Recommended:mms

Joyce Kinkead

Move over , Betty marriage that brought her to the in 1973, it was looked at as a chilling Friedan, Kate Millet. Charlotte Per- brink of insanity and served as the horror story rather than an indict- kins Gilman is back. Actually, Gil- basis for her most famous piece of ment of male-female relationships. man has been with us for a long fiction, "The Yellow Wallpaper" In her own time though, Gilman time, just lying low until the time (Old Westbury, New York: The Fem- was better known for her non-fic- came when she was needed again. inist Press, 1973, first published in tion. Although a frequent speaker Although some readers may be say- 1899). "The Yellow Wallpaper" in women's suffrage groups, she ing "Charlotte who?" Gilman was a duplicates Gilman's battles with stressed the importance of looking household word in the first part of depression. In the story, the narra- beyond the vote. Her satiric verse, In this century, an early feminist whose tor-a wife and a mother-has been This Our World (1893), espoused works were not recognized as fem- prescribed the "rest cure" for her these beliefs. In her own world, she inist writings until the 1970s. Gil- melancholy. Taken to the country by enjoyed her solitude following her man, however, would not have used her husband John, who is a doctor, divorce, turning over her daughter the word feminist to describe herself; the narrator wants to work and to her former husband and new wife she was, instead, a humanist-con- write, but the medical advice she to rear, a move that branded her as cerned with the equality of both receives from him dictates that she an unnatural mother. Women and men and women. And this is the receive total rest, a condition that Economics promoted the advantages theme which dominates all of her can only result from a total empti- of such a move in its comment on writing-both fiction and non- ness of mind. Her husband patron- the role of women in society. This fiction. izes her, she attempts to rebel witty, satiric book, focused on "the Born in 1860, the great-niece of against the rest cure, sensing it is common humanity" of both sexes Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry making her more ill, but her hus- and attacked the socio-economic Ward Beecher, Gilman grew up in band and housekeeper insist that system that forced women into a difficult situation, having a loveless doctor knows best. Despite her pleas domestic slavery. She compares relationship with her mother, her to move from the supposedly restful women to both horses and cows: father having deserted them early country, he insists they stay. She is on. The result was an unhappy kept in her bedroom with its The labor of women in the childhood, one that helped form strangely patterned yellow wallpa- house, certainly, enables men to Gilman's ideas on marriage and the per. She describes the "lame uncer- produce more wealth than they home, ideas which she wrote about tain curves" that suddenly "commit otherwise could; and in this way extensively. A serious young woman, suicide--destroy themselves in women are economic factors in she wrote in her diary at seventeen, unheard-of contradictions." In her society. But so are horses. The "Am going to try hard this winter to confinement, she begins to envision labor of horses enables men to see if I cannot enjoy myself like a woman caught by the design of produce more wealth than they other people," a reflection she noted bars in the wallpaper, a symbol of otherwise could. The horse is an in her autobiography, The Living of her own imprisonment. As the days economic factor in society. But CharlottePerkins Gilman (New York: go by, she descends into madness the horse is not economically Harper & Row, 1963, first published until her husband returns home one independent, nor is the woman. in 1935). By 21, she was "self-sup- day to find her "creeping" around The wild cow is a female. She porting ... , a necessary base for the bedroom. The story was refused has healthy calves, and milk ." However, that freedom publication several times as editors enough for them. And that is all was cut short by her marriage to rejected it for being too depressing, the femininity she needs. Other- Charles Walter Stetson in 1884, a not uplifting. Until its reappearance wise than that she is bovine

