caroline:

quiet, and I

Anne:

quiet

Caroline:

people joke about wishing they would be prescribed, a month at a seaside something. it's like, oh, would that be pleasant as, as a break, but certainly not forced.

Anne:

Certainly not.

Caroline:

definitely wrote down like, why don't they let her write? I, I really didn't understand why she had to keep hiding that. I've really felt for that aspect as well.

Anne:

Well, yeah. I mean, if the rescue included like books, podcasts, puzzles, movies, I'd be down for like a year of it.

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

doing nothing, being absolutely stimulus free would be torture. Like I have a lot swirling in my head at any given moment, so I need an outlet. so the boredom of being locked up in a room with nothing to divert me and being told it's for my own good, just take a nap. I'd lose it too. And I don't even have wallpaper in my house.

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

Have you seen that white Christmas episode of Black Mirror?

Caroline:

No, I've only watched like two episodes of Black Mirror. it's so upsetting.

Anne:

Well, this episode is so upsetting and I guess it also Remi reminds me of of the Handmaid's Tale

Caroline:

Hmm.

Anne:

season one June sitting in her room for hours on end with nothing to do. And in some ways I find imagining that like that those hours and hours and days and days, you know, almost as disturbing as not as disturbing, but almost as disturbing as the rape and the forced, childbirth and all that kind of stuff.

Caroline:

I grew up. with a single parent and my sibling, no sibling at home. My brother went to college when I was 10, and I lived in the middle of the woods, so I spent a ton of time by myself And now I have three children and three pets so that nobody is ever alone in my house. Sort of

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

Like that level of seclusion I think was enough for me to be like never again. none of my

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

are gonna have to deal with that. And it was nowhere near what she's dealing with, you know.

Anne:

No. Well, yeah, I mean, it sounds like her husband, well, we'll get into him later, but, she doesn't even have anybody to talk to. he's closed off to her. He, shuts her down. all the time. So, yeah, like she's really, really isolated. Um,

Caroline:

even hang with her sister-in-law, which I know you and I both are very close with our sister-in-laws,

Anne:

we are, yeah. Well, I think her sister-in-law, is Jenny. you know, she's also part of the problem, right? Like she's not letting her write, she has to hide the writing from her as well. So she is, um, has absorbed the messages of the patriarchy, I guess, in controlling our, main character. one thing I love about her is she says she's talking about the house and she says, that spoils my ghostliness. Do you remember that line?

Caroline:

Yeah,

Anne:

And I love that line. I can identify, I love the idea of staying in like a harmlessly haunted manner, and I wanna make that my new saying. Like, whenever you say something skeptical about ghosts, I'm gonna tell you to stop spoiling my ghostliness. That's gonna be my new yuck. My yum. For horror lovers. Don't spoil my ghostliness.

Caroline:

I'm so

Anne:

So she's like,

Caroline:

nineties, 1990s ghosts.

Anne:

yes.

Caroline:

Hmm.

Anne:

So our unnamed narrator is that Mad woman upstairs archetype like Bertha from Jane Ayer, which was published several decades before, we're invited into her stream of consciousness that shows us the way she's internalized, that patriarchal view of herself, like the way he looks at her. That she should be grateful, and he's so loving and she feels guilty for not meeting that Victorian ideal of the angel in the house. Like she's a burden, rather than making John's life easier, which is her role. So there's this constant self-talk she engages in to try to convince herself that like, well, he's right. And I believe that Gilmore, Gilman Gilman was doing that really ironically, because her message is that like, he's wrong, But she's like, what am I to do? If your husband is a doctor and he's so smart and he's so practical, like, well of course, what can one do?

Caroline:

My, my number one, my first note I took was gaslighting.

Anne:

Hmm.

Caroline:

it really was so apparent in the story when, I guess it shouldn't be clear whether he's gaslighting her or not at that point,'cause it's the very beginning and you and she is doing that self-talk, but I don't know, something about it still conveys like clearly he's gaslighting her.

Anne:

Yeah. Now you listened, right? You didn't read.

Caroline:

Correct.

