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8-1990 The aP triarchy and Women: A Study of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The elY low Wallpaper'" Margaret Victoria Delashmit University of Tennessee - Knoxville

Recommended Citation Delashmit, Margaret Victoria, "The aP triarchy and Women: A Study of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The eY llow Wallpaper'". " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 1990. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/2662

This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Margaret Victoria Delashmit entitled "The aP triarchy and Women: A Study of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The eY llow Wallpaper'"." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. William H. Shurr, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Allison Ensor, Mary Papke, Susan Becker Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) To the Gradu ate Council:

I am submitti ng herewit h a dissertation wri tten by Mar garet Victoria Del ashmit entitl ed "The Patriarchy an d Women: A Study of Charl ot te Perkins Gilm an's 'The Yellow Wallpaper."' I have examined the final copy of this di ssertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doct o r of Philosophy, with a major in English.

� -11. A1 .. ------�� ------William H. Shurr, Major Profess or

We have re ad thi s diss ertation and recomme nd its acceptance:

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Accepted for the Council:

Vice Prov ost and Dean of The Graduate School THE PATRIARCHY AND WOMEN :

A STUDY OF CH ARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN'S

" THE YELLOW WALLPAPER"

A Dissertation

Pre sented fo r the

Do ctor of Ph ilosophy

Degree

The University of Te nnessee , Knoxville

Margaret Victoria Delashmit

Augus t 19 9 0 Copyright © .M.a.r.g.a.r�..1!_:t_j,_g_tgrisL.D�l5U�hmi..t. 1990 All rights re served I dedicate this dissertation to m y children , Sharon, Ray , and Michele.

iii A CKN OW LE DG MENT S

I am indebte d to my director , William Shurr , an d to my committee members, Mary Papke , Allison Ensor, and Susa n

Becker, for thei r patience in reading thi s disser tation when it was not yet clear in my o wn mind what exactl y I wi shed to do with the abundance of material I had accumulated. Their guidance inspired me tow ard a sense of direction that ultimately shaped this study.

iv ABS T RACT

Charlotte Perk ins Gilman reached within her own

gothic world for the inspirat ion for "The Ye llow Wal lpa­

per, " and in doing so, she created a gothic he roi ne to

who m women of he r own and succeeding generat ions could

rel ate. This study examines the eleme nts in Gilman's

life that helped h er to create thi s st ory; b ut un like

many other studies, it treats "T he Yellow Wallpaper" as

a work of art ap art from its author as much as possibl e.

This study interprets th e story as an example of the

fe male gothi c and examines Gil man's philosophy of lit-

erature and her skill in employing the narrative voice

to depict her heroine as a grotesque within th e context

of nineteenth- century Victo rian mo res and medical prac­

tices. It al so analyzes he r unique treatment of the

female dopplega nger by comparing and contrasting her use

of th is device with that of Do stoe vsk y' s in 1h�-D�YQ1�.

A differe nt type of doubl ing, that of the beloved Other,

is al so discussed in an effort to un derstand the sexual relationship between Gil man's narrator and her physician­

husband John. The early history of the story then

precedes an annotated bibliography of Gilman criticism in

chronolog ical order b eginning with Ca rl De gler' s 1956

arti cle and including disse rtations and published criti

cism through 1989. v TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAP TER PAGE

INTRODUCTION 1

I. GILMAN 'S PERSONALITY :

TRUTH AND FI CTION 9

II. WH AT KIND OF LITERATURE IS TH IS ? 50

III. "THE YELL OW WALLPAPER" AND THE FE MALE

GOTH IC : THE MYSTERY AN D THE GROT ESQ UE 75

IV . "THE YE LLOW WALLPAPER ' AND THE FEMALE

GOTH IC : VICTORIAN SO CI ETAL AND

MED ICAL VIEWS 106

V. "THE YELLOW WALLPAPER" AND THE GOTHIC:

THE DOUB LE AS EVIL SELF 143

VI. "THE YE LLOW WALLPAPER " AND THE GOTHIC:

THE DOUBLE AS LOVER/DESTROYER 189

CONCLUSION 21 9

HISTORICAL SUMMARY AND AN NOTATED

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF GILMAN

CRITICISM, 1956-1989 22 8

BIBLI OG RAPHY 304

VITA 327

vi INTRODUCTION

I was fir st introdu ced to "The Yellow W al lpaper" through a televised produ ction of th e story on the ed uca ­ tion al channe l. I was in a ho s pital wearing a he art monitor at the time , and while the production was not a particula rly good one, the story lodged in my mind and nagge d at me until I fin ally located a copy and read it.

After read ing the story , I realiz ed that in some respects the n a r rat o r ' s 1 if e para 11e 1 e d my o w n and t h o s e o f m any o f my fr iends who , like myse lf, grew up during the fif­ ties and sixties. Many of th e same pat ri archal attitude s toward women that reduced Gil man's na rrator to madness were inculcated in my generation of men and w omen as w ell, and the tensions created by those attitudes finallY induced sy mptoms sug gestive of heart failure in my own body. Unlike Gil man's na rrator , ho wever, I returne d t o my work with the realiz at ion that my h e art was healthy but my ne rvous system was exhausted from internal strug­ gl es resulting from effo rts to balance my de sire to attain personal goal s at the un iv ers ity with my guilt at at tem pting to attain those goals. Altho ugh I thought I was a liberated wo man, deep wi thin m y subcons cious I "knew" that I re ally belonged back ho me keeping house fo r

my husba nd, and I doubted my abi lity to perform well in

the male world of books an d idea s. Li ke Gilman's narra-

t or, I wan ted to be a strong, independent woman w ith

wo rk of m y own, but my previ ous experienc es--not un li ke

th e nar rator's--had reduced my sel f- conf ide nce and ex pec­

tations. In many respects my story is not un i que ; we are

legion. In anothe r age we might be diagnosed as hy sterics.

Since " The Yellow Wallpape r" is a fiction a lized

account of an actua l autobiographical experience , Chapter

I, entitl ed "Gilman's Personal ity : Fa ct and Fiction," is devoted to incidents from Gilman's ear ly life that expl ain her later behavio r. The reader will notice par­

all els between Gilm an's life and that of her narrator,

between her husband Walter and her narrator's husband

John, an d between Gilman' s experiences with Dr. s. Weir

Mitchell' s pre scriptions and her narrator's experi ences

with Dr. John' s pre scriptions . As the study progresses, the woman reader, e specially, will al so notice that the paral lel s extend to inc lude the lives of a great number of other w o men w hom sh e k nows as w e 11.

Keeping in mind Mary A. Hill's assert ion in her

2 biograph y of Gilm an that Gi lman's autobiogra phy som etimes contradicts her diaries (45), I have used the autobiogra­ phy as sour ce material only when Hill does not refute it or when Hill's text seems to corro bo rate Gil man's memory .

Whenever possible , however , I have used Gilman's own wo r ds. In a fu rther attem pt to prese nt a bal anced pi c­ ture of G il man, I have quoted fr om Hill's intervi ew with

Gil man' s daught er Katharine and from W a l t er's di aries to present their impressions of this important wo man in their lives. My use of Walter's di aries and Katharine's memories in this particular way , as well as my conclu­ sions about the reasons for Charlotte's shor tcomings as a mother , are my original contributions to this chapter.

Chap ter II, entitl ed "What Kind of Literature is

This?, " is a st udy of Gilman's philosophy of literature as expressed in article s she wrote for 1h§_lQr!£YDn§r and as she de monstrates in her work. Although her writing is of ten conside red infe rior as art, it is the product of

Gilman's conscious search for a vehicle that would pre­ se nt women in di fferent ro les from tho se passiv e ones in which mal e authors ha d traditionally cast them . In her attempts to demons trate that women could--an d must-­ assume t he responsibility of making rational cho ices for

3 their live s that includ e d careers in the world out sid e

the home , her writing is didactic , as she intended, but it is also often lively and entertaining. Her literary techniques are demonstrated in exp licat ions of several of her sho rt stories, cul minating in "T he Yellow Wa llpa per" as a preface fo r an in-depth stud y of that wo rk.

Chapter I II begins a study of "The Yellow W al lpa­ per" as a go thi c st ory. As one critic has observed, it was probably not so much that Gilman ch ose the goth ic as the means of pre senting this story as that the gothic chose her. As the information in this di ssertation illustrat es , the g othi c appeal s to women because wome n have frequently inhabited got hi c worlds. Traditionally surrounded by go thi c elements that included mystery, danger, and entrapment , it was inevitable that they would pro ject their fears and frustrations into their own en­ coded lit erature. This ch apter, entitled "'The Yel low

Wal lpaper' and the Female Gothic: The Mystery and the

Grotesque ," is a st udy of the gothic genre and it s appeal to women. Using Juliann Fleenor's five- po int definition of the female gothic as a loose fra mework fo r this and the ne xt chapter , I begi n my own interpretation of "The

Yel low Wallpaper" that continue s thr oughout the entire

4 dissertation. In the latter p a rt of this chapter, I exam ine Gilman's manipul at ion of the narrativ e voi ce to produce a g rotesqu e , another gothic el ement in this story .

Ch apter IV, entitled "'The Yellow Wal lpaper' and the

Fe male Gothic : Vi ctorian Societal and Medical Views ," is a co ntinuation of the study of the go thic in women's lives . Alth ough "The Yellow Wallpap er" does not fi gure quite as prominently in this chapter as it does in the ot hers, the informat ion pres ented he re is im po rtant for an underst anding of the Vi ctorian woman's position within her world an d, therefo re , of Gilman's an d of her narrator's. The attitudes of ninet e enth-centur y phy si- cians an d laym en toward woman's sexual an d reproductive organs and the phenomenon commonly diagn osed as hysteria are exam ined. The Vi ct or ian w oman's world was truly a gothic one in many respects.

Cha pter V begi ns a two-part study of doubling, another go thic elem ent in li teratu re. This chapter, en ti tl ed "'The Yellow Wallp a per' and the G othic : The

Double as Evil Se lf, " is a study of the doppelgange r.

The term "gothic" ra ther than "female gothic" is used in this title because doubling is not peculiar to women in

5 literatu re. Actually, m ore male doppelgange rs have been depicted than fe male; yet , Gil man creates a fe male

d o ppelganger. In an effort to determine if differences exist betw een male and female tre atm en ts of this lit­

erary devic e, Dostoevsky's .I.lUL].QY..Ql§ and Gilma n' s "The

Yellow Wallpaper" are examine d, compared, and contra sted

in some detail. In the latter part of the chap ter,

sev er al other works by both male and fe male authors are

discussed in conjuction with "T he Yellow Wallpaper."

Cha pte r VI , entitled "'The Yellow Wall paper' and the Gothic: The Doubl e as Lover/Destroyer," cont inues

the doubling theme but in a different vein. The doubles

consid ered in this ch apter are lov ers or potenti al

lovers. As the sear ch for the beloved Other is vi ewed

psyc hoanalytically, John's patri archal treatment of his

wife and her compliance with that treat ment are examined

for motivatio n. Since the narrator accepts John as an authori tative father figure and since John vie ws his wife

as his "litt le girl," both probably suffer from arre sted

se xual development. The y ello w co lo r prevalent in the

story and the mysterious "yellow smell" that permeates the narrator's wor ld carry sex ual connotations and symbolize sexuality itself. The un ion of this husband

6 and wife is not the sat isfyi ng rel ati onship Aristophanes envisioned when he de fined th e beloved Oth er as the Other who co mplements or completes; the lover and the be loved fo rm a unit ��Qgy�� they are di fferent and each completes t he other. Instead, John , mo re like Nar cissus who loved his o wn im a ge, attempt s to for-m his wife into a fem ale ima ge of his logica l self instea d o f accep ting her "dif­ fere ntness" as a counterp art to and complet er of himself.

The second section of this study is divided into tw o chap ters. Chapter I, "The History of 'The Yellow Wallp a- per ,"' is an account of the recept ion of Gilman's story by her contemporaries in 1892. It is followed by the first complete compilat ion of Gilman criticism, an anno­ tated bibliography that begins with Carl Degler's article i n 1956 and includ es criticism through 1989. Arrang ed in chronologi cal order, this bibliography is a record of the story's , and Gilman's, gradual emergence fro m obscurity to prominence, ch iefly with in the worl d of female aca- dem ics. It is also a record of the growth of literary cr iticism and its many schools during the pa st thr ee decades, for al most every schoo l is repres ented in this body of critici sm .

Perhaps, as Susan Lanser argue s, "The Yellow Wallpa-

7 pe r" is not a universal text but speaks rat her to white women in the Western world (424 , 434 ). It is a p a radigm of all their experiences of being a wo man in a patr iar­ chal social system, an d this study fo cuses on the story in an attempt to und erstand both the underlying reasons fo r p atriarchY's ef fects on wom en and some of th e effec ts themselves. From within her gothic existence Gilman portrayed a wo man very like he rsel f , and because she is ve ry like many ot he r women as well, this stor y ha s become a classi.c.

8 CH APTER I

GILMAN'S PER SONALITY : TRUTH AND FICTI ON

I figured it out that the business of manki nd

was to carry out the evolution of the human

race, according to the laws of na ture , adding

the conscious di rect ion, the te lic force ,

proper to our kind--we are the only creatures

that can assist ev olut ion;

Social evo lut ion I ea sily saw to be in huma n

work . . Therefore the first law of life

was clear ..•.The first duty of a human being

is to assume a right functional relation to society ,

--more briefly , to find your real job , and do it.

---Charlotte Perkins Gilman

At the 1989 MLA con fer ence hel d in Washington, D.

C., one se ssion was devoted to Charlotte Pe rkins Gil man.

Approximately seventy-five peo ple sat and stood in a room des igned to ho ld about thi rty. At this se ssion Elaine

Hedge s made the observation that in the past four years

9 around fifteen artic les on "The Yellow Wallpaper" had

been published, "compared to fo ur teen in th e prev ious

twelve" (3). At this same session leafl ets were distrib-

uted to gauge interest in a projected Charlotte Perkins

Gilman Society. Th is flurry of interest and increa sed

a ct ivit y centering on Gilman ra is es some questions. Who

was this woman whom few peopl e remem bered until re cently

and why so much interest in her at this p oint in

hi story�� The ans w ers to the se questio n s wil l provide

readers wit h informatio n to help th em judge both her

literary merit and her past , pres ent , and fu tu re in flu­

ence on the fe mini st move me nt.

Gifted with one of the most brillia nt minds to

address women's issues in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuri es, Gilman was much in dem and as a le cturer and writer on the con dit ion of women at the time. He r book, }{Q!Q.�.!L�!!.SL].QQ!!Q.!!t:i.Q.§, used as a college

textb ook for a time, was called "the most significant

ut terance" on the wom an ques tion since Jo hn Stuart Mill

<1h�_ _N_g,k.:iQ.!! -411 3; quoted by Degler 21 ). An immed iate s uccess in this co untry, it was th en translated into

"German, Japanese, French, Dutch , Italian, Hungarian, and

Ru ssian" and by 191 1 had been published in seve n English

10 editions (Degle r 22n6) . In addition to this important contribution to the fe minist movement, she also wrote six other non-fiction works, seven novels, a book of poetry , many articles, poems, and sho rt sto ries, seven v olum es of a monthly magazine , 1h�_lQr���nn�r, and an autob iography which was published af ter her death in 1935.

Twentieth-ce ntury social historians view her as a ma jor in fluence in the advancement of the condition of wom en in America during the early years of th e centur y.

Aileen S. Kraditor , for example, obs erves that Gi lman's was the only "systematic theory linking the dem and for suf frage with the long sweep of history" and calls he r

"the most inf luential wom a n th inker in the pr e-Wo rld War

I generat ion in the United States" (97). Sim ilarly,

Willi a m L. O'Neill declare s that sh e "made the finest analysis of the re lation between d omesticit y and women's rights" (vii) , and Andrew Sinclair calls her "the gre atest writer that the fe minists ever produced on so ­ cio logy and economics , the Marx and Ve blen of the move­ ment" (272).