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National Council of Teachers of English is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to The English Journal ® www.jstor.org rather than feminine. She is a that world. Some of the best of these in Ourland (1916). The first is set in light, strong, swift, sinewy crea- stories-along with other represent- the United States in 1940, twenty ture, able to run, jump, and ative fictional work of Gilman's- years after the American people fight, if necessary. We, for eco- can be found in The CharlottePerkins voted in socialism. The world is nomic uses, have artificially Gilman Reader(New York: Pantheon, changed by "no other change than developed the cow's capacity for 1980). a change in mind, the mere awak- producing milk. She has become The Reader also contains several ening of people, especially the a walking milk-machine, bred condensed novels. The Crux (1911) women, to existing possibilities." and tended to that express end, introduces the problem of venereal The house has lost its chores, and her value measured in quarts. disease at the turn of the century. people settle into their "world- The heroine, Vivian, is about to work," collectively rearing the chil- In short, at the turn of the cen- marry Morton. Even though Morton dren. Herland describes a society of tury, a woman's livelihood and his doctor both know he has women into which three men blun- depended on "a small gold ring," syphillis, neither of them will stop der, only to be converted to the soci- but Gilman preferred to emphasize the marriage because they want to ety's humanistic ideas. In this the potential of women outside the save the man's honor. society, women are freed from male home. She noted that, ironically, A year later, another novel, What sexuality, having developed the abil- Victorian women were over-sexed Diantha Did (1912), was published ity to reproduce parthenogenically. because of the limited options open after being serialized in The Forerun- In the sequel, With Her in Ourland, to them and argued that to deprive ner. What Diantha did was to follow Ellador discovers war, waste, cor- women of options was to make the a non-traditional path and capital- ruption, poverty, and ignorance of world a poorer place to live. In spite ize on her domestic skills by setting women in a traditional society. of giving up her daughter, she was up an efficient household and later Gilman's focus-attainment of a believer in home and family, a hotel. She escapes from a home full equality for women-echoes though she advocated emancipated where her mother hates housework through all of her writing. Interest motherhood with nursery schools and her father hates his job, gives in her writing has revived not only and kindergartens for children. In up her hated teaching job, and because of her subject but also The Man-Made World (Johnson leaves her fiance who runs the fam- because her lively style and wit allow Reprint, 1971, first published in ily store-which he hates. Eventu- the reader to gain a historical per- 1911), she traces the development of ally, they do marry, but her husband spective on woman's role. Her mas- this Victorian woman through social has a difficult time coping with terpiece, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is conditioning. Her Concerning Chil- Diantha's working outside the home. the most accessible and the most dren (1900) offered ideas for rearing They only become fully happy when worthwhile for the classroom. In it, and educating children while in The he at last begins "to grasp the as in all of her work, there is evi- Home (1902), she supported the nature and importance" of her dence of her vitality and commit- "kitchenless home," cutting the work. ment. Just before her death in 1935, chain which bound most women by Gilman's next novel, Benigna she wrote in her autobiography: substituting ready-made dinners, Machiavelli (1914), is a survival book professional cooking staffs for cen- for the modern girl whose education My life is in Humanity-and that tralized housing, and a utopian includes brushes with various vil- goes on. My contentment is in community hotel. Two years later, lains and glimpses of both tradi- God-and That goes on. The Human Work (1904) looked at the tional and non-traditional male- Social Consciousness, fully benefits of work for both males and female relationships. A later unpub- accepted, automatically elimi- females; in it, she argued that it was lished detective novel, Unpunished, nates both selfishness and pride. possible to have both work and still hammers the same theme: the The one predominant duty is to marriage. dependency of women on men. In find one's work and do it, and I From 1909 to 1916, Gilman this case, the man is a sadist who have striven mightily at that. undertook the task of editing and torments his crippled sister-in-law; The religion, the philosophy, writing all of the copy for her however, here, he becomes the vic- set up so early, have seen me monthly magazine, The Forerunner, tim in the murder mystery. through. which averaged 21,000 words per The final three selections in The after her her month. The fiction she produced Reader are excerpts from her uto- Fifty years death, work continues to on. for these issues was written to make pian novels, a more common forum go a point, but the stories are interest- for Gilman. Inspired by Edward ing and even relevant to our times Bellamy's Looking Backward, she as the female characters try to cope wrote Moving the Mountain (1911), with their world and to come to Herland (New York: Pantheon, 1979, JoyceKinkead teaches at Utah State some understanding of their roles in first published in 1915),and WithHer University.

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