Feminism and Symbolism in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's, The Yellow Wallpaper. DOCX

Title	Feminism and Symbolism in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's, The Yellow Wallpaper.
Author	L. Weller BA PGCert
Pages	11
File Size	42.9 KB
File Type	DOCX
Total Downloads	630
Total Views	886

Summary

Page |1 Lea Weller - 100035841 Feminism and Symbolism in Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a feminist and a creative writer who wrote a compelling short story entitled The Yellow Wallpaper. Originally published in The New England Magazine in 1892 under her ...

Description

P a g e " 1 Lea Weller - 100035841 Feminism and Symbolism in Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a feminist and a creative writer who wrote a compelling short story entitled The Yellow Wallpaper. Originally published in The New England Magazine in 1892 under her maiden name Stetson; feminism, individuality and symbolism are brought to the forefront thus taking the reader through the process of mental breakdown due to societal oppression and a paternalistic culture. It is an epistolary story told in first person narration showing impending insanity both objectively – portraying mental illness and its effect on the treatment of women in the nineteenth- century, and subjectively – through the use of the protagonist's hallucinations leading to her mental breakdown. Elaine Showalter states that "these confined women adopt the compulsive behaviours of caged animals," (1999: 203) escaping from their imprisonment in an animalistic rage. Everything is filtered through her changing consciousness, yet the ambiguity allows one to decipher its many meanings. The wallpaper is a text that the protagonist has to interpret; as its symbolism develops she feels repulsed then obsessed. Gilman manages to successfully illustrate the effect of the 'rest-cure' imposed on women as a 'treatment', but that ended up producing damaging long-term effects. These 'treatments' were prescribed by mainly male psychiatrists. Showalter states that Virginia Woolf was treated with the 'rest-cure' arguing that it is "a therapy for neurasthenic people, particularly women." (1999: 274) Neurasthenia was "an ill-defined medical condition characterized by lassitude, fatigue, headache, and irritability, associated chiefly with emotional disturbance." (Oxford University Press, 2013, Online) Women were not allowed to socialise or have any intellectual stimulus; as it was believed to make them worse. The 'rest-cure' was developed in the 1880's by American physician Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell. He was "the most prominent U.S. physician in the treatment of neurasthenia [and] was consulted by patients […] throughout North America and Europe." (University of Virginia, 2007: Online) Showalter quotes that Anne Wood studied Dr Mitchell's theories and argued that "Mitchell was an outspoken misogynist, whose methods punished "deviant" and discontented women by forcing them...