Influential as sh e was then , however, women's apathy toward the feminist m ovement after they were granted suffrage and the i n tervention of two world wars caused

1 1 Gilm an's w orks to descend gradually into obscurity.

Gilman wa s rediscovered in 1956 with the publication of

Ca rl Degler's article entitled "Charlotte Perkins Gil man on th e Theory and Practice of Feminism," and her purpose as Degler states it appealed to a new audience o f wom en who we re once more becom ing dissatisfied with their lack of equality :

Her conce rn in all her writings was essentially two-

fold: to show the disastr ous and al l-p ervasive

e ffe cts upon women and upon soci ety of the co ntinued

suppre ssion of her sex; and to demonstrate in theo ry

and practice means whereby women could assume thei r

ri ght ful place in society. (22)

This purpose is re flec ted in Mary A. Hill's explanati on of Gilman's appeal to her as a sub ject of study. Hi ll's account al so explains Gilman's appeal to other women today--essential ly the sam e reasons she app ealed to women a century ag o:

I was looking for a heroi ne , for closer contact with

a woman who could articulate my own frustrations and

expl ain wo men's problems in ways relating di rec tl y

t o my life. Her concerns were mine as well: how to

reconcil e family responsibilities with professional

12 ambitions; how to be a responsive mother to two

small children and still have time to teach and

write; how to satisfy the hum an ne ed fo r love a nd

wo rk. (3)

These concerns of Gilman's gr ew out of a ch ildhood trau­ mat ized by the d eser t ion of a beloved father an d the del iberate withhol ding of affection of an equally be­ loved, but embittered, mother.

Bo rn Char lotte Perkins on Ju ly 3, 1 86 o, the third of four children of Mary Westcott and Frederick Perkins, of whom only she and her brother Tom lived past infancy, she was the great-granddaughter of Lyman Beecher.

Fred eri c k, her fa t her, was the son of Mary Be eo her

Perkins; Charlotte's great- aunt s included Harriet Beecher

Stowe, author of .l!D.Ql�_1'QJ!l.,!..§_Q.2..bi.n , who worked fo r the abolition of slavery , Catherine Beecher, who crusaded fo r hig her education fo r women, a nd Isabella Beec her Ho oker, who was a leader in the woman's suffrage movement. Al­ though the Beechers are renow ned fo r their attention to public serv ice in their va rious causes intended to better mankind, Fred eric k deserted his family when the childre n were small, leaving t he ir mother to care for them a s best she c oul d . One po ssible reason may have been Mary's

1 3 f ertil ity. G ilman speculates that beca use the doctor told her fa ther that ano t her preg nancy could endange r

Mary 's life, he left rather than risk that possibility

<.L.1.Y.1.ng 5). Hill, however, speculates that the situation was much more complex: "Fac ing the stark realities of debt , illness, an d de ath, Mary and Frederick were fo rced to seek aid and comfort with their famil ies and to adopt an itinerant style of life wh ich in so me resp ects only enhanced their trouble s" (�f� 22 -23 ). Furthermore, Hill continue s, in leavi n g Mary , Fre derick performed a "requi­ site sel f-affirming act":

Having married unwise ly, even impetuou sly, he re­

fus ed to do penance with his life. Abstract ly, he

glorified the peaceful har monies of home and

fam ily , but the tension-filled setting compared

poorly t o his romanticized ideals. And though

Mary' s innocent naivete a nd charm ha d been appe aling

in the context of premarital flirtations , in

marriage her immaturity, dependence , an d submissive

l oyalty may have been offen sive. (24 )

During t he ensui ng years Frederick seldom saw hi s familY and gave them little financial support. In her autobiog­ r aphy Charlotte observes:

14 But he was a stranger, di stant and little known.

The wo rd Father , in the s e ns e of love , care , one to

go to in trouble, means nothing to me, save indeed

in advice ab out books and the care of them--whi ch

seems more the lib rarian than th e fa ther. By h ered­

ity I owe him much; the Beecher urge to social

service, the Beec her wit and gi ft of words and such

small sense of art as I have; but his learning he

could not bequ eath, and fa r more than financial care

I have miss e d the education it would have been to

have gro wn up in his society. (5-6)

Frederick escaped into the w orld o f work, man's world, where he was a re spec ted lib rarian who, incid entally, int roduce d the decimal sy stem of cataloguing books and later wrote a reference book , .l'.h!l_l;}�.§..t:_.B�SJ...Q..!_pg , a st an- dard for many y ears. Jeffrey Berman cites Frederick's errant behavior toward his family as only one negative facto r in Charlotte 's development, howeve r:

The theme of a child waiting fo r a man who will

never return, and the attendant be wilderment and

rage, c hara cterizes Charlott e Perkins Gilman's

fee lings toward her father in part icular and men in

general .

15 Equal ly ominous is the impa ct of an embittered

mother who de nies her ch ild the parental love and

attent ion she he rse lf ha d been denied by her bus-

band's desertion. Mother becomes bo th victim and

victimizer. Despite the fact that the mother is

described as a "baby-wo rshiper" who devo ted her

ent ire life to the children, she also inflicted upon

them the pain and lovelessne ss f r om which she he r-

se lf suffere d. (34-35)

Charlo tte's mo ther Mary rea red her two survi ving children wi th great difficulty, moving, as Charlotte hersel f describes,

nineteen ti mes in eighteen years , fourteen of them

from one city to another. After a long and thorough

musi cal education, developing un usua l talent, she

s old her piano when I was two, to p ay the butch er's

b i 11 , and never owned another. She hated debt , and

debts accumulated about her, drivi ng her to these

everlasting moves. S he lived with her bu s-

ban d's pare nts, with her own pare nts, wi th his

aunts, in various houses here and ther e when he

16 [Frederick] so installed her, fleeing aga in on ac­

e ount of debt. (Li.Y..1.DE 8-9)

W a t c hin g h e r m o the r's s t rug gl e to care fo r he r little

family an d he r forc ed negl ect of her musica l tal ent had a

profound effect on Charlotte. Later , she would , under­

stand ably, equate marria ge with babies and babies wit h woman's imprisonment.

In a misguided ef fo rt to spa re her daughter the pain

she had suffe re d as a result of her husband's desertion ,

Mary withheld affection fro m the baby Charlo tte so that

she would not become accusto med to it. She later told

her daughte r, "I used to put away your litt l e hand from

my cheek when yo u we re a nurs ing baby, [for] .••I did not want you to s uf fe r as I had suffered" (1i..Y..!.DB 10).

Charlotte soon learned that after her mot her thought she was asleep at night, sh e would come in and cuddle and kiss her, so Charlotte began trying to stay awake while pretending to be sleeping so she could enjoy h er mother' s caresses (�i..Y.1.ng 10-1 1). Her mother's del iberate withho lding of affection, however we ll meant it was, an d her father's desertion left Char lo tt e wi th insecur ities and unresolve d needs that wou ld haunt he r throughout her

li fe .

1 7 To fill t he emoti onal vo id in her life, Charlotte began to invent a fantasy world peo pled with "a Prince and Princess of magi c powers, who we nt about the wo rld collecting unhapp y children and taking them to a guarded

Paradise in the South Seas" (11-.Y..!..DE 23 ). Jeffrey Berman discerns that this fant asy wo rld evi nc es "wish fu l fill-

me nt • as well as a rescue fanta sy in which the dreamer becomes he r ideali zed paren t , transmuting an anguished child hood into paradise" ( 3 5). The fantasizing suddenly came to a ha lt when her mother , "influenc ed by a friend with a pre-Freudian mind, alarm ed at what she was led to suppose thi s inner life might become," called upon her "to giv e it up. This was a com mand. Ac cording to all the ethics I knew I must obey, and I did "

(1iYi.!H5 23 ). Her mother's fear of the powe r s of the imagination and he r com mand that Char lotte con trol her fant asies would be echoed later in Jo hn's ad monitions to his wife in " The Ye llow Wallpaper" that she sho uld use her willpowe r to cont rol her "imaginative power a nd habit of sto ry- maki ng" which would no do ubt "lead to all manner of excited fa ncie s" (Gilman "TYW " 15-16).

Deprived of her fantasy world, the adolescent Char­ lotte set about to improve her body and mind. Apparentl y

18 dr iven from within to be the best she could be, she becam e quite an at hlete and read vo raciousl y, faithfully, and systematically from books pres cr ib ed by her fa th er.

Books from the followi nt sa mple listing which Char- lotte had s a ved over the years, possibly because it was in her father's hand wri ti n g , were also widely rea d and discusse d by the read ing publ ic and influenced man y p eo p 1 e , such as K a t e Chop in and E d it h W h a r ton , w h o w o u1 d later become writers themselves:

Raw 1 ins on ' s Five Great Emp ires

II II Sixth Great Empir e

II " Seventh 11 "

Dawki ns, Cave Hunting

Fergusson , Rude Stone Monuments

Lu bbock , Prehistoric Times and Origins of Civili zation

Tylo r Early HistorY of Mankind'

II Primit ive Culture

[ sic] ( 1.1.Y.!.n_g 3 6 )

Charlott e was pa rti cularl y fascinated by scient ific works which discussed ev olut ion, a theory that inf luenced her in her search for "a bas ic theory of life" (38). As the ad ult Charlotte writing her aut ob iography rememb ers, while she was stil l a young g irl, she decided that there

19 is one "dominant underlying power ...•On e God and it

Wo rks!" (L.!Y.!ng 39 ). On the que st ion of evil and death she observed, "That is right for a giv en organism which leads to its best development" and that death was ult i­ mately a necessary and logi cal pheno menon :

It is told that Buddh a, going out to look on life,

wa s greatly daunted by death. "T hey all eat one

another!" he cr ied, and called it ev il. This pro­

cess I examined, changed the verb, [and] said, "They

a ll feed one another, " and ca lled it good. Dea th?

Why this fus s about death? Use your imaginat ion,

try to visualize a world .H.!J!DQY.t death! The fi rst

form of life woul d be here yet, miles deep by this

time, and nothing el se; a static world •

Death is the essent i al condition of life, not a n

evil." (1.iY.1.D.S 4 0)

As to pa in, Charlotte deduced that it "does not come in unless so me thing g oes wrong" and that mankind's sufferings come about because of "erroneous action"

(�.!Xi.D� 41). Although she was young , she had already begun to attempt to think ana lytically, a quality that woul d characterize her throughout her lifetime . As the epi graph to this chapter states , she "figured it out that

20 the busi ne ss of m a nki nd wa s to carry out the evo luti on of the human ra ce , according to the laws of nature" (42) , and this insight became fo r he r a directive : "Life, duty, pu rpose, t hes e were clear to me. God w as Real, under and in, and around everyt hing, lifting , lifting.

We, consc ious of that li mitless power, we re to find our places, our spec ial work in th e wo rld, and when fo und, do it, do it at all costs" (1.!.Y.i.DE 43).

To prepare hersel f to do what she called the

"world' s work," Charlotte was determ ined to be as physi­ cal ly, mental ly, socially , and morally perfec t as possible. She was not the typ ical young girl in her rel entless struggle to be perfe ct : "S el f-righ te ous?

TremendouslY so. For eight years I did not do anyth ing I thought wrong, and did , at any cost, what I thought ri ght--which is not sayi ng that all my decisions were cor reo t" (1i.Yil.lE 6 0).

No doubt this striving fo r perfect ion was caused by

Charlotte 's drive to be in control of her life. She knew that women, her own mo ther, for instance, were not usually in charge of their lives, an d she seems to have been determin ed that her mother's fa te would not be hers.

Her mother' s life taught Charlotte about "the fa lse secu-

21 r ity and spurious deceit of wife--mother myths" (Hill �f�

13). The ram bunctious Charlotte charged out to me et life w ith a strong a gile body and keen mind. Determined to make her own way in the wor·l d, to be dep endent on no one, she stu di ed art at the Rhode Island School of Design and made her li vin g fo r a while selling he r flowe r paintings on gr eeting cards and gi ving art lessons. Of her fee lings about herself on her twenty -first birthday she writes that she "was self- supporting of course, a nece s­ sary base for freedo m" and that "there was a tremendous sense of power, clean glorious powe r , of ability to do whatever I d e cided to und ertake" (LJ..Yin& 70-71 ). She planned to study abroad, to learn l anguages, "sciences

•••hi sto ry, econo mics, polit ics, there was no field of know ledge ap plicable to human ne ed which was out side my purpose" (,LJ,yj_p._g 71 ) . Her health was excellent an d she rep orts th at sh e wa s usual ly cheerful :

When asked, "How do you do? " it was my custo m to

reply, "as well as a fish, as busy as a bee, as

strong as a horse, as pro ud as a peacock , as happy

a s a clam." (1i.Y1-.P.8 71)

Then she met Walt er Stet son, a promising yo ung artist, and found herself absolute ly no rmal in he r sexual

22 at traction to t he hand some young man:

There was the pleasure of associatio n with a noble

soul, with one who read and studied and cared fo r

re al things, of sharing high th ought and purpose, of

sympathy in many common deprivations and en durances.

There was the natu ral fo rce of sex-attraction

bet ween t wo lone ly yo ung people, t he influence of

prop inqui t y • ( Li..Y!..ng 8 3 )

When he proposed marr iage to her, she decl ined but gav e him per m ission to call on her for a year. At times she wanted to marr y him ; at others she did not. Although she r ealized that marriage was normal, she could not feel t hat was the path he r life shoul d take. Inst ead, she felt a call to perform some sort of work , even a mis s ion, in the wo rld, and she knew that marria g e meant babies and babies wou ld entail responsibili ties forbid di n g a meanin gful life outside the home.

Charlotte's equivocal attitude toward marrying Wal­ ter ind ic at es the div ision within herself as she st rug­ g led with the de sire to love and to be loved and the fear that love might ta ke away the independence she ch erished so much. Her insecure child hood had inculca ted into her psyche a desire to be indepe nde nt an d self-

23 re liant, but not ev eryone , not even a per son with the intelligence and will of a Beecher, recovers so easily from a chi 1 d hood d e p rived of 1 o v e. W a 1 t e r' s diary p ro ­ vides int eresting insight s into Charlotte's paradoxical character--that is, it provides intere sting insights into

Walt er's int erpret ation of her ch aracter, as well as insight s into his concept of love .

Ac cording to Walt er, Charlotte was an attractive woman whose physical features and personality attracted both male and f emale friends; her later publ ic l ife ind icates that she possessed what today one labels as

"charisma." Walter's diary entries provid e first-hand information about the powerful effects of her sexual attraction on him and also ind icate the de pth of her own p a ssionate responses, as well as the turmo il that resulted from the conflict between her se xual needs and her fears that fu lfillment of those need s would entrap her in a woman's world .

His entry da ted Janua ry 14, 1882, describes his first impressions of her:

She is an original : eccent ric becau se unconvent ion­

al, and well vers ed in alm ost every thing, I guess !

24 She has a form like a young Greek & a face also

resembli ng a cameo. She is an athl ete--strong,

vivacious, with plenty of bounding b lo od.

She has such a classic figure! She is moral, intel -

lectual and beautiful ! (Hill I:..n..QJJ.r� 25)

Later that same month, Charlotte and Walt er realized they were mo re than fond of each other, but Charlotte did

n ot want to marry because of the work she wanted to do,

her purpos e in life, her te los. St etson records a conve r­

sation between them in which she attemp ts to expla in her

position to him :

[January 29 ,1882 ] Said I: "W hy do you not wish to

be loved by me--to love me ?"

"I think that you k now nothing wou ld give me more

joy than to know that you love me. But--you kno w of

my plans: you know of the work I have set

about doing."