Anne:

Okay. So if you read it the original PDF from, 1890s, she has some really interesting use of punctuation that we wouldn't see listening. so she says like, John is a physician and perhaps, and she italicize as perhaps. so, and perhaps this is one reason I do not get well faster, and then she says she's forbidden to work with work in quotation marks as well. So she's definitely using punctuation to question him. And that was interesting because I listened to it first as well. And then there was something I wanted, to look up. I wanted to list the adjectives, which I will do, but, and then I was like, oh, look at this punctuation. Regarding John, even though she is expressing that she feels bad, that she can't be, who she should be for him, she's also really angry, right? Like, she admits, she's like, sometimes I'm really angry at him, like, or unreasonably angry, but she's pushing that down, that buttoned up unexpressed Victorian rage that she's actually feeling.

Caroline:

Mm-hmm.

Anne:

let's talk about John.

Caroline:

Must

Anne:

you know, I know she's. You know, we're only seeing him through the eyes of a woman who is losing her mind. And perhaps she's an unreliable narrator, and maybe he's a, he's delightful. But I hate John's guts, and I think we're absolutely meant to.

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

He's practical, he's controlling. It's quite clear. He holds all the power she has to put away her writing whenever he approaches. And there's this one line, she says, he's careful and loving and hardly lets me stir without special direction. And I love that she juxtaposes those two ideas she's like, oh, he's loving, but he doesn't let me do anything without ordering me around. And those two things are contradictions.

Caroline:

right, I'm trying to think of like a clear way to say there's a difference between. Being loving and caring and attentive and controlling. and one way makes you feel supported and the other makes you feel like you can never do anything right, matter what.

Anne:

and I think she feels like that,

Caroline:

Mm-hmm.

Anne:

but all of his so-called care for her is couched in terms of love and endearment and wanting the best for her. But it's very controlling, like I'm a doctor dear, and I know, trust me as a physician, like there's a lot of, but John says yes. Oh, he's so condescending and infantilizing. He calls her a blessed little goose. Dear little girl, bless her little heart, right? Like everything about her is little like a child.

Caroline:

Mm-hmm.

Anne:

everything she wants is a silly whim or a foolish fancy. I.

Caroline:

Yeah. He really reminds me of, what's his face. Stay out of it. Billy Zane. Billy Zane

Anne:

Cal I know Cal from Titanic so well right now because I showed my kids Titanic recently and we're just like watching it on repeat,

Caroline:

Mm-hmm. It's in

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

I was gonna try to save it, but like, he is like cow and this sister-in-law's like the mom.

Anne:

Yeah. How um, women can be part of our own repression. Yeah and he laughs at her, early on. It's one of the first lines. She says, John laughs laughed at me. But one expects that with marriage. Does one have to expect that with marriage, right?

Caroline:

Fuck no.

Anne:

They're not laughing together. Very deliberate use of the word.

Caroline:

Right. The only

Anne:

She doesn't

Caroline:

be laughed at is if you fall and don't get hurt. That's,

Anne:

Yes. Poor thing. And then, you know, she, he, he is not listening. Right. He's so dismissive. He's constantly shutting her down. Like she says, he does not believe I'm sick. And there's that one part that I find really heartbreaking. Like she's asking to visit a friend and she kind of halfway through her retelling, admits that she's like, I, I probably didn't express myself well because I started crying. So when we imagine like. What is actually happening here? This conversation between the two of them where she's like crying and begging to see people and he's giving her stern reproachful looks and being, you know, you little goose. You just need to rest. it's so infuriating. should we talk about the wallpaper itself? Because she starts by just hating the wallpaper. She just thinks it's ugly. I listed the adjectives because I just love the descriptions. She describes it as sprawling, flamboyant, dull, lurid. Sickly. I think sulfurous atrocious, horrid, irritating, pointless. Bloated, undulating, hideous, torturing, infuriating, unreliable, florid, perplexing and absurd. And I probably missed some, but those were the ones I wrote down, and I just find all that.

Caroline:

dull at the same time?

Anne:

Well, it's a, it's very contradicting. And I think she talks about like curves at one point, but then later she talks about bars. Right. So there's a lot of contradictions in the way that she describes this wallpaper.

Caroline:

Yeah. I saw a TikTok last night. Gosh, I should look up, what the word is. You know, some people think in very clear pictures, right. Which

Anne:

Mm-hmm.

Caroline:

do'cause you're an artist. So like, I'm sure that when you close your mind and you try close your eyes, not your mind, and you try to envision something, you can see it clearly.

