A Nevada Desert, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

An aching, blinding, barren, endless plain,
Corpse-colored with white mould of alkali,
Hairy with sage-brush, slimy after rain,
Burnt with the sky’s hot scorn, and still again
Sullenly burning back against the sky.

Dull green, dull brown, dull purple, and dull gray,
The hard earth white with ages of despair,
Slow-crawling, turbid streams where dead reeds sway,
Low wall of sombre mountains far away,
And sickly steam of geysers on the air.

TW: suicidal ideation, depression.
As you approach a poem like Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s A Nevada Desert, you may expect to find an ode to America’s vast and diverse landscape. Instead, one is brought to a dull and drab, sticky landscape situated beneath a scorching sun. Immediately it is apparent that Gilman would rather be anywhere else besides Nevada.

Burnt with the sky’s hot scorn, and still again
Sullenly burning back against the sky.

I was taken back to a day about ten years ago when I’d found myself in a similar

situation. When I was ten years old my family took a road trip through the United States. During our drive through the deserts of Nevada, we had missed a gas station and were running on empty with no sign of civilization for miles. As we chugged along on empty, our car began to sputter and threatened to leave us stranded in the blistering heat. Early on in our trip, I was mesmerized by the variety of colors in the rocks, the deep purples and blues starkly contrasting the bright yellows and oranges. But with our AC shut off and our car giving out, I remember staring out at the vast desert, and that awe was replaced with fear.

When reading A Nevada Desert, I questioned if Charlotte Gilman’s hatred

was perhaps misplaced anxiety or anger that had been taken out on the scenery before her, scenery she may have considered beautiful, like I had, under different circumstances. I imagined a worn-out Gilman, weary from days on the road, scribbling in the back of a coach as it slowly made its way through the barren land. Maybe like me, she was imagining her life stranded in the desert, with only a few goats and the occasional puff of steam to keep her company as she slowly succumbed to the heat. The sun in the Nevada Desert can reach blisteringly hot temperatures of over 115

degrees

Fahrenheit, and as she herself became stickier with sweat,

she likely began to feel disdain towards the even stickier, steaming alkali springs that decorated the landscape.

Slow-crawling, turbid streams where dead reeds sway,
Low wall of sombre mountains far away,
And sickly steam of geysers on the air.

But perhaps Gilman’s pain was not caused by the desert but rather exacerbated by it. A Nevada Desert is a part of the The World section of Gilman’s poetry

book, In This Our World. Her revolting description of a drab and scorched desert starkly contrasts her language in other poems in the same section, in which she depicts beautiful and lush forests and meadows with great fondness. Poems such as Nature’s Response are far more similar to other works of poetry at the time, which often romanticized the natural landscape of the newly acquired West. As a result, A Nevada Desert greatly stands out for her passionate hatred for vast and isolated world before her.

Gilman was all too familiar with isolation. Her most famous work, The Yellow Wallpaper, told the story of a woman’s battle with mental illness after being forced to live in a closet-like room for three months. This story was a reflection of Charlotte’s own life, as she had suffered from severe depression and suicidal ideation following Rest Cure treatment. Rest Cure was a controversial treatment in the late 19th century for women suffering from anxiety and depression, and was prescribed to Gilman in an effort to relieve post-partum depression. Gilman was instructed to avoid intellectual or creative activity and to spend much of her time resting. Her experience in isolation contributed to severe mental instability. As she slowly lost her grip, Her depressive episodes cost her her marriage, and later in life, she would calculate that over 27 years of her time had been lost to these episodes.

The Nevada desert, full of muted colors and drab planes that may once have been vibrant and colorful, may serve to represent Gilman’s experiences trapped within her own thoughts as her isolation slowly dullened them. Gilman spent 90 days in relative isolation, and with little to no mental or emotional stimulation. She may have felt threatened by large stretches of nothingness, her despair more so directed at the thoughts she was now trapped with, rather than the desert itself.

Dull green, dull brown, dull purple, and dull gray,

The hard earth white with ages of despair,

Whether Charlotte Gilman was struggling with her own mind, or simply hated Nevada, this poem’s detailed and grimy descriptions effectively place the reader into her perspective. We feel the sun scorching her back, we smell the raw sewage scent of the Alkali flats. In reading, we are transported to this desert with Gilman and thus share in her pain.
Gilman uses particularly disgusting imagery to describe the scene before her, describing the sagebrush as “hairy” and the alkali flats, a staple of the Nevada Desert, as “corpse-colored”.

Corpse-colored with white mould of alkali,

Hairy with sage-brush, slimy after rain,

She uses words such as “aching”, “blinding”, “barren”, “sickly”, and “despair” to paint a picture of an undesirable and ugly scene. A combination of unpleasant sights, smells, and textures that fully immerse every sense in the unpleasantry. While never explicitly stated, her disgust is clear, and in reading her work, we are made to share in her anguish.

An aching, blinding, barren, endless plain, (…)

The hard earth white with ages of despair,

Each year, over a million people travel to Death Valley to see the very same corpse-colored flats and endless plains Gilman carried so much hatred for. Many poets sing the praises of its multicolored planes and diverse scenery. What inspired Gilman’s view of this landscape will never be known for sure, but one’s view of the world is often a reflection of one’s inner peace. When I was a child, that landscape had turned ugly as I (rather unrealistically) became terrified of the possibility of being lost in the desert. Perhaps, like me, Charlotte Perkins Gilman hated the desert because she too was scared to be lost once more.

Works Cited:

“Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., March 6, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charlotte-Perkins-Gilman
Foster, Alyson. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman Did More Than Write One Classic Short Story: Beyond ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.” HUMANITIES, vol. 43, no. 4, Fall 2022.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. In This Our World. Boston, Small, Maynard & Company Publishers, 1914.
Kessler, R. C., et al. “Prevalence, Severity, and Comorbidity of 12-Month DSM-IV Disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication.” American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 164, no. 5, 2007, pp. 737-744.
Martin. Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Yellow Wallpaper”. American Journal of Psychiatry, Https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/ajp.2007.164.5.736, vol. 164, no. 5, American Psychiatric Publishing, May 2007, pp. 736–736, doi:10.1176/ajp.2007.164.5.736. May, 2007.
“Visitation in Death Valley National Park Increases in 2023.” National Park Service. February 27, 2024. https://www.nps.gov/deva/learn/news/2023-visitation.htm.
Handal, Nathalie. “Accepting Heaven at Great Basin.” Poem A Day, King Features Syndicate, 2016. https://www.columbiatribune.com/story/entertainment/arts/2016/11/25/accepting-heaven-at-great/21819614007/