[She c o ntinues] "· I know that a love beg u n

should be consummated : and consummation would mean

r e 1 i n qui s h m en t of a 11 m y p 1 an s--a n d i t w o ul d f e e d

the side of my nature which I am holding in check.

25 I am pretty e venly balanced, animal & spi ritu al.

Were I to give up --! fe ar I should give all up and

become of no more use than other women. If my life

wer e made fo r happine ss that would be we ll enough."

(33)

These sentiments express her c o ntempt for the trad itional r ole of woman as wif e and mo t her, a ro le which she fea red would co n sume her if she at tempted to assume it. By

March, St etson recognized fu lly the struggl e within

Charlotte :

[Marc h 20 ,1882 ] It i s a hard fight sh e is fighting.

It will be ha rd for her to give up to me & it wi ll

be al most as hard to keep from it . (59)

The April 12 entry describes what Walt er considers Char­ lotte's divided character. Ac tually, she app e ars to behave as a typi cal intelligent educated woman who can speak k n owledgeably about a serious subject one minute an d can be in the mood for play the next. In Walter's limited exp e rience with women, he obviousl y had not previouslY enco unte red one so gifted as Cha rlotte :

Char lotte, after sh e has been talking, say abou t

phi lolog y, the germ theo ry, Egyptian history, has a

way of talking as childishly (not weakly) as can be

26 imagined, in a charmin gly playful way. It is a

start li ng contra st. And con trasts seem to rule in

her natur e. She is in dependent, but she like s to

nestle by my side an d depend on me. She is at the

h ead of the Gym nasium, yet she can be as soft &

gentle as a weak ly woman.• •• (66)

On May 13, 1882, Walt er exu lts becau se he thinks

Charlotte has changed her ideas "in all the impo rtant

pa rticul ars" and that "n ow she feel s that she ID.Y§.t have

chi1 d r en & • fancies her best work w i 11 be done

through me" (73). On May 29, though , he reports that at

t h eir meeting on the previous day , "a shadow wa s upon

us." Charlotte had to l d him on that day that she was

un happy becaus e she "could n2t.. be come used to the sense

of being ' ap propriated.' All her old hopes, longings, etc., ha d arisen and rebelled agai nst my love. "

(76). St ill, in that sam e entry he write s confid ently:

She has changed her language rega rding the whole

th ing (hones tly too) a dozen times. She has lots of

fig h ts in store and will suffer a great deal. That

sufferi ng will teach her that the best of al l that

she can do is to love pur e ly , devotedly and bear

children to be trained to somet hing noble. That may

27 be a premature saying, but I think not •..• (76 )

These entries written by one who is so certai n he knows what is best fo r Charlot te attest to the general patriar­ chal at titude toward wo man and her id eal place in socie­ ty. Walter sounds like a We ir Mitchell with his "the best of all that she can do is to love pure ly, devotedly and bear children to be trained to something noble."

This idea l is adm ittedly wo rthwhile and would make so me wom en--and men- -content ; for Charlotte, however, it would bring tragedy.

The August 31 entry is one among many that attests to Charlotte 's physical re sponsiveness to Walter:

Then she cam e and kissed me: Ho w do wo men who have

had no lovers learn to kiss with that del i cious,

trustful, se nso-supersensuous pr es sure an d melting

tenderness? She b a s learned it in a short time.

Is it not the truthful expression of the yearning

lov e within? My sensit i ve lips can tell the tenor

of a kis s mo st posi ti v ely, and all along hers have

rev ea led mo re of her real he art to me than all her

logical (?) [sic] expressions of her feel ing. (96)

By October Wal ter a gai n feels victorious and exul ts that

Charlotte, "th at st rong woman, " has now become

28 a s dough to th e knea der or clay to the potter, t o be

fa shioned as her lo ve r wi lls. Thank God that I will

that sh e shoul d be fa shio ned into the ut most of

noble wo manhood, and with the tenderness that

passeth al l under standing .. [October 9,1882]

( 1 0 7)

This p a ssage exp resses so wel l the attitude toward women

("s he is as doug h to the knead er or clay to the potter") which Gilman fough t so hard to eradica te. Ju dging from his diary, Walter's idea of love me ant that Cha rlott e would allow hi m to mold her into hi s image of what she should be ("to be fashioned as he r lover wil ls") . The line "T hank God that l Hill, [italic s mine ] that she should be fashione d in to the utmost of noble womanhood, and wi th the tende rness that passeth all understan ding" so unds Biblical, as thoug h Wal ter equate s him s elf with

Christ who gi v es a peace that "p asseth al l und erstanding," an d indic ate s that Walter thought that i f he chose, he c o uld even fashion th is woman who prided he r self on he r superior st amina, fo rt itu de, and m oral courage into something less than noble; it also stands as an excellent example of the log ic behind the en tire patr iarc hal sy stem. The Marc h 12, 1883, entry prov ides

29 another example of Walter's discernment that Charlotte's pass ion was over com ing he r desi r e for in de p end en c e an d his subsequent gladness that she was be co ming pliable :

She is not the strongly independent creature she was

a year ago. With the softening of her h e art has

also come a softening of physical fibre : a 1 ess

in tensity of physical energy and more of the flame

of desire •• •.No human being could be tend erer,

sweeter, more willing to be moved as I will. S he

nestles in me, wants me; wants to be in my arms, lie

there, sleep there. S he is beginning to de pend,

and I doub t not that when marriage comes she will

look to me fo r advice, and make me rule r of the

hous e . All her st rength seem s to be turned to

loving. Last nigh t sh e was not quite well, and

ver y humble. She has foun d, she says, that she has

be en thinking too much of her own pleasure and

delig ht , and not enough of mine ; that she has not

be en h a 1 f " good" e no ugh to m e. And she began in

strange fashion. She' s a strange be ing taken , al l

in al l--but God ! How beautiful! And how beloved!

( 140)

30 Passages such as this one are especially poignant in view of Charlotte's impoverish ed chi ldhood with its dea rth of s imple cuddlin g. The emotion ally starved child in her can never be fe d enoug h to make up for love lost in ch ild hood, a nd it struggles wi th the adult in her fo r supremacy.

Cha rlot te and Walter were married in May, 1884, and according to Charlotte's autobiograp hy, the ir fi rst days toge ther were hap py ones. She says of Walter, "A lover more tender, a husband mo re devoted , wo man coul d not ask, " but in spite of her obvious happiness, her spirit began to fail shor tly thereafter . She continues, "The s teady cheerfulness, the strong , tireless spirit sa nk away. A so rt of gray fog drifted across my min d, a cloud that gr ew and da rkened" (L.1-.Y.i.D.8 88).

Al thoug h Walter's diary en tries before his marriage indicate his pleasu re that Charl o tte is physica lly responsive to him, Charlotte's diary entries after their marria ge suggest that her ardo r was not met with the favor one would expect:

[June 14, 1884] Am sad : last night and this

morning. Because I find myself too--affection ately

3 1 expressive. I mus t ke ep more to mysel f and be

aske d--not bo rne with.

[June 25, 188 4] Ge t miserable ove r my old woe--

convict ion of being too outwardly expressive of

affect ion. (Hil l .QJ'11 123)

As Hill observes, these are remarka bl e admissions fo r a ni neteenth-century bride to make. V i ctorian views on the sin fulness of sex no doubt placed stricture s on both of them to ex ercise re straints that must have caused frus­

trations and strains on the relat i onship, and, as Hill suggests, may have been partial ly responsibl e for

Charlot t e 's depressions. Ann J. Lane spe culates that perhaps Walt er found Charl otte's pas sion "distasteful or

perplexing •. her r e sponse to him unsett ling and

forbid di ng" gi ven the sexual mores of that century (xi).

Later , Charlotte was to asse r t that one of the "most pi t i ful errors of our views on this matter [of marriage]

is letting y oung g irls enter th is relationship

with o u t a clear unders tanding o f what they are undertaking" (Hil l �1'� 124). From this experi ence would come a conv iction that "a woman has th e ne ed for and ri ght to a fulfi lling love re lationsh ip, not love as the be-a l l and end-all of her life, but as a vit al and

32 c r it i c a 11 y i m po rt an t part of it" (Hi 11 1 2 4 ) •

Charlotte became pregnan t right aw ay, and their

daughter Kathari ne was bo rn on March 23, 1885. They ha d

thought Cha rlot te 's health would imp rove after the birth,

but instead of recove ring , she grew worse. She

remembers: "A ll was no rmal and ordinary enough , but I was

already plu nged into an extreme of nerv ous exha ust ion

which no one obs erved or understood in the least"

(..L!.Y!D.B: 89) . Her diarY entrie s for the period substan­

tiate her late r mem ories. Hill re cords:

September 14: "C ry more after b reakfast. an oppres­

sive p ain that sees no outle t." September 25:

"D reary days these. Only feel well about half an

hour in all day." (..Q.f..Q 129)

She seemed to have eve rything a woman could want ; at

least, sh e had eve ryt hing wom en were supposed to want or

ne ed to make them ha ppy, inun dated as it w ere in domestic

fel icit y: "a charming hom e; a loving and devoted hus­

band; an exquisite baby , healthy , intell i gent and good; a highly c ompetent mo ther to run things; a wholly satisfac­

to ry serv ant" (..Ll.Yi.PE 89). But Charlotte was not happy; she "lay all day on the lounge and cri ed" (89). A nd she did not und erstand why. Speculating that Charlotte suf-

33 fered fro m "severe 'hysteria,' and perhaps temporary

' ins anit y ' a s w e 11 , n H i 11 quo t e s fro m G i 1 m a n 's auto b i o g­ raphy :

I coul d not re ad nor wr ite no r paint nor sew nor

talk no r li sten to talkin g , no r anything. I lay on

that lounge and we pt all day . The tears ran do wn

into my ears on either side. I wen t to bed crying ,

wok e in the nig ht crying, sat on the ed ge of the bed

in the morning and cried--from shee r continuous

pain. Not physical, the do ctors examined me and

foun d nothing the matter. <��Q 129 ; 1i�ins 91)

The d epression worse ned until her doctor ord ered her to wean Katharine and to go away fo r a re st . Charlotte then went to Californi a to visit the ir friends, the

Channings , for the winter, an d she rep o rts in her auto ­ biography that mi raculously, "Fro m the moment the wheels began to turn, t he train to move , I felt better" (92).

She improved so quickly, in fact , that she reports returning ho me in March be lieving she was cured, as she herself exp ressed it : "Hop e ca me back, love came back,

I wa s eager to get ho me to husband and child, life was bright again" (94). Her biographer, however, pre se nts a somewhat mo re qual ified account as she pres ent s excerpts

34 fro m Charlotte's letters written fr om Cal ifornia to her

fr iend Martha Luther. Early in he r visit sh e writes, "In

d espair of ever getting well at home I suddenly unde rtook

this journey. It has al ready d o ne me an immense amo un t

of good, and I expect to return in the spring as well as

I ever sh all be. Pe rhaps that is not say ing much" (Hill

..Q.l'.Q 1 3 3 ) . T hen, at the end of the w i n t e r she again

writes to Martha, "My California winte r is abou t do ne.

Shall start for h ome in a week or two more . I look

forward with bo th joy a n d dread . Jo y to se e my darlings

again, an d drea d of fu rthe r illness under famil y ca res.

Well. I have cho sen" (Hill ..Qf.Q 134).

Whatever brightne ss was there soon dimmed. As soon as sh e returned hom e, " the da rk fo g rose again" (11Y1.ng

95 ), worse t han befo re this time , and Charlotte was fac ed

with the sob ering and depres sing realizati on that do mes­

tic feli city w a s makin g her sick. Hill points out the

difference in Charlotte's "dullness at home and her rela­

tive spunk when she had a chance to g et away" :

The energiz ing prog ra ms at the gym, the lively de­

b ates at he r wo men's "parlor me et ings ," the collabo­

rative scurry at the local suffrage headquart ers,

the po litical buzz an d stir at the H£m��§_J9M£D��

35 office in Bo ston (which occasionally she vis ited)-­

all these seemed to boost he r spirit s, promote her

self-respect, an d provide her with the kind of work

she liked to do. All these, presumably, Charlotte

might have managed to c o ntinue a n d extend, but too

often she stayed home an d cried instead. (�f� 144 )

She finally consulted Dr. s. Weir Mitc hell, the prominent n erve specialist, who decided she suf fe red from hysteria or neurast henia, a com mon nervo us ail m ent af flicting wo men an d so me men du ring th e nineteenth century.

Ac cording to Ell en Bassuk's thoroughly researched articl e on Mitchell's rest cure, nineteenth-century doctors' understanding of nervous disorders was much differ ent from that of today :

They believed th at bys teria, ne ur a sthen ia an d h ypo­

chondria imperceptib ly merged into each other, had

similar exc iting causes and resulted from structural

lesions in the brain co rtex. The in abi lity to iden­

tify the organ ic defe c t was ascribed to unsophis ti­

c at ed detection techniques, or to the fact that the

problem only occurred at the molecular level. Psy­

chodyna mic concepts of etiology had not yet been

in troduced. (139n 1)

36 Mitchell's cure invo lved comp le te bed rest, fa ttening fo od, body m assage s , and no vis ito rs or excitement of any kin d. Charlotte writes that Mitchell also did not be- lieve she was physical ly il l: "A s far as he coul d see there was no th ing the matter with me" (1i.Y.i..Q£i 96). Th is o bservation coincid es with the narrator's words in "The

Yellow \val l pap er" about her ph ysician hu sband's view of her illness: "Yo u see he does not believe I am sick!"

( Gi lman "TYW " 10). In ad dition to his strict physical regimen , Mi tchell att em pted "'moral re education'" to teach his patien ts to control thei r feelings. B assuk has dete rmined that " Mitchell's ob jective was 'to make clear to her [his patient] how she is to regain and preserve do min ion over he r emotions' (Mitchell 1888:8). Women , h e thought, were too emotiona lly expressi v e, p erhaps even

'hysterical,' ce rtainly prone to inappropr iate displays of feel ing which we akened physical enduranc e" (Bassuk

143). Hi tchell also believed that i f women e xpre ss e d their e motio ns too often or too exc essively, they might predispose themsel ves to nervo us disorders. Therefore,

they m u .s t exe r c i s e s t r i c t s e 1 f-co n t r o 1 • B as s uk no t e s fu rther that Mitchell attempt e d to elicit fro m his patien ts promises that th ey would fight "'every desi re to

37 cr y, or twitch or grow exci ted' (Mitchell 1885a: 38)"

(143). Bassuk contin ues: "T o counteract women's 'short- comings, ' Mitchell advocated a system that encouraged order, control, and self-restraint. He fe lt that w omen sho uld model their lives on the pr inciples underl ying t he rest cure" (143).

Most Victorian doctors, like Mitchel l, b el ieved that a woman's repro du cti ve organs were he r prim ary or­ gans; thus, it fol lowed that woman's primary fu nction was to bear children (or perhaps the order of the reasoning should be reversed ). Since d octors also be- lieved that "each organ is m possessed a finite amount of vi tal ene rgy and was a clo sed syste m, anything that diverted women 's ener gy from the repro ductive function, such as education or work outside the home, must be avoided" (Ba ssuk 145--apparent ly paraphrasi ng Foste r 1900 and Smith-R osenberg 1974). This in for mation fac il itate s a mor e sympathetic under sta nding of John's attitudes and actions in "T he Yellow Wallpa p e r" and explains why h e guard s hi s wife against all e xciteme nt and prescrib e s her eve ry a c t ion :

He is ve ry carefu l an d loving and hardly lets me

stir without special direct ion.