Anne:

Yeah. Well, do you see actors or people, when you read a book or not, I always cast. My characters.

Caroline:

Yeah. That's one of your

Anne:

Yeah. love casting characters.

Caroline:

this is not like a black or white answer. There's actually like a graph that someone shows with an apple where the apple can be super, super crisp or like very, very blurred. And I'm on the blurry side, so it's not that I don't

Anne:

Okay.

Caroline:

anything. It's just not crisp. It's very vague. like my vision, which is really bad. I'm at like a negative four and a half in each eye. So like that's kind of how it is in my mind.

Anne:

I wonder if there's a correlation between people with poor vision and how they visualize books. Maybe. I have great vision.

Caroline:

Yeah. Okay. Because so does

Anne:

I, I don't have class.

Caroline:

and he's an artist and he, yeah,

Anne:

I don't think your right to classify me as an artist, by the way. I'm imaginative, but I suck at art.

Caroline:

you do not, I can still remember your starry night on the wall in Windwood.

Anne:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. But it's easy to copy. impressionists,

Caroline:

Why don't you look at my attempt sometime?

Anne:

they probably painted over yours. Okay. Um, she also uses a lot of, similes to describe the wallpaper, like a broken neck, like wallowing, seaweeds, like a bad dream, a fungus, a string of toad stools, like old foul, bad yellow things, strangled heads bars. And then perhaps most disturbingly, like a woman stooping down and creeping behind the pattern. A. She also uses personification. She discusses the pattern plunging that the lines are destroying themselves, which implies that this pattern has agency, that it is making decisions, committing suicide. She says it slaps you in the face. It tramples you, it shrieks with derision. I just love all these descriptions and the way in her mind, she just keeps coming back to it, she'll deviate from her thoughts of the wallpaper to talk about John, or to talk about the house, or to talk about that she has a baby that she's unable to interact with at this moment, but then she just keeps coming back to it and thinking about it more and more. So this is some really ugly wallpaper basically.

Caroline:

Yeah, I'd be hard pressed to think of wallpaper. I really enjoy, I mean, there are some, but they wouldn't be yellow, I don't think.

Anne:

I mean, yellow can be sunny and bright and sweet, but I'm picturing this more of a vomit yellow and toad stool yellow.

Caroline:

and I yellow. all over the wall just feels, I don't know, invasive. I, it just feels like, stop being sunny at me. You know? Like, you know, I don't know. It's

Anne:

Well, yeah, I mean, I remember my mom having wallpaper in like, I guess the late eighties and early nineties.

Caroline:

Everyone

Anne:

went through a wallpaper stage, she went through an accent wall stage. I mean, I guess I, wallpaper can be beautiful in like old homes. I can't imagine wallpaper. In my house, right? It would just be, I don't know, so oppressive and make things feel small. And I don't know, every once in a while you see it in like a bathroom and it can look nice, but

Caroline:

It can look nice in a bathroom.

Anne:

Who knows, maybe it'll come back. fashion is cyclical and all that.

Caroline:

do. Yeah.

Anne:

They too. so, and I think some of these ways she's describing the wallpaper the way she talks about the strangled heads and the way it plunges is indicating her own suicidal ideation. But then she later describes it as having bars, which,, evokes images of imprisonment and confinement. And she's essentially in solitary confinement when she is seeing this pattern become bars. She can't think straight, she can't think of anything else, and those thoughts become more dangerous, She considers jumping out the window but doesn't because of the bars. I love this line. She says, I know well enough that a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued, which I thought was interesting, like improper to jump out the window, which reminded me of Han Solo when he asked C3 PO to use his divine influence to get them out of there. And CPU says it wouldn't be proper. And he's like, not proper.

Caroline:

yeah.

Anne:

She mentions, I thought, seriously of burning the house and she mentions rope that she's going to use to tie up the woman.

Caroline:

Okay. So to, to go back to my original thing about being confused, part of why I, I was confused is because you do like ghosts and horror and stuff like that. And so I was like, is there a ghost behind this wallpaper? Is there like a dead lady back there who starting to present herself and haunt the room? And then also as, those mentions go on, when the husband is pounding, panicking on the door, I am like, did she start a fire? she hanging herself?'cause she mentions the rope. Like, I thought maybe I missed her being in the act of attempting one of these things she mentions because he's so panicked and all she did was lock the door.

