The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I read this story our loud to my youngest son for a literature class that he is taking--I am not a huge fan of the short story, but that is probably a failing on my part.  I should at least read some of the classics (which is now possible, because he had to purchase an overpriced version of a Norton Anthology, so I can pursue this new interest without having to do much in the way of research).

The story is about a woman who is depressed after the birth of a child.  Her physician husband prescribes rest, rents a house in the country, and essentially lock her up  in a room with yellow wallpaper and not much else going for it.  The woman gradually descends into frank psychosis as the story progresses, and the discussion that one is supposed to have is the view of women versus men, the approach to depression in an era before medication and psychotherapy were effective treatment approaches, and the infantilization of women who experience mental illness.

What struck me is that her psychosis had symptoms that are very different from those associated with depression.  She has visual and olfactory hallucinations that are hallmarks of organic psychoses, and so my thoughts were that she wither has a tumor or she is being poisoned.  The down side of a medical background, it turns out.