3 8 I have a schedule prescr iption for each hour in th e

day., (Gilman 11T YW" 12)

[John] says he would as soon put firewo rks in my

pill owcase as to let me have •.• stimulating people

about now. (16)

Aft er one month, Mitchell released Charlo tte from his

care with this condescending prescription :

Live as domestic a life as po ssible. Hav e your

child wi th you all the ti m e. (Be it remarke d tha t

if I did but dr ess the baby it 1 eft me shaking and

crying--certainly far from a healthy co m panionship

for her, to say nothing of the effect on me. ) Lie

do-w·n an hour after each meal. Hav e but two hours '

intel lectual life a day. An d never touch pen, brush

or penci l as long as you live. (1.!.Y.i.D.H; 9 6)

Gi lman relates that she fo llowed th is advic e for mon ths

"and came perilously close to losing my mind" (L.!xing

96). She and Walter finally decided to sep arate becaus e

"it seemed plain that if I went crazy it would do my

h u s b a n d no go o d, an d be a dead 1 y in j u r y to my c hi 1 d"

(96). On October 8, 1888, after mor e than four yea rs of

marriage, Charlotte le ft Walter and took Katharine to

California. Although she immediately began to i mprove,

39 she reports that she ne ver fully re covered her mental powers but suffe red from mental exhaustion throughout her life and was always forced to pace herself in her wo rk.

Gil man neve r could understand exactl y why she bec ame ill. She fe lt that it wa s someho w connecte d with the c o nditions of her childhood and with "the rigid stoic ism and con stant effort in chara cter-b uilding of [her] yo uth, " but she attributed the "immediate and conti nuing caus e [t.o ] mismarr iage" (ki.YJ:.ng 98). It is impo r tant that the last entry of her journal writ ten j ust befor e she agreed to undergo We ir Mitche ll's rest cure in Phila­ d elphia express es bitterness toward Walter:

No one c an ever know what I have suffered in these

last five years .••. C an 1.Q.Y!! hu rt like this?

You found me--you reme mber what. learn to

do ubt your judgment befo re it se ek s to mo uld

anoth e r li fe as it ha s mine. I aske d yo u a few days

only before our marriage if yo u wo uld take the

respons ibility ent irely on you rself. You said y es.

Bear it th en. (Hill .Q.f.O 148)

Si gni fieant ly, a voice wi t hin her kept say ing, "You did it yoursel f! Yo u did it your self! Yo u had health an d strength a nd hope and glorious work before you--and you

40 t hre w it all away. You we re called to serve hu manity , and you cannot serve yo urself. No good as a wi fe , no good as a mother, no go od at anything, An d yo u did it you r self!"

The fear of com mitting a deadly injury to her c hild

would seem to be ••. an unconscious repet ition of

the traumatic wound inflicted upon Charlotte Perkins

Gilman when she was a child herse lf. The

little gi rl 's identi ficati on with the absent fa th er,

al ong with the aspirat ion for the gl orious w ork that

was a male pr ivilege in a sexist society, was so

intens e as to compel her against her will to become

her o wn fath er and , like him, to ab andon spouse and

baby. • the silent aggression she fe lt toward

the fa ther who abandoned her was now directed

agai nst he rse lf. She fell desperate ly ill, overcome

wit h confusion a nd guilt. On ly by rejecting her own

family, as her father had rejected his family 20

years earlier, could she fr ee herself from the weak­

ness and passivit y that sym bolized to her the condi-

tion of moth erhood. (39)

41 In 1890, she wrote "T he Yellow Wallpaper," and while it is not au tobio graphical in every detail, as a fict ion­ alized ac count of her breakdown it must have provided her with so m e measure of the rapeutic relief. This story is about the conditi ons of wifehood an d motherhood--both of which exclud ed glorious work in the world--and their effects on women. Gilman sp ent the rest of her life cr it iquing these t wo institutions and the condit ions unde r which women lived in all her writings, whet her she was writing ab out religion, the home, econo mics , or what ever. Always her goal was to revolutioniz e wifehood, motherhood, womanhood.

In Califo rnia, Gilman supported her mother, her daughter, an d herself by runnin g a board ing house.

After she and Walt er w e re finally divorc ed, he married

Charlotte' s best fr iend, Grace Channing, with Charlotte's bl essings. Th e th ree w e re lifelong friends an d shared in

Katharine's upbringing. When Kat harine at nine was sent to live with h e r fath er, the press that had al ready severely crit icized Charlotte fo r divorcing her husband fo r no apparent reason no w conde mned her as an "unnatu ral mo ther. " She says that she sent Katharine to Walter

42 because she "did not me an her to suffer" the lack of a

father as Charlotte hersel f had suffered. Charlotte

re port s that Kat harine "divided h er time fairly equal ly"

between the tw o of them and "in companionship with her

beloved father she grew up to be the artist that she is,

with advantages I could never have given her" (L Jyj�g

1 6 3 ) •

Although Charlotte praises her mothering skills at

length in her autob iography, her daughter's view of those

skills was somewhat di fferent. When Mary Hill in ter­

viewed Katharine Beecher Stetso n Chamberlin in 1975,

Kathar ine was ninet y years old, and her memory provides

in te re stin g observations from an el derly person's recall

of a youth ful point of view--much as Go ethe's biographers

cons idered hi s autob iograpy, �!�b1YDg_yn�-K�hrb�!t , fi c­

t i o n an d t r u t h , a s , in d e e d , Go e t h e ' s t i t 1 e i n d i c a t e s •

Hi 11 re po rt s that Katharine's reflections on her relation­

ship with her mother "suggest a repetit ion of themes of

mot her-dau ghter hi story Charlott e described with Mary."

Bo th mothers "had been exh au sted by economic an d

em otional responsibilities," and bot h daugh ters "criti­

cized their mothers fo r being chu rl is h and mean. " Al­ t houg h both daugh ters were all owed freedo m to " d evelop

43 confidence an d indep enden ce, " both co mplained of being

"unnecessarily and inexcusably alone." Katharine, how­ ever, un like Charlotte, doe s not re member the "l onely desolation" that Charlot te expe rienced :

Vi ewing her mother as a somewhat irresponsib le and

selfish ly distracte d "Amazon, " she saw no need fo r

s ym p at h y • W it h s e 1 f-a s s e r t ion, neve r m our n fu 1 pi t y,

she exp ressed irritation and resentment with her

mother's "br il liant " indi scretions: "You can do

anything if you have holes in yo ur hea d !" But she

also acknowledge d, albeit re luctant ly, profo und

respect. (Hil l .C.f.!l 232-233)

Katharine remembered a happy childhood but indicated

Charlotte had negl ected her fr equ ently while "'lying

a r o un d in the h am m o c k • • en j o y i n g n e r v o us p r o s t r a - t ion.'" She also recount e d to Hill som e of the potentially dangerous epi sodes in her unsupervised playing : "ke rosene fires in the basement an d the hen­ h ouse" and "frol ics in he r favo rite playground--the freightyard." She avow s that Charlotte al so neglected he r in other ways:

Look at the "baggy eyes," she exclaimed , as sh e

pointed to her early photographs. Look how "under- si zed" because of sl eeping irregul arly and eating

gin g er nuts and "nothing else for lunch."

"Ost ensibly" she was living with her mo ther, but in

real ity she was "turned loose" on the ne ighborhood

si nce Charl otte was either ill or "always on the

run. " "Mama was always scurrying ," a lways "too

tired or too distract ed " to prov ide restful healthy

m ea ls, to get the tangle s from her ha ir, or to care

about the way she looked. To make matters wor s e,

Charlo tt e called her "K a te," and that Katharine

still associated "with someone be ing a little

cross, quick, hasty." (Hill 2 33)

There is more. Katharine disputes Charlotte's abilities a s a teacher, for e xam ple, citing t hat she often taught by ridic ule . In sum ma tion , "to Katharin e, Charlotte seemed arrogant and selfishly preoccupied: 'She was too absorbed in expressing b�r�!1I· mak ing a career for hers elf, or in her causes' to take good care of her"

(233-234). To balance Kath arine's opinions of her m o t h e r, s h e d i d f i n d t h at C h a r 1 o t t e w a s " ' �1 }I .§..�.§ e ncouraging' and supportive and 'felt I had a right to my independence."' She also described her mot h e r as a woman of strong principles and honesty, "whic h d oes not mea n

45 that sh e always s a w hersel f as others saw her. But I

think she would go to the stake i f ne cessary rat h er than

t ell a lie•••. And she of c o ur se never neve r would

hav e willingly hur t anyone," an d "she was of cou rse by

na t ure ve ry generous of her ti me an d her po ssessions"

(236-237). Katharine's vi ews about her m other indicate

that Charlotte made som e of the sa me mistakes that Mary

ha d m ad e with her , wh ich is not surprising since she

learned her mothering from Mary. Perhap s it is also not

surpr ising that Char lo tt e did not realize she was making th ose mistakes. People ca n give onl y what they possess; in spite of Charlotte's lofty ideas ab out motherhoo d and

her go od intentions, she did not possess ad equate

mothering skills . The gist of Kat harine's analysis of her mother is that sh e wa s basically selfish , and whY

sh ould she be other wise? As the twig is bent, so is the tree incl ined. Mary , through ne cessity and rigorou s self-disci pline , became so self-centered that she coul d not extend herself to her child ren. True , she worked fo r their suppo rt, but she did not share he r self with them.

Left e mo tionally alone with only a life of fantasy to keep her company, then bereft of that also, Char lotte dec ided to try to be pe rfect. Her entire being concen-

46 t rated up on herself. She could wo rk for the p e rfect ion o f humanity in the abs tract , but she had difficulty with p e rsona l re lationships because she could not shar e her­ self . She ha d no model to fol low or practice in doing so as she grew up. In a letter writ ten to Houghton Gilman several year s later, Charlotte attem pt s to assess her p e rsonal qualities that in te rfe red with close friend­ ships :

To most people, meeting them as I d o , I can be have

nicel y, and as you have observe d they m ostly lik e

me. I can be nice and kind and pa tient, an d st eady

and cheerful an d all so r ts of nice things. but a s

soon as any one co mes near me an d take s hold, I

wob ble awfully••• . And I don't like it. It makes

me unreasonable. It make s me fe el --where I don't

want to feel ; an d think--where I don't want to

think. It sort of wakes me up where I'm dead , or

where, if I'm not dead, I ought to be. Now, I can' t

afford to be fo nd of any body in that sort of way-­

man w oman or child [sic]. I c an 't afford to want

things.• I 'm n2t a nic e p e rson to b e cl os e to.

I do ve ry well at long range. (Hill .Q.fQ 206-20 7)

Th is analysis does not suggest that her work is

47 v al ue1 e s s, however. On th e cont rary , it is of g reat value. p erha ps only someone like Gi lman could accomplish what she did bec ause som eone el se migh t gi ve p e rsonal r elationships rrio ri ty in her l i fe. Because Gilman w as single-minded, sh e behaved somewhat as our culture ex­ pects of a succe ssful man.

Fo rtunatel y for Gilman, s he did manage to fo rm at least one close personal r elat ions hip, for he r second marriage appears to have been happy. In 1900, she mar­ ried Houghton Gil man, one of he r Beecher first cousins, and they remained married until his death thirty-four years later. Althoug h she is strange ly quiet about their relationship--she only mentions him in a couple of sentences in her autobiography--they left behind a large corresponden ce that demonstrates that Charlotte discussed everythi.ng with Houghton , writing lette r s to him almost daily as sh e traveled and lectured. As Ann Lane notes,

Houghton Gilman was well aware of Charlotte's dedication to her car eer, "her recurring anguish about her sanity or he r abi lities as a mother, her wor r ie s about their fo rth­ coming m arriage, her determina tion to ac hi eve self-reali­ zat ion thr ough he r work, he r need fo r his stability, love, an d strengt h, and her resolve to conqu er, or at

lt8 least to c o - exist with, her devastating and terrifying depress ions" (xiii). The ir long courtship finally ended in marriage when Charlotte was forty and she had already experienced a great dea l of success. Perhaps thes e two fa c tors and the fac t that th ey were not mother and fa ther to any chil dren contributed to their happiness .

This in troduction to Charlotte Perkins Gilman bo th as a woman an d as a human bein g shou l d contribute to a b e t t e r u n de r standing of her short story , "T he Y e 11 ow

Wallpaper, " which will be the subj e ct of the remainder of this study. The re ade r ca n surely see parallel s bet ween

Gilman's expe rience wit h post partum depression an d the narrator's e x per ience in the story. Muc h of her biography ha s not been inc lud ed because it does not pertain to the story, which is the fo cus of the study.

Critics usually discuss the st ory and Gilman 's ' li fe as thou gh they cannot be separated, and in some respects perhaps they cannot . This stud y will, however, discuss

"T he Yellow Wallp a p e r" as a work independent of Gil man's life as much a s poss i ble . "T he Yellow Wallpaper" is a work of art, and l ike an y work of art, it can st and on it s o wn.

49 CHAP TER II

WHAT KIND OF LITE RATURE IS TH IS ?

When you can assume that y our audience holds

the same beliefs you do , you can re la x a little

and use m o re normal means of talking to it ; when

you have to as sume that it does not , then you hav e

to make your vision apparent by shock--t o the hard

of heari ng you shout, and fo r the almost-blind you

draw large a nd startling figures.

---Flannery O'Connor

Gilman's artistry and crafts manship displayed in

"The Yellow Wallpaper" can be more fully appreciated and understood if a representati ve sampling of her othe r works is surveyed. Gilman used fict ion as on e vehicl e to get her message acr oss to the American people. She bel ieved that human beings must assist God in lift ing the species toward a hi gher ev olutionary plane by w orking to develop the potential of i ts fe male members , for if women were no t al lowed to develop their po ten­ tial, Gil man was persuaded that their sh ortcom ings w ould

50 drag the spe cies down and ke ep it there. She believed that woman's economic dep end ence on man wh ich had dee med it neces sary that she "attract and hold the devot ion" of a man fo r her very subsistence had alte red the or iginally natura l balance between th e sexe s ( HQ m�D-gng_]�QDQm!�§

1 70) and that this al terat ion hi ndered the upward evolu­ tion of the hum an race because woman did not attempt to se lect the best father for he r children when she was sele c ting a husband; instead , she was selected on the basis of her sexual charms. As a resu lt, the species suffered biologically; a nd since wo m an wa s not allowed to d evelo p her talents to their full potent ial but was forc ed to l i ve a st u nted, narrow life , the speci es suf­ fered psyc hical lY and socially as well. Most of Gilman's writi ngs, therefore, deal in some manne r with hum a n e volution or, more specifically, wi th ways in which nineteent h-cen t ury American wo men were oppressed, the social resul ts of that oppression, and the means by which such oppression could be lifted. This ch apter examines some of her beliefs an d explores some of the literary strat egi es she used to argue those beliefs in fiction.