Anne:

I mean, I think those are all valid interpretations. you know, we think, is there something actually wrong with this wallpaper? There's the implication that it's moldy, right? Because she talks about the smell and how there's smudges of it everywhere, And wallpaper back then actually sometimes had arsenic in it, there could be some compound in this wallpaper that is actually physically impacting her, Because she's spending so much time with it. She's breathing, perhaps she's breathing in mold spores, that's explored in the haunting of Hill House as a possible explanation. Is it haunted or are they hallucinating because of toxic mold? Right. And you know, at one point she says she catches him looking at it and she catches Jenny looking at it. So, maybe there is something actually wrong with the paper. chemically, maybe there's something ghostly happening. Maybe it is actually a haunted house. I mean, I think mostly it's about, The rescue cure is evil and this made her mad. But I think she really does leave it ambiguous.

Caroline:

Well, there's

Anne:

the, okay.

Caroline:

it being torn in

Anne:

Yeah. Well, one question I have is, is this just a manner in the countryside or is there more to it? because she talks about the windows being barred. That's not really normal.

Caroline:

No.

Anne:

The bed is nailed down. That's not normal. She talks about a gate at the top of the stairs. she talks about, I think, gouges in the floor at one point. maybe she is in an asylum like situation, even if it's private and she doesn't even know.

Caroline:

Mm.

Anne:

So,

Caroline:

I was confused about the bars on the windows and when she was talking about the bed being nailed, I'm like, who? Why would anyone do that?

Anne:

yeah. Possibly there's more going on than she is aware of. And then, why did John faint, right? I mean, maybe she was just throwing this in there to be like, you know, men could be hysterical too. Like men could faint, like it's the, stereotype is the woman swooning and fainting, but let's just throw that in there, that this man fainted. So I think that's possibly why. but then there's the possibility that she is a ghost. And again, this is not a common interpretation. as you said, she does refer to the rope. So that I think is, It's telling

Caroline:

Honestly, the reason I had to listen to it twice him being panicked. Because the door is locked, just felt very his other behavior, it feels like she's decoration, so I don't know why she, he would care if she were in danger. It doesn't feel like he actually cares for her as a person that he loves, it was confusing to me that there wouldn't be something else going on, like a smell or a sound that triggered him, that she had used the rope in some way,

Anne:

Maybe it had just been a while and we're only seeing her interpretation. Like maybe he'd been banging on the door for an hour and he is getting increasingly panicked. But then I think, what is she doing when he walks in?

Caroline:

Mm-hmm.

Anne:

I think is really something, worth exploring. And I said that creepy was my word. And I think the creepiest part of this is, once that woman behind the pattern starts creeping about, because that's when we're like, oh, wait, wait, wait. She's not just bored and depressed like something else is going on here. There's this implication that anyone who tried to get out was strangled by the pattern. She's starting to see decapitated heads, which is often, you know, perhaps a metaphor for the fate of women who tried to live outside the norms. They are strangled by the expectations of society, but. The way she discusses creeping. It's so jarring and so unsettling. Like she says, most women do not creep by daylight. That's weird. That's a really weird thing to say. And she says it must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight. she says, I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. So what, what is she doing when she says she's creeping? Like, what do you picture?

Caroline:

I mean, I kind of picture the Grinch.

Anne:

Yes.

Caroline:

yeah,

Anne:

I love that.

Caroline:

I

Anne:

Yeah. That he's creeping about. Yeah.

Caroline:

it's just that, those steps or whatever. Yeah. Or, or like, don't be suspicious. Be suspicious.

Anne:

Yes. I mean, I am picturing her kind of like hunched up and tiptoeing and you know, she refers to like a streak or a smooch around the room as if it had been rubbed over and over. And, and at one point she doesn't know where it came from, who did it. So I think one interpretation is she's not the first woman in this room. Maybe someone else was driven mad. Maybe this is some kind of asylum like situation. But the other interpretation is that she did it and doesn't remember since there's yellow on her clothes, that she has been rubbing her body against the walls round and round the room, you know, pushing out those boundaries of her confinement. but doesn't remember it.

Caroline:

Yeah, I have to say that was what I ended up thinking was that the damage to the wallpaper that she begins to describe later and not initially was done by her.

Anne:

Yeah, She's there for three months, And we have, I don't know, like 20 minutes of her.