Gilma n's view s on social reform were great ly in­ f luen ced by Nationalism , a refo rm move ment inspired by

5 1 Ed ward Be llamy's utopi an ideas as these were exp ressed in

his 1888 ro mance l,.Q.Q�1.nL�S..Q�.:wg.r.Q . Her most influential b ook, jQ.ID�.n-��g-��QD� �j���-!_§��g�_Qf_�h�-��Q.D.Q��.Q-��lg=

�jQ,n_������.n_M�n_g.n.Q_HQ���-��-A_lg.Q�QI_i.n_�Q�j�l-�YQ= l..Y�iQ� ( 1898), reflect s many of Be llamy's and the Nation­ alists' ideas. One of Nationalism's tenets was the aboli­ tion of "sex-sl avery":

Nationalism breaks the strongest fetter which binds

woman, viz., her material depende nce on man, and

makes her hi s helpm eet as an equal and independent

part ner, accompl ishing by econom ic enfranchisement

what politica l fr anchise m ent al one could but

partially do. CN� .w .N��jQ.n 28 March 1891: 139;

quoted by Scharnhorst 22)

Gilman realized that women were innately just as capable as men, but thei r limited educat ion, insuffi­ cient contact with the world out si de the ho me , and fe w oppo rtunit ies to act indep endent ly made them app ear to be "smaller-minded, weaker-minded , more tim id and vacil­

lating •• • whosoever , man or wo man, lives alwa ys in a small dark place, is always gua rd ed, protected, di rect ed, and restrained, will become inevitably narrowed and weakened by it" ( lh�_]Q.IDQ 277 ). Gilman knew that woman

52 could be man's equal if she were given his opportuni­

ties. How eve r, the male a nd the female were even reared

differently. Gil man ci tes a common example:

See two children on a j ourney, the mo ther holding

fa st to the gi rl from beginning to end, only the car

se at and wi nd ow fo r her; the boy on the steps, the

platform, runnin g about the station , asking ques­

tions of brakem an and en g ineer , learning al l the

time. The boy get s five times as much out of li f e

as the girl, and he knows it. It is not long before

h e is ashamed to play with gi rl s, and one cannot

blame him. (Gilm an .!J.Q.!!l� 279)

Not only did the w oman suffer from her limited

position in society, but Gilman also re cognized that the

mal e also suf fe red from woman's repression, as she

acknowledges in lh�_.!J.Q.!!l&:

The woman is narrowed by the home and the man is

nar rowed by the wo man. In pro po rtion as man is

gr eat , a s his intere s t s are w or1 d-wide and his

ab ilities hi gh, is he injured by cons tant contact

with a sm alle r mind. (277)

Similarly, she arg ues in �h�-��D=Mg9�-�Q�l� that the male can be thwarted i n developing desirable human quali-

53 ties if the fe male me mbers of hi s fa mily are subser­ vient :

In the process of becoming human we must learn to

re cogn ize justice, freedom, human ri ght s; we mus t

lear n sel f-con trol and to think of others; have

min d s that grow and broaden rat ionally; we must

learn the broa d mut ua l inter-service and unbounded

joy of social intercou rse and servic e. The petty

despot of the man- made home is hindered in his

humanness by too much manness. Fo r each man to have

one whole wom an to cook for and wait upon him is a

poor education fo r democrac y. The boy with a ser ­

vile mother, the m a n with a servile wife, cannot

reach the sense of equal right s we nee d to -day. Too

constant consideration of the master's tastes makes

the master selfish ••• • (42)

Gilman bel ieved that a culture under male do mination by necessity be comes permeated with the male character ­ istics, predominately sex and combat, on all levels , and the fe minine virtue of motherly love is igno re d (.M�.D::

.M�g� 95-100). In addition, Gilman assum ed that male dominance wa s respons ibl e for what she considered the male view that life consists of struggle and that fe-

54 m ale dominance would engender the view that life also consists of grow th (M.9:.D=M�..d� 84). Gi lman was no t at al l a misandrist, however. On the contrary , she wro te :

"T here should be an en d to the bitterness of feeling which has arisen between th e sexes in this century"

Since she also believed in evo lution, she w a s influenced by Darw in to assume a bio logi ca l basis for the two sexual roles. She theo rized that early in mankind 's hi story, woman's ro le as pr eser­ ver of the race trans ce n ded man's ro le as hun ter, f ighter, and destr oyer. Man had to re nounce his former role, however, in order to build civilization:

The se xuo-ec onomi c relation was nee e s s ary to raise

an d broaden , to deepen and sweet e n, to make m ore

feminine , and so more human, the m ale of t he human

race . If th e female ha d remai ned i n ful l personal

freedom and activi ty , she would have remained supe­

r io r to him, and both would have rem ained stationa­

ry .•.• In her subordina te position, unde r eve ry

disadvantage , through the ve ry walls of he r prison,

the constructive force of woman has made man its

instrument , and worked for the upbuil ding of the

worl d.

55 Since man's energy could only be controlled "by the power

of sex-attraction , it needed precisely thi s form of

union, with its pecul iar exaggeration of sex-fac ulty, to

hold him to his ta sk" (133). Woman's subordination " has

acted like a co iled spring" upon man, enabl ing him to

move mountains. By the nineteenth century, however , she

believed that that stage of evo lution was ended ; man now

ne eded woman's contributions to further the evolution of

humanity (HQ���-��g��Q�Qmi�§ 132 -137).

Having developed her theories ab out woman's earlier

superior position in society, it wa s natu ral that Gi lma n

would em brace Lester F. Ward's gynaecocentric theory that

argu ed the orga nic primacy of the fem ale. Ac cor ding to

Ward, woman was "the unchanging tr unk of the great ge ne ­

alogia t. r ee; while man ••• is but a bra n ch, a grafted

s c ion, as it were (Hill ..C£.Q 267). In her utop ian novel

H�Ilg�g , her stronges t expr ession of the innate human

abi lit ies she believed women possessed, Gil man explodes

tradi tional ideas of masculi ne and feminine behavior; the

w o men in Herl and do whatever needs to be done to create a

perfect com munity. In this world only de sirable huma n

attribute s have been cultivated, and the q ua 1 it i e s which

Gilman cl onsidered destructive male traits, spe cifically

56 combative tendencies and aggressive sexua l drives, have be en eradicated. Fe at ures deve lope d by the society in

He rland are identi fied as hum an, ra ther than ge nd er­ based, characterist ics.

Gilman's fiction te nds to stress these human ch arac­ teri st ics, but she espec ially emphasizes those that she considers in trinsically female . When critics di scuss

Gi lman' s fiction, they generally describe it as didactic and unimaginative. Carl N. Degler is one who an alyzes both her poetry and her prose as "straightfo rward, lucid, but without much imagery or deep sensibility." According to Degler, its a ppeal depends "mo re upon wit, clever turns of phrase, and ideas than upon rhyt hm or aesthet ic expressi on" (Introducti on, jg��D-�g ����� �1�� xiii). In spite of his great ad miration for he r work, he conced es t ha t this "militant madonna" ha d " little talent fo r imag­ inative w r iting" (xvi i-xviii). An n J. Lane describes

Gi lman' s w r iting in similar terms of limit ation :

G i 1m an ga ve 11t t 1 e at tention to her writing as

lit erature , and nei ther will the re ader , I am

afraid. S he w r o t e qui c k 1 y , c a r e 1 e s s 1 y , t o m ak e a

po int. She al ways w r ote fiction to me et a dead­

line . Sti ll, she had a good ear fo r dialogue, was

57 ad ept at sketching within a few pages a fa miliar but

compl icated set of re lat ionships, an d knew well the

whole ra ng e of worrie s and joys women shared. She

wrote to engage an audience in her ideas, not in he r

literary accompl ishment s. (Introduction, Ih�-�b�r=

l2it�-f�r�in�-��1�gD �����r , (xvi )

Christopher P. Wilson, however, in di scussi ng Gil­ man's "o f ten -neglected literary skills" in his 1986 article entitl ed "Charlo tte Perkins Gilman's Stead y

Bur ghers: The Terrai n of .H�r1an.Q" argue s that much of what re aders today consider Gilman's "lack of 'affect'"

[sic] wa s intent ional, as if she wrot e fo r the half­ bl ind and half-dea f as it we re:

her fi ction often consc i ous ly lo bbi e d to

ov erturn her reader's preco n c ept ions about what was

"natural" or desirable in a wo rk of literature-­

princ ip ally, by frustrating the ideological expe cta­

tions of the literature of "adventure" and

"romance" from her era. Furthermore, Gilman aimed

to conce ive of a feminist and socialist idiom partly

by remo difying literary • conventions which

linked st andards of taste to received ge nd er rol es

and exp ectat i ons . (273)

58 As Wilson poi nts out, he retofore ne glected articles in lb� fQr�rynn�r "demonstr ate Gilman's intention to fus e her feminist perspe ctives with her literary practice"

(278). Since he r l'2r�r.JJn�.r articles--indeed, the entire body of h er writing--demonstrate the wide breadth of her reading and her keen understand ing of lite rature, critics should rea liz e that Gilman was cons ciou sly applying her­ self to the creat ion of a dist inctive literary mode.

In an essay entitled "Masculine Literature" in the

March 1910 issue , Gilman comp lains ab out the diffe rences accorded men an d wom en in lit erature and in his tory, the men--and thus male thinking--be ing considered human and the women being con sidered a me re "sid e-issu e " (18). She re f lects that so-called wom en's columns are fi lled with so- called women's issues, "Ku ch en, Kinde r, Kir che, and

Kleider " (18), wh il e of al l the human int erests av ail abl e , fiction and much of history focus on the two

"ess ential fe atu res of masculini ty--Desire and Combat-­

Love and War" (20 ). Protesting th at much of the current fiction did not "touch on human process e s, social process, but on the special field of predatory excitement so long t he sole province of men" (19-20), she argues that since ha lf of humani ty consists of women , fiction and

59 history should reflect that fact. Wom en, Gilman contin - ues, are al so "types of human life" whose "major processes are not tho se of conflict a n d adventure" and whose "love me a ns more than mating" (20). She cont ends th at the "main bra nch" of literature is the love story , but it is the story o f "ma n's love of woman" rather than the rev erse, fo r these stori e s almost always end with the marriage :

Wom an's love fo r man, as currentl y tre ated in fic­

tion [sic] is largely a re flex; it is the way he

wants her to fe el , expects her to feel ; not a fair

representation of how she does feel. If "love" is

to be sele cted as the mo st im p ortant thing in life

to wr i te about , then the mother's love sh ould be

the principal subject : This is the main st rea m.

Thi s is the gene ral underlYing, world-lifting force,

[si c ] The "life-fo r ce," now so gli bly chattered

a b out , finds its fulle st expression in motherhood;

not in the em otions of an assi stant in the

preliminary stages. (20)

Gilm a n further asserts that ma sculine fict ion fo­ cuses on the brief period of cour tship duri ng whic h man st rives to win woman because to him

60 this mating instinc t is frankly the major in terest

o f life; even the belligerent insti ncts are secon d

to it. To the male .•• it is f or al l its i nten­

sity, but a passing interest. In nature's econo my,

his is but a temporary devotion, hers the slow

proce sses of life's fu lfillment (21 ).

In this same articl e Gilman argues for a broader lit era­ ture and a broader interp reta tion o f history that i n ­ cludes th e spe ctrum of experie nc es of both kinds of human be ing, the male and the fe male , rather than the preval ent one-si ded overestimation of "the dominant instincts of the male--Love and War--an off ense against art and truth, an d an injury to life" (22).

In a later es say in Vo lume 3 of I h�-�QI�£�DD�r ,

"Effect of Literature Upon the Mind," May 1912, Gil man states her th eo ry about what fiction should be:

To feel and see some vital phase of human life; to

throw that feeling, that preception [sic] , into

such forms as to b e easily assi milable to others-­

that is the art of fic tion •••• It transl ates the

g eneral into the particular and presents it to ot her

minds; which, impressed by the particul ar insta n ce ,

can re-gene ralize again in its own brain. ( 138)

61 Dickens was one of Gi lman's favorite aut ho rs, presumably because of his crusades fo r the reformation of various institutions wh ich affected the quality of Englis h life as well as his writ ing style. Allusions to his works are found throughout her writing. To illustrate her idea that lite rature sho uld "t ranslate the general in to the particular," she cit es Dick ens' indictment of the boy s ' schools in England in his de piction of one such instit u­ tion in B1�DQl�§-R1���l� .

Gilman was, then, an advocate of th e old definition t h a t a r t " ' h o 1 d s t he m i r r o r u p to n a t u r e , ' " a n d s he w a s c onvinced that wo man's subjugation was not in th e nature of things, but that it was, rather, an inve n tion of man.

To her, the "art which gi ves hu manity c onsciousne ss is t he most vital art" (.f.Q.r�.r..u..n.n�..r, I, 19). She att em pted t o hold the mirr o r up to all areas of life in what

Wilson aptly terms a "counterpointi ng style " that at tacke d " a masculini st distortio n which had ove rtaken contempo rary fic tion" (279 ). However , her attempts t o remodify lit era ry conv entions so as to achieve new liter­ ary idiom s based on a broade r spectrum of human life, one that was more feminist and more genera lly socialist, are

62 frequently misread, res ult ing in such cr iticism s of he r

literary style as that of Carl Deg ler and Ann J. Lane mentioned ea rlier.

B y w r i tin g a bout o t her fa c e t s of the is sue s of 1 o v e and w ar than those that male writers often empha sized,

Gilman attempted, sometimes almo st by 11 shock,11 to use

F lannery O'Con nor's term, to illustrate the impo rtance of feminine inf lue nces an d issues that she fel t male writers had ignored. Rather than en d her lo ve stories with the lovers riding off in to the sunset together, for example , Gi lman 's stories tend to deal with some issue with in the marriage itsel f or with other than roma ntic typ es of love. In an attempt to educat e the reading public, Gilman demonstrates in her fiction woman's supe ­ rior human qual ities and ab ilitie s which we re often not recognized or ac knowled ged and which, therefo re, fre quent ly were not cul tivated in many women's liv es.

To make her point and to illustrate that man's view was tradi tion rat he r than nat ure, she often counterpoints the male di stortions of war and lo ve with some female distortions of her own. Some of he r short stori es pro­ vide exce llent examp les of th is c o unterpointing.

In "T h e Unnatural Mother," Gi l man 's portray al of a

63 woman who has sac rificed he r own child to s a ve the peopl e

of the town from a flood illust rates a woman's lov e for

human ity that transcends even mat ernal love and depicts a

woman whose physical and mental strengt h provide a di­

rect contrast to the Viet or ian ide al that gi rls sh ould

be weak and frail creat ures. As the story opens, Mis'

Briggs and a group of townsw omen discuss Est her Green­

w ood, d e ceased, who had been rear e d "the somew hat

neglected child of a heart-broken widower" (Lane 58), a

docto r whos e alien "views" includ ed allowing his daugh­

ter "a wild, healt hy childhood" that inc luded sensible

clo the s, short hair , information about "how babies come,"

and, even more startling from the point of view of the

town's "natural" mo thers, in for mation about the "Bad

Diseas e" (62). He had shocked the committee of older,

married ladi es of the church who " wai ted on" him for an

explanation with his ca lm assertion that he wanted

Esther to have t he information nec essa ry to be able

intelligentl y to ch oose a fa ther fo r her children.

S candalized, the townspeople had been certain that n o man would marry a girl "who knew al l the ev il o f

life," but one ha d, an "a rt ist or something." The two had spent much time "traip sing" the hills, the hu sband

64 pa in ting, Esther k eeping him company, and she in turn had re ared her dau g hter as she had been nu rtured. To quo te old Mis ' Briggs, "She ju st let that young one roll round in the g r a s s 1 ike a p u p p y wit h h a rd 1 y no t hi n ' on I W h y , a squaw does better. That child was tre at ed wor se'n an Injun!" (63) The child had grown, thrived actual ly, in spite of the town's as sessm ent of Esther 's shortcomings.

"Why , that woman never seemed to have the first spa rk of

maternal feel ing •.•• She seemed just as fond of the other you n g ones after she had her own as she wa s before, and that's against nature, " the s ca n d a 1 i z e d M is ' Briggs assure s her listeners (64).

It was Esth e r who had fir st realized th e da m was going. Three towns lay in its path, and Esther could have either raced home for her own yo ung child or run to the towns. She ha d chosen to save the town speople, and her tomboyish up bringing had served her well. Jak e Elder said "he never saw a woman run so in his life" (64) .

Esther had gi v en he r 1 i f e f o r the p e o p 1 e and h ad s a c r i­ fic ed her child also , or so she ha d no doubt thought, but it h ad be en plucked from the water nearly drowned. The town's "natural" mothers who rear their child ren bY

"instinct" are, howeve r, shocked. As Mis' Br iggs re-

65 m inds her unma rried thi rty -six-year-o ld daughter who

tr ies to defend Esther's decision to attempt to save

fi fteen hundred p e ople at the expense of her own daugh­

ter , "Maria 'Me lia, I'm ashamed of you! But you

ain't m a rried and ain't a mo ther. A mother's duty i s to

her own child ! She ne glecte d he r own t o l ook after other

fo lks '--the Lord never ga ve her them other children to

care for!"

"Yes, " said Miss Jacobs, "And here's her child, a

burden on the town! She was an unnatural mot her !" (65)

This story borde rs on the maudl in because of Gil­

man' s outrageous disto rt ions of some prevalent views a gainst which she crusaded: the idea th at along w ith the

baby comes an inhe rent instinct fo r good mothering which m ak es childcare education unnecessary ; the idea that

girls should be kept igno rant an d innoc ent of the facts of life so as to be more mar ketable fo r marriage; and the

idea that girls should be weak, fra il, and he lpl ess

for this same reason--marketabilit y. In her view women

should choose to marry a man who will be a g ood father:

"Competition among males, with selection by the female of

the superior male , is the process of sexual selection, and works to racial improvement" (�Q��D-EDg_��QDQ�i��

66 110-111). A woma n could make an intelligent decision

o n ly if she knew the facts of lif e, both the bio logica l

and the social ones. As Dr. Be llair, a woman ph ys i c ian in Gi lman' s sho rt sto ry entitled "T he Crux" adm onishes a

young wo man who is about to allow sentimentality to sway

her into marry ing a man even after she learns he has a vene real disease, "Beware of a biological sin, my dear;

fo r it there is no fo rgiveness" (Lane 122).

Maternal love that transcend s the love of a wom an

fo r her own of fsp ring is also explored in "Turned," a story depicting the sisterhood G ilman saw as a desirable

possibili ty among women. When the educated, genteel Mrs.

Marroner learns that her beloved husband has impregnated

Gerta, their beautiful young servant girl whom Mrs. Mar­ roner had treated as a daughter, she behave s in an unex­

pected manner , one that was shock ing to many read ers o f

the time. This story told by a third p e rson na rrator al lows readers to understand the situation from the points of view of all three participants. They see

Gerta's innocence, terror, an d shame; Mrs. Mar roner's

grief, pity, wisdo m, and str eng th of ch aracter; and Mr.

Marroner's hypocrisy and deceitfulne ss in his selfish un concern fo r the c o nsequenc es o f his behavior. This

67 st ory of one man's sexual conquest al lows the rea der to see past the man's vi ctory to the heartache he brings to the two women, the child, and himself. This is al so a love story, fo r Mrs. Marroner's maternal love em brac es both Gerta and Mr. Marroner's il le gitimate infant in

s h a r p c o n t ra s t to M r • M a r ron e r ' s s e xu a 1 " 1 o v e" w h i c h causes him to use Ge rta, then to turn his back on he r and his child. The distorted and delightfu l twi st he re is that the two wom e n join for ces against the man. Mrs.

Marroner is a queen among he ro ines:

And then, swe eping over both he r feelings fo r her-

se lf , the wife, and Gerta, hi s v ictim, came a new

flo od, which literally lifted he r to her feet. She

rose and walked, her head he ld high. "Thi s is the

sin of man aga inst woman, " she said. "The offense

is against w omanhood. Against motherhood. Against

--the child ." (Lan e 94)

When Mr. Marro ner retur ns from Europe, he finds the bouse

" c lean, in perfect ord er, whol ly vacant" (94). FinallY locating his wife aft er months of searching, he finds t hat she has resume d the use of he r maiden name and is once mo re pur suing a teaching career. The tw o wom en com e into th e room togeth er to me et him, Ge rta "like a

68 t all Mado nna, bea ring a baby in her arms " an d looking ado ringly at Mrs. Marrone r, and his w i fe , "calm, steady, de finitel y imp e rsonal, nothing but a cl ear pal lor to hint or inner stress" (96). "A nd the woman who had been his wife asked quietl y: 'What have you to s ay to us?'" (97) ;

Gilman in ess ence alway s asks that question o f the pat riarchy.

While her writ ing often does rel y upon "wit , cl ever turns of phrase, an d ideas" rat her than upon "rhyth m or aesthet ic expression" as De gler ch arges, contrary to

Degl er's a ssess ment , it is often imagin a tive, and the wit, clever turns of phrase , and radical ideas make it most ly enjoyable reading. If adolescent girls and teens of this century were introd uced to her wor k, the y mig ht find a healthy balan ce-- a counterpoint --to offset Holly­ wood's excessive portrayal of the male obs ession with love and war. In "Turne d ," a littl e gem of its o wn kind, dis tortions and reve rsals combine to create a powerful effect on the reader. The man with his empty h ouse an d emp ty he art ultimately faces the united power of these females he has wronged an d is fo rc ed to recognize his ow n impotence, his pow erles sness, t o alter th e res ults of his wrongdoing.

69 So metimes G i lman counter points the idyllic not ion preval ent in so much fiction that love and marriage a:1tom atica lly bring happiness with a story about a mar- riage which refutes that idea. In "Making a Chan g e"

Frank an d Julia 3enui nely love each other, but love is not enough fo r h a pp iness . This young mot her cannot co pe with her baby and fin ally attempts suicide but is saved just in time by he r understanding mother-in-law. The t wo women decide that Julia will retur n to teachi n g music as she did before marr iage and that Frank's mother wi ll open a "baby-garden" on the roof to care fo r their bab y and fi fteen other s . Unlike t h ose characters in stories who live happily ever aft er simply because the boy wins the g irl, these characters liv e happily ever after be­ cause bo th w om en thrive financial ly, physically, and emotionally as t hey are paid fo r doing work they en joy and are fitted for; Frank is happy because his home runs smoothly and quie tly an d his wife is herself once more; and the baby is hap py because he is being cared for in a social envi ronm ent by so meone who is really suited for the task.

Woman 's ab il ity to support hersel f is also depic ted in "An Hone st Woman." Mrs. Main, w ho had b een "ruined"

70 ye ars before an d ab andoned, re ar s her daughter alone and

manages to do quite we 11 financiall y as the respectable

owner of a ho tel. Ann J. Lane apt ly describes her as

"G ilman 's answer to Nathaniel Hawthorne," a fallen Hester

Prynne who "gets up" (xxi). The man who had dece ived her

years earl ie r returns dow n a n d out but with the smug

certainty that this woman who had lo ved him so passion­ ately will now welcome him and his offer of marriage.

After all, isn't that what every woma n wants? The reader

feel s, along with Mrs. Main, a sense of s atisfaction as

she r e j ects his be lated proposal. He threatens to expose

her, but the townspeople al ready know her fo r what she

tru ly is because of t he exemplary life she has lived

b efore them. Mr. Main th en leaves for pa rts South. This

story refutes the ideas that a woman must hav e a ma n in

order to be successful in life and that domestic and

marital fe 1 ici ty should be every wo man's highe st am b i­

tion.

A different typ e of male wrongdoing is portraye d in

"The Ye llow Wallpap er," a sto ry which most critics agree

has literary merit as well as d i dactic utility . For all

her p r otestations that this story is "no more 'lite ra­

ture' " than her other work (.bi.Y!.n.B 121 ), it ful fil ls the

71 requirements exp e cted of "good" literature: the effec t m oves t he reader; the plot is cogently presented and moves al ong syst ematical ly but susp e nsefully; the charac­ ters seem re al an d pl ausible; and as Berm an notes,

The story's richness li es in ita abi lity to yield

mul tiple meaning s an d points of view--psychological,

sociologic al, historica l. The house has ric h sym­

boli c m eanings ••••th e domestic imprisonment of

nin eteenth-century women, the madness of the

Mitchell rest cure, the isol ation of rural Ame rica,

th e repr ession of the body. (54)

Gilman also utilizes so me sophis ticated literary devices, p articularly her involved employment of doubling , which re ceives exte nsive treatm ent in this st udy, an d he r effective use of the narrative voi ce, which is discussed in t he fol lowing chapter.

In this story Gilman introduces a woman w ho is eventually driven mad by a well-meaning but tyr anni cal hu sband who insists and be lieves that he knows better than she what is good for her. In re lating the story with its perhaps exaggerated conse quences, Gilman "trans­ lates the general into the parti cular, " hopin g that her re aders would gen eralize about th e treatment of all women

72 at the hands of see mingly omn ipotent hu sbands, fathers, and brothers. Perhap s mo s t of these women were not reacting qu ite so radically a gainst their restricted lives, but many of the m were living lives of qu iet des­ peration. Alt hough critic s tend to stress it s autobio­ graph ical a spects, this story transcends autobiography.

As Gary Sc ha rnhor st stresses : "H er fiction was autobio- graphic ally moo red, though it was bY no me ans literal autobiography" (14). Instead , Gilman at tempted to por­ tray in her fiction the li fe of a large segment of the population muc h in the way that George Eliot defined the function of art:

Ar t is the nearest th ing to l ife; it is a mode of

amp lifying experience and extending our contact with

our fellow- men beYond the bounds of our personal

l ot. All the more sacred is the t a sk of the artist

when he un dertakes to paint th e life of th e People"

(610).

By pai nting the life of th e p e ople as she p e rc ei ved it,

Gilman hoped to bring ab out the changes that she fe lt we re necessary if wom en were to tak e their righ t ful places along side men in the world. Only then, she fe lt , w ould eithe r men or wom en en joy fu ll, rich, unblight ed

73 l ives. In at leas t one story , "The Yel low Wallpaper," s he emphasized her beliefs by po rtraying h e r heroin e as a g rotes que, a tactic de signed to sho ck th e blind into seeing an d the deaf into hearing he r message. Gilman's grotesque heroine is ob served in the fo llowing chapt er which begins a study of "The Yellow Wallpaper" within the conf i n es of the gothic genr e.

74 CHAPTER III

"THE YELLOW WALLPAPER" AN D THE FEMALE GOTHIC :

THE MY STERY AND THE GROTESQUE

"I t seemed, sir, a woman, tal l an d large , with thick

and dark hair hang ing long do wn her back. I know

not what dress she had on: it was white a nd

straight; b ut whet her go wn, sheet, or shroud, I

c annot tell ••••But pre s ent ly she took my vei l

from it s pla ce: she held it up , ga ze d at it long,

and then, she threw it over her own head, an d turned

to the mirror. "

" · •• o h, sir, I never saw a face like it ! It was

a dis coloured face--it was a sava ge face . "

"S ir, it remov ed my veil from it s gaunt head, r ent

it in two parts, and flinging both on the flo or,

trampled on them. " ---Charlotte Bronte

When 11 The Yellow Wal lpap er" was published in 1892, it was received as a story in the got hic tradition of Poe with its el em e nts of mystery , horror , terr or, and its

75 d amsel in distress immured within a spacious old house on a neglected coun try esta te. Today re aders sti ll enjo y the sto ry's g othic eleme n ts, and as psychology unfol ds secrets of the ninete ent h - century woman's psyche , twen­ tieth- century read ers discove r more layers of meaning in the story than it s contempo raries possibly dreamed of.

Perhaps wom en have intuited the meanings within the g othic all along, for they have been its principal r eaders and writers. To women the stor ies are more than mere thrillers, for the centra l person in the story and the one at risk is usually a woman who respo nds to he r danger with fo rt itude and decorum. Crit ics today re cog­ n ize that fear in the gothic hides and disguises the female's deep ange r an d resentment at her pre d et ermined roles within society and that the go thi c heroine's greate st unce rt aint y derives from the difficult y of real­ izing her own self and presenting hersel f so that others can app reciate he r whol e being in it s entirety, not to mention her i n dividuality (DeLamotte 11;9). In "T he

Yello w Wallpaper, " Gi lman a ddresses these issues--fear, anger, resentment , lack of indi viduality--b y examining the ir effects on one woman, the narrato r of her sto ry, who is grad ually transformed into a grotesque by the

76 gothic elements within he r wo rld.

The g oth ic gen re represents an outgrowth of the sentimental nov el, such as Samuel Richa rdson's ..C.J..ar.!.§.§.e

HgrJQ� (1747-17 48) or Fanny Burney's �x�ll�� (17 78).

Usua lly recognized as the first got hic novel, Ho race

Wal pole's 1D� ��§�l�_Qf_�!r���Q (1764) with it s almost all egorical fi gure s involved in fantasti c fe a t s resem­ bling th e medieval psychom achia and its i n trusion of the supern atural into human s ' lives, the gothic g enre evolv e d to its later non-allego rical form that depended on hum an forces rather than the supernatu r al fo r its resolution.

The go thic novel presented its horrors through the writi ngs of such people as Monk Lewis (J'f!.il !f.Ql.l.k 1 796),

Clara Reeve (.I.h!L.Ol.Q._��g1.1�.h-.B�..r.Q .n 1777), Mary Shelle y

<�r�l.l��E§!��E 1818), Maturin

Emily Bronte (}l�.!! .b�rj.�_g llil.!.S..b�§ 1847) , Ro bert Lewis

Steven son Clh�-��..rgll.B�-..C�§�_ QJ_�r�J��xll ��9 .Mr��xg&

1886), and by the end of the nineteent h century, He nry

James's (Ib&_l�rE_.Qf ��.il-��r.il� 1898), to na me just a few.

Probably the gothic novel that influenced the genre most, however, was Ann Radcliffe's I.h�_ Mx�1�rl�.§ .Q f �gQlQDQ

(179 4), i n which t h e persecuted heroi ne Emily fa ces her trials and he r persecuto rs courageou sly.

77 Elem ent s of the classic setting of th e go thic roma nce . seve ral of wh ich occur in "The Yellow Wallpa­ per," invo lve a heroine nin a fo reign land--in a remote castle--surrounded by vic e an d violence" (Radcliffe 329) bravely attemp ting to live an ordinary life under quite ext raordinary circums tances. She is an innoc ent but br ave young woman po ssessing exemplary moral standards, beset on all sides by perplexities . The leading male i s usual ly he r j a iler though he often is or pretends to be her guardian, a nd if the othe r occupants frequenting their world real ize the heroine's danger, they are either powe r less to help her or they are part of the conspiracy against he r. The j uxtapo sition of th e ordinary and the extrao rdinary produces an a ura of my stery as this g enre pro bes "the dark aspects of the mind" (MacAndrew 3 8).

Much of the my ster y is created by the heroi ne' s u n certainty about who can and who cannot be trust ed.

The complex architecture of the cast le or large rambli ng house ai ds in the heroine's sense of helplessness be­ cau se, as Gi lber t an d Gubar have noted, she cannot seem t o understand the go thic edifice's floor plan (337), a metapho r fo r her inabilit y to understan d the intricacies of the mysteries sur roundi ng her. She frequently loses

78 he r sense of direction as she gro pes her way through d ark hallways or subterranea n tunnels, an d the confines of her ow n bedroom rometim es offer in adequate prot ection, as in t he case of Anne Radcl iffe's Emily whos e bedroom contains a do or leading to an unde rgro und tunnel which may or may not lead to safet y. Since its han dle and lo ck are on the other si de of the door, it is little wonder that this heroine feels mo re distressed an d en dange re d at night in her bed than sh e does at any other time. He lp usually arrives in the fo rm of a trust worthy man who vindic ates he r honor if it i s in question, and it frequ entl y is, an d who saves her physical ly fr om the clutches of the vi llain whose true nature is exposed.