Caroline:

Mm-hmm.

Anne:

So what was happening all the time, she wasn't writing or that we're not given insight into her inner monologue. Now she does say about the rope, I'm securely fastened by my well hidden rope. So what does that mean? And she says he can't put her back. She's escaped. Perhaps she has escaped. You know, that we talked about in the sixth sense how a ghost can be stuck in the traumatic moment of their death. I think the final line I had to creep over him every time. every time. What does that mean? She's going back and forth every time implies habit. So. Did she kill herself? And she's stuck in that moment and she's still creeping over him again and again and again.

Caroline:

I do feel like that is my ending impression is she hung

Anne:

It's, certainly implied by wanting to burn the house down by wanting to jump out the window or considering it and just the presence of the rope.

Caroline:

mm-hmm.

Anne:

for me that is the most disturbing part. Do you have any criticism?

Caroline:

I don't think that it would be fair. Like, because like I said, I, I think, I am probably the problem.

Anne:

Okay.

Caroline:

not the piece.

Anne:

Yeah, I think my criticism is the unanswered questions, the confusion, but perhaps that's also the genius of it, it is up to our interpretation.

Caroline:

there was one point I wrote down that when they're talking about what room she has to stay in, he says something about if he took another, and I was like, does he mean take another lover or room? I guess I was quite confused by that moment of it more so than. I should say I was confused by that statement in a different way than the other stuff, which I think was unclear intentionally.

Anne:

I thought he meant another bed or something because it was common for people not to actually share a bed back then.

Caroline:

Right.

Anne:

so I kind of interpreted it as that.

Caroline:

Okay.

Anne:

But why won't he just let her stay in the downstairs room?

Caroline:

Right. Unless, like you said, there's bars and a nailed down bed for a reason, but then she shouldn't be able to lock the door.

Anne:

Maybe she stole the key

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

while she was creeping about. well, let's talk about some of the deeper horrors. I think the whole thing is a metaphor for being part of a patriarchal system, knowing deep down that something is repellent about your situation and unfair, but you can't quite put your finger on it. just like she knows something's wrong with this wallpaper, something's wrong with her marriage, but she is a product of her times and she's seeing it through those, her own cultural assumptions and beliefs and expectations, so she can't quite figure out what's wrong.

Caroline:

Yeah, I think another deeper horror, there was a sentence I wrote down when she says that she was controlling herself at great pains, which makes her tired. And it really me, in the way that women must often control themselves to avoid being called whatever thing people can think of. But also,

Anne:

Also

Caroline:

a lot of talk. In the TikTok era

Anne:

from,

Caroline:

diagnosing, in some ways is a lot, and in some ways is helpful in terms of being seen there's a lot of talk

Anne:

lot

Caroline:

some of the ways that you can be neuros spicy and that women have often had to mask them. And so the symptoms of your neuro spiciness could be presenting very differently because you're a woman and you've had to mask and, go along to get along, and to be responsible for yourself and others, et cetera. So I really felt like that was a very well concisely put expression of a deeper horror.

Anne:

I think another deeper horror is that women are often not believed by doctors, and most medical research is not done on women. you know, so when we look at, things like dosage, it might be based on the average male's body particularly women of color, not being believed by doctors when they're unwell or in pain. There's a subplot about this in the pit. Have you watched that yet?

Caroline:

No.

Anne:

well, there, there's a woman who is, black and she comes in and she's screaming, and I think people think that she, is like on drugs or something because she's saying, yeah, they think she's in withdrawal, but she actually has sickle cell anemia and like the doctors don't pick up on it right away. But that subplot is definitely there to point that out about, black women not being believed when they're in pain or making assumptions about why they're in pain.

Caroline:

Yeah, and I think it was before they started, including women in medical trials. I mean, it was some absurd late date.

Anne:

Yeah. And Serena Williams is a great example of that, do you know about her childbirth story where she Had a blood clot? She knew she was somebody who suffered from blood clots and people just weren't hearing her, and she has. So much privilege, right?

Caroline:

Mm-hmm.