The isol ated landscape and nature ope rating as pathet ic fallacy signal to t he reader the e m otions prope r for specific scenes; storms an d fogs, for example , might re pres ent anger or unc ertainty, and sunshine might re pre­ sent peace or ha ppiness. Pervading the entire work, ho wev er, is a sense of im pendi ng doom as the g othic explores "the torments of the subco nsc ious pressing up on t he conscious mind an d making a prison of the self"

(MacAndrew 48-49). Female writers probabl y chose this parti cular genre b oth as a catharsis to rel ieve their

79 minds of the pressures of their own and their read ers'

do mesti c prisons and "as a vehicle for ideas about

psychological evil--evil not as a fo rce exte rior to man,

b ut a s a disto rt io n, a warping of his mind" (MacAndrew

5), as did Gilman. And, indeed, t he reading public was

o b vious ly fascinate d by its my stery and terror, fo r the

gothi c was a staple in the li terary diet of bo th men and

women in the nineteenth century.

Although both sexe s wrote and read gothic novels ,

the g enre has correctly co me to be a ssociated m ore with

women' s writing and reading than it has with men's . In

t he twentieth centu ry the genre is stil l popular as vari ous derivatives pro li ferate in supermarke ts, drug

stores, and anywhere else that women tend to shop. While

a few of the characteris tics of th e go thic novel have

changed somewhat , the major themes still cen ter on a

dist ressed but br ave heroine who attempts to determin e

wh ich of the two men in her life is really to be trusted,

and in th e process she encounters entrapm en t of some

so rt. Crit ics can only speculate as to the reasons for

wome n's inte rest in, an d in so me ca ses pa ssio n for, t h e

g ot hic. Lil li an s. Rob inson believes this conti nued

interest is due to wom en's need "to receive confir m ation,

80 an d event u ally, affirmation , that love really is what

motivat e s an d justifies a woman's life" (221 ). Mo re pre­

cisely , however, it may be that they need confirma tion that their "victimi zation by Love" (Adrienne Rich 19) is

ju stified. Yet, the very fact that so m an y women, espe ­

c ially hous ewives, use the gothic as escapist reading in dicates that lov e alone may not be enough to satisfy

the basic human nee d for se lf-fulfillment. The gothic, however, encompasses more than so-ca lled "trashY" liter-

at u re. Serious writers such as Fl annery O'Co n nor and

Dor is Lessing have also written in th is genre , and Ju dith

Wilt observe s that this "class ic" gothic serves to re­

store order, an obser vation which she m ak es in response

to D. H. La wrence 's expl anat ion th at Poe's Us her twins

were doomed because they attempted to subsume the alt er

ego, to be "on e thing with anot he r be ing. Each must

abide by itself, and c o rrespond only within certain

li mits" (Lawrence 344) ; furthe r, Wilt obser ves that

"[c]lassic Gothic, the orthodox sublime, believes in

co rre spondence, believes in love , striv es against li mit s"

(23). Fleenor distinguishes between these two varia­

tions of gothic by st ating that the fo rm er type mig ht be

said to tranquilize the reader while the latter, "repre-

81 se nting the un conscious, " restores the read er "by reasserting the absolute" ( 4). Since both va riat ions of gothic, the so-cal led "trashy" an d the cla ssic, were popular w.ith wom en durin g the eighteenth an d nineteenth ce ntur ies and continue so today , some basic and common elements ope rational within the ge nre and wit hin women's psych es m u st be t he responsible sti mulus or stimul i.

Gi lman' s astute observations about the space whic h women o ccupy in society are pe rtinent, fo r al though Gilman did no t specific ally state that women actually occupy a gothic space within soc iety, her works imply as much, as, fo r exam ple, the mu lt iple wo men impri soned wi thin the y e llo w wallpap er.

Gilman once noted that one result of male dominance over woman force s her to occupy the "pla ce of a prepo- si tion in re lation to man. She has been considered above him o r below him, before him, behind him, beside him, a wholly relative existen ce--'Synde y's sister, ' 'Pembroke's mother'--but never by any chance Sydney or Pembroke he r- self" Woman's prepositional p osi- tion in the worl d is fa irly o b vious ly one major fa ctor often pushing he r into gothic situations both in li tera- ture an d in real life. Virginia Woolf declared that a

82 woman needs a ro om of her own; too often, though, wo m en's rooms come furnished with metaphorical yellow wallpaper.

Consider, fo r exa mple, Antigone 's cav e , D an ae 's br onze to wer, Shakespeare and Fl etcher's jailer's daughter's conf in es, Radcliffe 's Emily's unsecured room , Le s sing's protagonist's Room 219, and, of course, Gi lm an's narra­ tor's upstairs nursery room. The a dage that truth is som etimes stranger than fi ction gai ns cre de nce, g iven the ph enomenon of the chronic invalidism of so many talented women in the ninet eenth century. Flo renee Nig htingale, for example, came home from the tragic an d futile war in the Cri mea where she ha d invented nursing and took to her bed for twenty- five years; and Alice James , a writer who lived in the shadow of her famous brothers, w a s an inva­ lid , as was Elizabeth Barrett be fore Robert Browning re scued her fro m her tyrann ical father. Thes e women,

Gilman incl uded , we re literally or figur atively impri­ soned in a gothic space of one so rt or another. The diagnosis and progn osis had a self- fulfil ling effect. No doubt the gothi c in all its fo rms is popular because its readers l .i ve in their own private impr isonm ents and, as

Robinson spe culates, nee d a justification for the ir past live s and continued existence, especially if they per-

83 ceive themselves only in thei r relational positions and not as individual s.

In her book entitled I b�-l�mA1§ _Qgth!�. Juliann

Fleenor gives an e xcellent summary descrip tion of w omen' s go thic:

It is essentially fo rmles s, except as a quest; it

uses the traditional spat ia l sym bolism of the ruined

ca stle or an enclo sed room to symb oli ze both the

cul ture an d the he ro ine; as a psycholog ical form, it

provokes various feelin gs of terror, anger, awe, an d

so metimes self-fear and self-d isgust directed to ward

the female role, female sexuality, female

physi.ology, an d p rocre at ion ; and it frequently uses

a narrative for m which questi ons the validity of th e

narrative itself. It reflects a pat riarchal par a ­

dig m that women are moth erless, y et fathered, and

that women are defective because they are not males.

( 15 )

"T he Yellow Wallpaper" fulfills each of Fleenor's five

points to quali fy it as an example of the Female Gothic ,

and in th:i.s chapter and the next Fle enor 's definition of

Female Goth ic wil l be used as a loose fram ewo rk to dis­ cuss "T he Yellow Wallpaper" as an exa mple of that genre.

84 The unnamed he roine in the story occupies, not at all willingly, an upstairs roo m papered with hideous ye llow wallpaper, a room that she thin k s once served as a nursery, fo r the windows are barred and "t he re are rings and thingE� in the walls" (Gil man "TYW " 12). This ro om i s si tuated within iso late d "ancest ral ha l ls, " "[a] c olo­ nial ma nsi.on, a heredit ary estate" (9); the heroine wo uld like to ca ll i t "a haunted house, an d re ach the height of rom antic fel icity--but that would be asking too much of fate !" (9). It would also be asking too much of John to allow such non sense, for he "is practical in the ext reme" and "sco ffs openly at an y talk of things no t to be fe lt and seen and put down in figures" (9). Since she has alerted re aders to the fa ct that there is "som et hing queer" about the hou se, and sinc e John laughs at her opinion (9), the reader suspects that fu rther develop­ ments will pr ove her to be right. Like the traditional gothic st<>ry, the land scaping surrounding Gi lm an's ver­ sion of the cast le adds to its mystery and sense of isolat ion :

The most beautiful place! I t is quite alone,

standing well back from the ro ad, quite three mi les

from the village. It make s me think of English

85 places that yo u read about, fo r there are hedges and

wal ls and gates that lock, and lo ts of separat e

little hou ses for th e gardeners and people. (11)

The ga rden itself is described as "large and sha dy, fu ll of box-bordered paths, and l ined with long grape- cov ere d arbors with se ats und er them" (11). To thi s peaceful scene is added an element of decay and mystery: the gre enh ous Hs are now broken, and "leg al troubl e" bet ween

"heirs and cohei rs" has resulted in the house remaining

"empty for years" (1 1 ). The narrator reg rets this ex­ planation for the house having been empty for so long, as it "spoils [her] ghostliness" (11), but the reader senses a gothic mys ter iousness within the env irons of the house and its premises. The narrator hastens to declare in the next breath, "I don 't care--there is som ething strange a b out the h o use - -I c an f e e 1 it " ( 1 1 ) , a n d o n c e a g ai n gothic myst eriousness whets the read er's appetite for fu rthe r details. Furt hermore, J o h n' s p ro c 1 amat ion that what she actually feels is a "g.r.£l.Y.S.h.t " as he emphat ica lly closes the window fails to convince the rea der that there i s no mystery. Quite the co ntrary, in fact , for th is action directs the reader' s attent ion n1 0re closely to John's character a n d intentions.

86 The narra tor's earl ier sta tement s co ncerning Jo hn then begin to t ak e on more sini ster connotat ions : t hi s practical physician-husband, loving guardian of his ill wif e, laughs at her ideas, forbi ds he r to work, tells eve r yone she is not really ill but suffer s only from

"te mporary ner vous depress ion--a slight h y st erical tendenc y " (10), an d appe ars to act to deprive her of indep ende:nt thought. He may, then, be a loving husban d or he may be a gothic vill ain; his solicitous minis­ trations may free her or they may entrap her. The line s following the window-closing scene express the narrator's anger at John and he r sensitivity "due to this nervous �� o ndition" (11). Her info rmation that Jo hn st resse s a "proper self-contro l" which make s he r "v ery tired" and that part of this self-control means refusing

"to t hink about [her] condition" (10 ) only add to the mystery and confirm the suspi cion that something is awry.

Fleenor's description of the gothic as "essentially formless,. e xcept as a ques t," applies to th is story.

Told as a nar rat ive entered surreptitiously into her diary (for John "hates to have me w r ite a word" [13]),

87 the story's form is that of short, ofte n one-line para­ graphs which must denote the narrato r's feelings of frag­ mentation i n he r search f or self. There is no obv ious laying out of plot ; rather, what pl ot there is un folds gradual ly and the reade r is not at first certain there is a plot. The sto ry appears to be a rather rambling mono­ logue dirEjCted by the narrator to her di ary, but as time an d the diary progress, the reader re ali zes that a plot to drive the narrato r mad does exist, though t he partici­ pants do not seem aware of it. The chara cters are intro­ duced to the reader onl y thro u gh the narr ator 's impres­ sions of them : they consis t of the narrator, he r physi­ cian-husband John, his si ster Jenni e who ove rsees the ho u se, and Mary the nur se. Gilman creates sympathy for the heroine, t he narrator, simply by enabl in g th e reade r to view everything in the story throu g h her eye s.

Eugeni a Delamotte writes tha t "The Yel low Wallpa pe r"

explains why wo men have to invent mysteries--bot h

mystl:lry sto ries and mysteries of d omestic s c ience.

It is about the ways those two mysteries are related

to each other i n the narrator ' s life, and the way

b oth are related to he r sense that she hers elf is a

mystery: to her husband and h e rsel f." ( 4)

88 Society bas deterministically pre-positioned this name­

less nar rato r' s identity as that o f wife an d mother :

she is m1�rely John's wife and her son 's mother, two

"p re positional" re lationshi ps which Gilman sug gests in

.l'b.!LM�..D=M�.9.&_.H.Q.r.J,..Q.. As an individual, however, she is

certai nly a mystery to Joh n , who discourage s he r indivi­

dua lity, and she do es not ap pear to understand he r own se lf. As she sits within he r nursery roo m writing diary

entries which explore her si tuation an d her mind, the

ambiguity she creates reflect s her own schizophrenic view

of h e rself . S he does recognize herself as John's sub­

missive wife and he r baby' s lovi ng mother, b ut she nurse s

an inner ange r toward John, not en tirely subconsciously,

and her thoughts seldom include her ba by. This story,

t hen, represe nts the na rrator's quest for her own id en­

ti ty.

Obviously, part of her inner self has already reco g­

n ized the danger of losing it s own i den tity if she as­

sumes th e fu ll responsibility fo r the constant demands of

her c hild in addit ion to the cost to he r self wh ich her

submission to an authoritative guardian has already

exa cte d. Sh e probab ly has also realized that she cannot

be b oth John's ch i 1 d and h e r bab y's m o ther. Fleenor's

89 fou rth po int that go thic writers choose a narrative struct ure which "by its nature undern:;ine s its validity" is appropriate to this story at this point. She st ates fu rther that "the struggl e with the absolute is so threatening that even the narration must be que stionabl e .

This tensio n between reality and appeara nce is another exa mple of the ch a racteris tic tensions of the Go thic,

[sic] and in par ticular, the Female Gothic." Further­ more, s he argue s that this tension "produces sel f-fear an d s e lf-disgust, sym bo lized by the red room i n _.!lg _g�

�.Y..r� · by the gro tesque beings behind 'The Yellow Wallpa­ per, ' and by the deformed dwarves in 'Goblin Market'"

(12). The ambivalence in Gilman's narra tion creats tensio n between re al ity an d appearance. The rea lity is that John has imprisoned his wife, di ctates her every move , attemp ts even to dictate her every thought, is condescending and patronizing toward her , and in general t re ats her like a chil d wh il e giving the appearance of a de voted husband who on ly wants his belove d wife to be well. The problem is that his definition of wellne ss is a wi fe who is his puppet, n ot an in di vidua liz ed person.

The narrator's self-fear and self-disgust are pro duced by the conf lict created b y the desire to be her o wn per-

90 son ; and this desire engende rs gu il t because society has

condit ione d her to b elieve that she must be submissive to

John and, therefo r e , that she must not wish to be her own pers on. Perhap s if John were ove rtly crue l to he r physi­ cally, he r feelings of gui lt at oppo sing him, if only in her mind, mig ht not be so great, but as it is she ke eps reassur ing he rself that John loves he r. The re ader is unce rtain about the truth of John's love because only

the narrator presents a vi ewpoin t and it frequent l y a p­ pears contradicto ry. The reader, therefore, carries the

burden of dec iding the narrative' s credibi lity . As the

sto ry progresses, however, the reader become s mo re a ware

that the narrator is l o sing her grip on her former reali­ ty and is be ing illumi nated by anot her reali ty. Thi s new existence will c o nsume her until sh e emerges a grotes que .

Gilman skillfully empl oy s the narrative voic e to

illustrate th e development of the narrator as a

grotesque. As the narrator gradually de sc ends into madness, she detects in the wa llpaper first e y es, then

women, t hen a woman with whom she id enti fies. The story

emphasizes John' s patriarchal condes c ension in his treat­

ment of his wife. Be cause he staunchly fo rbids he r

writing, she writes cl andes tinely. Her diary e nt r ies

91 trace her il lness from its earliest symptoms to its fully degeneratod st ate.

This st ory, how eve r, is much m ore than a simple

fi rst-person n arrat ive; it is, in fact , a dramatic mono- logue in pro se. Told in the na rrator's words throughout as she surreptitious ly pens them , the re a der is made aw are of the speaker, the setting, and the auditor. It is fi tting that in this in st ance the audi tor is the

"dead p a per" ( 10) upon whic h she writes; she does not expect to be read any more than she expects to be hear d .

Like Brownir,g's dra m atic monologues, Gilman's sto ry places the reader within t he narrator's mind, there to exp erience the world as the narrator expe riences it. The details which Gilman chooses to allow the narrator to divulge serve to illum inate the entire si tuation within whi ch she acts and reacts to the extent that the reader is able to grasp not onl y the narrator's subj ective view

but als o many truths of the entir e situation that may not be evident to the na rrator's c o nscious mind.