Anne:

with wealth and, being a high profile person and still she was not believed. another deeper horror, I think is the perceived emotional fragility of women, having gone through childbirth. Women aren't fragile. I've been teaching Macbeth as I think I've mentioned in previous podcasts, and at one point a character makes this assumption that Lady Macbeth can't handle even hearing about a murder even though she's the one who planned it. So Shakespeare was onto that, right? Like women aren't necessarily emotionally fragile and incapable of thinking about these things, but that idea that because of our supposed emotional fragility, we just can't handle anything, So you have to be locked in a room, which is what led to that horribly misguided rest cure.

Caroline:

It's insane to me that men have been able to successfully, I don't know, advocate that anger is not an emotion.

Anne:

You will not believe this. I have that exact note

Caroline:

You do.

Anne:

that the greatest, yeah, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was reframing anger as not an emotion.

Caroline:

It's totally an emotion. Like, what the hell? It's insane.

Anne:

Yeah. and I will never be able to hear that women are too emotional for politics again, without scoffing, after Elon Musk and Trump's Twitter or whatever they were on spat. those are some pretty emotional guys.

Caroline:

Brett Kavanaugh, I mean, like,, you watch these men and you're just like, you are off your fricking rockers, to be

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

it. And how is that not emotional?

Anne:

There's emotional fragility in humanity. It's not a female thing.

Caroline:

No. And either way, it should be met with empathy at some point. I mean, unless you're Trump, or Elon Musk.

Anne:

Yeah. Any other deeper horrors you'd like to discuss?

Caroline:

talked about this last time too. It's, pretty horrible women are not supportive of each other. it is something that I think might take maturity for you to realize, like you might have to be an adult before you understand real betrayal of woman participating in the gaslighting of another woman. And we talked about this last time as well, with Lisa Bloom.

Anne:

Bloom from Catch and Kill? Yeah.

Caroline:

Yeah. And, The spy,

Anne:

And Carrie too.

Caroline:

Mm-hmm.

Anne:

episode 10, the way those girls torture Carrie for having her period.

Caroline:

Mm-hmm.

Anne:

Okay. Survival. any survival tips that we learned from this?

Caroline:

So I'm gonna, once again, steal something from wine and crime. Never meet a man.

Anne:

Yeah, that's a good one. Mine was writes, create, make a podcast work. Go running. Do whatever it is that makes your heart sing and relieves the pressive ideas. Don't let people tell you your whims are silly. Don't let anyone spoil your ghostliness. I recently read this article about, fulfilling work, and that was something that, Charlotte Perkins Skillman really believed in the importance of work. And, and she didn't mean drudgery, right? She meant doing something creative. This article was about Haruki Murakami the novelist and how when he's into something, he goes completely into it and is fully devoted, and that that really is fulfilling, When you can get into the flow of doing something that matters to you that's challenging and maybe hard, but worth it. The character says like if I only had more stimulus and society, and she believes that writing would help her, and she feels this sense of relief when she expresses herself, but she's denied that and she hides it. So I think it's important that we are allowed to be more than the angel in the house. We all need a release, and it might not be writing, but like whatever it is.

Caroline:

you know, I am not, an artistically skilled person. I'm probably the least creative person in my household. I have defensive every once in a while when I've heard people be like, could you imagine being stuck at a desk all day and blah, blah, blah. And I really thrived in that environment. I really appreciated structure and being helpful in a place where I understood and how to be helpful and everything was clear to me. So I think that is what floats your boat whether it's something

Anne:

It's

Caroline:

creative or something that is just productive, doing something where you feel like you're adding value in a way that, is recognized and uniquely yours. So not just parenting, but something else you can

Anne:

something that could be just parenting,

Caroline:

Yeah,

Anne:

if parenting is truly your thing and you love it, like more power to you, that's great.

Caroline:

True.

Anne:

It's not, it's not for me. I need more. Right?

Caroline:

Yeah, yeah. I agree. I think parenting, it's not that it doesn't feel, fulfilling. it feels very, extracting of you with less coming back to you in, a more, immediate fashion, I guess I need, you know, and not everybody needs that. I get that. But anyway, my point was more don't feel bad if your outlet isn't traditionally creative. Just have one.

Anne:

Whether it's Creative Parenthood, producing something, going to work, not going to work, like whatever it is, love it and don't let anyone tell you it's a silly whim. do you have any unanswered questions?

Caroline:

I think we've talked about them.

Anne:

I think we've talked about it.

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

I have one unanswered question. I wanna know if anyone has actually designed this yellow wallpaper. I was thinking about asking AI to do it, like inputting all the instructions and seeing what AI comes up with. But then I'm like, oh, I don't like using AI unnecessarily cause I'm philosophically opposed to it. But

Caroline:

it has an environmental footprint, so like, maybe only ask you

Anne:

Yes.

Caroline:

really that cr ask Reddit first. I, I feel like

Anne:

Yeah.

Caroline:

helpful.

Anne:

Maybe I can put out a call to any artist. I can get my mom design this yellow wallpaper. Make it look like toad stools and strangled heads and bars and plunging lines, right?

Caroline:

and flamboyant but dull.

Anne:

Yes. This sounds like, an interior designer's worst nightmare of a client.

Caroline:

it does, it does sound, my, my husband is an architect. It sounds like any number of clients that he's,

Anne:

Yep. With ridiculous contrasting demands.

Caroline:

yeah. And not always, not always, but some of them anyway. oh, it, it did, when we were talking earlier about the word that I can't think of about the visualization, I was having a hard time and I was like, is this because I don't visualize well, or is this intentional? You know?

Anne:

I think it's intentional. I think we're not really supposed to know what it looks like because it changes for her as she, loses her mind

Caroline:

Right.

Anne:

because it can't be all those things at once. Do you have a cleanser?

Caroline:

So last episode I did mention train wreck poop cruise, and have binged all of the train wrecks. So there's several, there's one on like storming area 51. There's one on this X Party. There's one on that mayor from Toronto. They're all, pretty harmless, docuseries, that if you love docuseries as I do. I found watching them to be entertaining without being depressing. And so I wanted to recommend it,, you know, to just make you part of what people are talking about, I guess.

Anne:

Uh, what about recommendations to do with this?

Caroline:

some things came up as we were talking. So when you were talking about hysteria, for example, I was reminded of an episode of The Dollop, which I know I've recommended before. I think the Jaws episode. There is an episode called Women in Transportation. and it's a very special episode because Gareth, who's one of the co-hosts, his mother who's British and just delightful to listen to, is a guest on the episode. And they sort of talk about all these rules about women taking different modes of transportation that I don't really know how,

Anne:

I.

Caroline:

to explain other than it's very similar to just, you know, women have hysteria. They should be locked in a room. when you're talking about the toxic mold, I was reminded of the s Town podcast, which we should definitely cover at some point. and then, with all the discussion of anti-racism Or racism, of this? author. I did wanna mention that inspired by Amanda from Wine and Crime, who I think I've called out specifically before. I. did hire an

Anne:

I did hiring

Caroline:

and went through anti-racism coaching, which had a lot of really great, for me as a white woman, in the us And if you are able to go through that

Anne:

to go

Caroline:

you can do it for a short period to

Anne:

for short.

Caroline:

yourself and then try to, you know, to live through what you've learned and, and, and do better. and then otherwise I thought of, girl Interrupted of course, which is a great movie. Then Greta Gerwig version of Little Women. I was Also, reminded of, when we talk about of a woman, then being unrealistic, I also really

Anne:

Also,

Caroline:

the show Dickinson. have you watched Dickinson?

Anne:

no. I'm assuming we're talking about Emily.

Caroline:

yeah, it's a dark, about Emily. Dickinson, where you hear a lot of her inner monologue, and as we're talking about feminist authors, et cetera, it's a great watch and it also reminded me of a book I read called Sleepwalking about these college girlfriends who all have their own sort of feminist tragedy story like Sylvia Plath, et cetera, that they fixated on, as girlfriends in college. so that's, that's a good book as well. And those are mine.

Anne:

My dad loves Emily Dickinson, and I think she's interesting because she's somebody who hardly ever left her house, right? Like she was kind of a recluse. But she wrote, she corresponded with people like she had an outlet to relieve the press of ideas. S

Caroline:

Mm-hmm.

Anne:

so, here's my recommendations. If you haven't actually listened or read the yellow wallpaper yet, as I said, you could listen to the great stories with Trev Downey. He has a lovely accent and you can just scroll through the stories and you'll recognize so many classic authors and stories that you may have heard of but never actually engaged with. I've listened to a bunch of them and it's really been a joy. Last time my mom was visiting, we did puzzles and binged great short stories together. It was lovely. I mentioned The Handmaid's Tale because the Handmaids had all stimulus removed, and I think that would be torturous. Also, black Mirror, the episode White Christmas, which I definitely want to cover at some point. If you want to hear smart women besides us, discuss this. The podcast Novel Pairings has an episode covering the yellow wallpaper. The hosts are both English teachers and they discuss a classic and then recommend more contemporary pairings to go with it. And they cover this on episode 85. I also found a podcast called Breaking Down Patriarchy that covers this too. the women are former Mormons, or maybe they're still Mormons, I'm not sure. But, they were very insightful and I really enjoyed listening to them. the short story, the husband stitched by Carmen Maria Machado. I think I recommended this also in response to catch and Kill, throwing it out there again. Uh, I recently watched the movie Heretic with Hugh Grant. Have you seen that yet?

Caroline:

No. but I know you've recommended it, and my husband

Anne:

Yeah,

Caroline:

it.

Anne:

well his living room has like a sickly yellow wallpaper, and as I was watching it, I was like, oh, it's the yellow wallpaper. other than that, it's not really to do with this, but it had wallpaper in terms of gothic literature. the fall of the House of Usher also has that creepy, gothic aesthetic, and a kind of hidden away woman who has something wrong with her. a more recent take on a woman locked away in a crumbling mansion is Mexican Gothic, which I would also like to cover at some point. It also has a mold subplot, Rebecca Haunting of Hillhouse, Jane Eyre, You know, Mr. Rochester kind of claims he's doing right by Bertha by keeping her locked in the attic because the alternative was the asylum. but is he, can we view his actions through a different lens? uh, it also reminded me of American Horror Story, the Season Asylum, which was a very real threat for women who were maybe not even mentally ill, but just stepped out of line. If we want. More literary women awakening from the moles of motherhood. There's the Awakening, the Story of An Hour by Kate Chopin, Gaslight the, original movie with, Ingrid Bergman. I started watching it. I'm not finished, but I'm really enjoying it. Verity by Colleen Hoover. I don't wanna say exactly why, because I don't wanna give anything away, but it's a very dark and twisty novel. And there's also, a biting the bed scene in both books. So that's it for me. Oh, Don't worry darling as well. Have you seen? Don't worry darling, yet.

Caroline:

No, I don't think I can. That's with Florence

Anne:

It's, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's flawed. Like you don't wanna question it too much, in terms of the, I don't know, logistics of what's happening, but really, I liked it.

Caroline:

Is it. Andrew

Anne:

Harry styles.

Caroline:

Oh, Harry

Anne:

Harry styles.

Caroline:

That's right. Yeah. it was spoiled for me,

Anne:

Okay. also arrested development because Lucille Bluth Gaslights, the other Lucille about the size of her kitchen when she renovates. Do you remember that?

Caroline:

uh, well, I'm so glad we didn't make it through a whole episode without mentioning ISSA development or what we do

Anne:

It's really important. Or 30 rock.

Caroline:

Yeah.

Anne:

Well, speaking of bad horror husbands. This leads me to our homework. Caroline was, as I said, nice enough to let me have two picks in a row since the yellow wallpaper is so short they both have gaslighting in common. So up next is Rosemary's Baby, which also links back to our previous episode Catch and Kill, because Ronan Pharaoh's mom is the lead in that Mia Farro. So there's that connection as well. that's it. Anything else you wanna say? Oh, I haven't even re-watched it yet. So is there a lot of yellow in Rosemary's Baby?

Caroline:

I sort of thought that's why you wanted to do both of them. like everything is yellow. It's so, there's so much yellow.

Anne:

Oh, amazing. I haven't watched it in years, so, the connection for me was the gaslighting and Ronan Farrow, so I didn't even know that. How exciting. I love these connections. Okay. Thanks for listening. Please do all the things podcasters ask you to do, like and subscribe. Follow us on Instagram or Facebook. Tell a friend write a review on iTunes. You can email us at Drawn to Darkness pod@gmail.com. You can follow us on Instagram threads or Facebook, and if like Shirley Jackson, you delight in what you fear, join us in two weeks here at Drawn to Darkness. Special shout out to Nancy Ano who painted our cover art. You can find her on Instagram at Nancy ano and to Harry Kidd for our intro and outro music. You can find him on Instagram at Harry J. Kidd and on Spotify.

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