For ,e xam ple, late in the story the narrato r begi ns to think "John is beginning to notice" (Gilman 31) that the p aper is be ing stri pped from the wall. She does not

"like the look in his eyes," an d she has "heard him ask

92 Jennie a lot of profes sional que stions. " Her conclusion is that "John and Jennie are secretly affected" by the p a per, while it "only interests" her (32). The reader, however, ean vi sualize husband and siste r-in-law looking with astonishment at the mutilated walls and with ho rror and fear at the narrator who seem ingl y does not re alize that such a ch ange in the walls will be immedia tely apparen t; the re ader knows tha t her strange behavio r affects them, n ot the wallpaper. This sto r y produces m uch t he Bame effect on the li st ener as Browning's "Por­ phyria's Lover" or "In the Laboratory" which begin inno­ cent ly enough but soon alert the reader th roug h small details that some hor ror is a b out to unfold.

In reading the sto ry aloud, a reader can distinguish two voice:s: one is that of a more independent woman who thinks fo J� herself, and the other is si mply that of the wife who reflects her husband's ide as. Several cr itics hav e commented on these t wo voices . Av Drude Daae von de r Fehr intuits two voices and puzz les over the splitting of the ego into the narrating and the narrated

( 5 1 ) • R ichar d Feldst ein reco gn izes two voices as he dist inguiBhes between

the protagonist who stops writing in her journal

93 a nd the narr ator who produces that journal. ••.

Could it be possible that Gil man intended the narra­

tor to be both the same as and different from the

protagonist , just as she believes the protagonist to

be the same as and different from her double ( s )

[sic] • (276-78)

Dia na Price Herndl notices that "the persona shifts fr om the woman in the room to the wo man in the wallpa-

per" and concludes that the "fina l scene • leaves open the question of whet her we are reading a madwo man's text, a sane woman's post- facto description of madness, or an impossible text , one that cou ld nev er hav e been writ ten" (73).

C ath er in e Golden' s article entitled "The Writing of

'The Yellc, w Wallpaper': A Doub le Palimpsest" sheds mo re l i gh t on the two narrative voices. She p e rce ives this story a s pa limpsestic, one in which the "hallucina­ ti ons and dramatic ac tions of tearing the wallpape r an d creeping on the fl oor co mprise the dominant text , but the writing c omprises the second muted text, • [ whi ch] s hows how the narrator fictionalizes herself as the audience of her story" (193). Golden makes distinctions between the m adness of the narrat or's actions as con sti-

94 tuting the� dominant te xt whi le the narrato r' s fictional ­ ized imag,e of hersel f as the audi t or of her diary makes up the muted text. Furthermore, Jeffrey Berm an notices that at

the beg inning of the story, the narrator a n d the

aut ho r are i ndi stin g uis hab le, but as the former

b eco mes terminally insane, the latter remains fi rml y

in control of the narr ative, allowing the symbolic

power of the wallpape r rather than authorial intru-

sions to expose the full horror. At the en d, the

narrator and author are wo rlds apart " (57).

With every writer there are almost certainly two voic es , one of the na rrator an d one of the teller­

creator, alt hough these tw o voices are most observable when the narrator uses th e first pe rson. Mel vi lle 's

M2�y_Q��k . for example , is told from the view poi nt of

Ishmael , but Ishmael is not Melville, and Po e's

H 2Y§�_9!_D�h�r is told by an unna med narrator who

ce rtainly is not Poe. Neve rtheless, Melville's and Poe's voice s are there so mewhere within the t exts , separate

fro m theiJr na rrators' voices. Similarly. in presenting each individua l po rtra it of the pil grims in the "General

Pro logue" of Ih�-�9�t�r��ry_I9l��. Chauce r th e pilgrim is

95 no t Chauce1r the poet , ev en though he uses the pronoun "I " an d is naDled Chaucer. These first person narrators are not o mniscent but are as fallible as any intelligent huma n observer can and will be. Sometimes the teller­ creator's voice , at t imes identica l with I. A. Rich ards' speaker-co mpo s er, is so faint that the rea der cannot detec t it at all. Gilman, however, somewhat like Chau - cer, frequently allows the teller-creator voice to become detectable; in this, he r most subtle work , the telle r­ creator voice is mo stly faint , but it is detectabl e .

Just as Chau cer's narrator is human, fini te, an d falli ble, so is Gilman's narrator. Fo r instance, Chaucer th e pi lgr:Lm adm ir es the "Chr istian" Knight, t he Pardoner, an d the Prioress, but Chaucer the poet deplores the

Kni ght's bloodthirs ty, merc enary nature which causes him to ally himself with one heathen to fight against other heathens and to go on three ch ivachies with his young son

(the Squire} in a Christ ian land, dest roying every living cr eature, burning Christian villages and plowing the ground into a field. Chaucer the pilgri m shows a reserved adm iration fo r the Pardoner; Chaucer the poet condemns him as beyond redemption . Chaucer the pi lgrim adm ires and reveres the Prio ress; Chau ce r the poet de -

96 plores her excesses and p e tty breaches of religious doctrine . Somewhat similarly, Gi lman's narrator, finite and hu man, is co ndi tioned to think and behave as a wife of her time . Gilm a n the teller-crea tor , however, de- p 1 o res the narrator's inferior position in th e domestic arrang ement, and the teller-creator's displeasure is observable in much the same way as is Chaucer the poet 's in that the echoing voice emerg es only in retrospect.

It is on ly upo n refle ction that th e reader reco gnizes

Gi lman's voice in the echoes rev e rberati ng from the nar­ rator's mad scene whe n sh e expr esses h e r own, and Gil­ man's, frustrat ion an d anger at her cramped position in life. C haucer the poet wages a neces sarily subtle ca m­ paign a gainst abuses within the church; Gilman wage s a n ot- so- subtle war ag ainst the abuses many women endured.

Reco gnition of the teller-creator's voice, howev er, d o es not solve the puzzle of the two di stinct narrative vo ices. For that , consideration must be given to the

"blank p a per" that is the aud itor of the story. Diari es are meant to be read by the person writing them, in this case a woman who no doubt sees her life as a "blank. "

Walte r Ong stat es that the "diarist pretending to be ta lking to hims e lf has also, since he is writing, to

97 Pretend hE! is somehow not the re. An d to w ha t s e 1 f is he talking: To the self he imagines he is? Or would like to be?" (2:0). Gilman's na rra tor wishes to be , and p e rhap s so meti m e f3 imagine s she is, a strong independent woman with view:s and opinions of he r own. For example , in one instance sh e str ong ly asserts, "I believe that congenial work , with excitement and change, would do me go od" (10).

A few lines later, however, she is weake r in her asser- tion as she thinks about John : "I sometimes fancy that i n my conditio n if I had less oppos it ion and mo re s ociety and stimulus--. " Then, as she conside rs what "John says," she meekly concu rs with him: " · .. but John says the ve ry worst thin g I can do is to think abou t my condi ­ tion, and I confess it alway s makes me feel bad" (10).

When eve r her mind shi fts toward John, the wifely narrator reflects his thoughts, words, and wishes, but the moment her mind dr ifts aw ay from thoughts of John, sh e becomes stronger and mo re independent. This double identity, or alteration of the persona, increases the de gree of ambiguity and sometimes the degree of truth which Gi lman is able to reveal.

An other instance of the narrator's vacillation occurs in t he ir disagreement over b edrooms . The narra-

98 tor expresses he r di slike o f the ir bedroom and describe s with enthusiasm the pretty d o wnstairs ro om she wa nts.

Aft er "Joh n would no t hear of it" an d tells her his rati onal reasons for his ch oice of the upstairs bedroom with barrEld win dows, however, she merely utters, "He is very careful and lovin g, and hardly lets me stir without

sp ecial direction •• •.I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more" (12). In this in stance the na rrator has once mo re vo iced an opinion of her own only to concede it then to John's logic. Here, how eve r, her expression o f gu ilt at not valuing John 's "loving" attentions indi­ ca te he r ambivalent feel ings toward John's prescript ions and he r Nlcognit ion of those fee lings.

The reader sees in these exa mples the strong narra­ tor a n d the submissive wif e. As the story progresses, the i ndependent voi ce emerges an d gr adually becomes more preval ent,. distorting he r p re vious sense of truth as he r grasp of that reality fails her. She now sees John pret end ing to be "very loving and kind," (32) whereas be fo re she had assured herself that John "lov es me very dearly" (.21); she thinks Jennie "betraye d herself" when sh e is amazed at the condition of the paper an d laughing ly tells the narrator that she, Jennie, "woul dn't

99 m ind" tearing it off herself (33), whereas before the narrator had considered Jennie "S uch a dear g irl" (17).

She is comple tely authoritative fo r the fi rst time at the en d of the story when John attempts to open the locked d o or a nd she reverses th e di rection of Jo hn's

supercili ous " little g irl" (23) with he r own supercil­ ious an d eondescending term of address as she cr ies, "It i s no us e , y o u n g m a n , you can ' t o p e n it " ( 3 5 ) . F in a 11 y , when John opens the door and sees he r condition, she

screams, "I 've got out at last • in sp ite of you and

Jane . And I've pul led of f most of the pape r, so you c an't put me back!" (36) . At this point the submissive wife has disappeared, an d the in de pendent narrate r has ful ly emerged in a mad distortion of the independe nt personality sometimes detected at the beginning of the

sto ry.

As a device to manipulate narrative voice, the diar y fo r ill of this sto ry is superb. By recording en tries in her diar y, the narrator can in som e measur e perhaps, to paraphrase Ong , pretend t hat she is not there at al l.

This suggest ion of schizophrenia is heightened by her exclama tion at the end of the story that she ha s g otten out of the paper "in sp ite of you [John] and Jane." If

100 Jane denotes the na rrator's ration al self , as some cr it­ ics postulat e (see chapter six of this st udy), and if the narrative voice at the end o f the story is not named Jane as it indicate s it is not when it names Jane in the third person , then som e sort of division has occurred. The narrator':s fictional ized self, to borrow Gol den's ter m t h o u gh not h e r conc 1 u s i on , h a s b e co m e do m in an t. R a t h e r than suffe!ring writ er's b lo ck, an idea wh ich Gol den pre­ sumably extrapolated from an observation by Fetterle y

("b l o eked from expressing her se 1 f QD paper, she seeks to express hersel f �hrQ�Sh pa p er"; Fetterley 162; Golden

200n2), the narrator has written he r rational self, he r

Jane self, out of its unbearable situation, and her exc lamat ion "in spi te of you and Jane" indicates h er own complic ity in he r patriarchal bonda ge. She had wished to be a strong independ ent woman, had fi ctional iz ed that she was one , but she was too c o nditioned by her society to believe in her own self. The vo ice of Jane has been stilled, and John is co nfronted with a gro tesque ca ri- cature of the voic e of the strong independent woman.

As previously suggested, Gilman's c ounterpointing in this story, an d in many of he r other stories as well, invo lv e s the real ity of one ma rriage as opposed to the

1 0 1 romance preceding marri age that Gilman felt was too frequ ent ly the sub ject of fi ct ion. While John's treat- m en t of his wife an d her subsequent m adne ss may be an exaggerat ion or di sto rtion of the plight of most women,

Gil man realized that di stortion , an d ev en sh ock at times , was ne ces.sary to ma ke her readers understand that women shoul d be trea te d as adul ts.

In this story, Gil man's use of the grotesque may be de scri bed somewhat as J. Cotter Mo rrison described g rotesqu e art in an essay on Brow ning's ��l1���-]�9D

Its proper provi nce would se em to be the exhi bi t i on

of fanciful power b y the artist; not beaut y or

truth in the literal sense at al l, but inventiv e

affluence of unreal yet ab surdly comic fo rms, with

just a flavour of the terrible added, to give a grim I

dignity, an d save from the tr iviality of caricature.

(quoted in Arthur Symons [ 125] by Smalley xi iin)

Because Cl f th e basi c grimness of Gilman's narrator's imp ending madness, scenes which contain possible ele- ments of hum or becom e grote sque. For example, it is com ica lly absur d f or a gr own wo man to be ke pt in a nurser y w· ith the sam e safety fe at ures which thought ful

102 parents provide fo r childre n . Likewise , when the nar- rater is afraid J e nnie wants to tear the wallpa per off the wall he rself, read ers almost smile in spite of them­ selves at tt e a b surdi ty of h e r de lusion, but hor ror preven ts laughter. Also, the very idea that an adult wo uld write surreptitiously, then hide th e writing w h en an yo ne app roac he s has poss ible comic overtones, but a fu ll realization of the narrator's apprehensions pre- eludes a co mic response. Additionally, the scene in whi ch the narrator throws the key out the window and the do mineerin g , usually p re cise and corre ct John must fumble aro und unde r the plantain le af looking fo r it has comic possibilities; the awkwardness of the situation ce rt ainly provides a pot ential for comic relief, but G ilman de nies the reader any re lief from the gri mness of the sto ry. As a final example, the narrator' s exclamation, "No w why did that grown man fa int ?" as she proceeds to crawl over his body is funny , first, because the unflappable John has b e e n f i n a 1 1 y c o m p e 11e d to 1 o o k at h i s w i f e an d c on f r o n t reality and, sec o nd, because on ly the narra to r in her pres ent state of deter iorat ing sanity could poss ibly be surprised at John's reaction. Yet , no one laughs.

Gilman 's narrator enters the worl d of the grotesque

103 when she is f o rce d to live so meone else's truth.

S he rwood Anderson defined a gro tes que as on e who "took one of the [many ] truths to himself, called it his truth, an d trie d to live his life by it. " This pe rson "becam e a grotes que and the trut h he em braced became a falsehood"

( 5). Gil man's narrator gr adually becomes a grot esque in trying to live by John' s truth, his certainty that every­ thing in life can be explained by logic--his logic; s he is untrue to herself an d attempts to live a lie, while

Jo hn lab els her tru th, her in tuitive responses to life, falsehood by urging her to use her will p o wer to cont ro l her natural impulses.

Gilman's use of the two voices of the narrator as distinct fro m her o wn teller- creator voice in "T he

Yel low Wa l lpap er" de picts woman's ca paci ty as an adult and the psych ic damage that occurs when an adult is treated as a child. Both partners in this mar riage suffer immeasurably. The strong voice of the narrator, which gradually eme rge s as madness descends, final ly expre sses the anger and frustration that ha d been pent up with in the wife as sh e at te mpted to cope with patrona g e

1 04 and condescensio n as well as the anger and frustration that Gil man the teller-cre ator ex perienced because of the patriarchal att itudes exp ressed toward the w omen of h er day.

In o:rd er to counteract these patriarchal at titudes, to empha si ze the female's potential, an d to educate the publ ic about the desirability of incorporating fe male contribut:l ons into s ociety, Gilman frequent ly uses dis­ tortion. In this particul c.. r sto ry she utiliz es the gothi c genre to express her horror at w oman 's entrapment in society's prede te rmine d "prepositional" roles which of ten precluded her ful l dev elopment a s an adult human b eing. A s a result of he r reactions to her entrapment,

Gi lman's narrator becomes a grotesque when, to us e Flee­ nor's terminology, "sel f-fe ar and self-di sgust directed toward the fe ma le role" override her cul tural conditioning. The fo llowing chapter is directed toward a fuller und erstanding of t hat culture and its imp lications for women.

105 CH APTER IV

"THE YELLOW WALLPAPER11 AND THE FEMALE GOTHIC:

VICT ORIAN SOCIETAL AND MEDI CAL VIEW S

Th e children appeared before her like antagoni sts

who had ov ercome her, who had overpowered and sought

to drag her into the soul 's sl avery fo r the rest of

her days.

I would give up the une ss ential ; I would g ive my

mo ney , I would giv e my life for my children ; but

I wo uldn 't give myself. I can 't make it mo re

clear ; it 's only something which I am beg inning

to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me .

- Kate Chopin

Gil man's narrator in " The Yellow Wallpa per" is a product of her societ y, and the story is an indictment of that society. The house in the story , as well as the gr otesque yellow wa llpaper with it s pat te rn of contradic-

106 tory anglos which the narr ator stare s at all d a y and much of the ni ght , and the nursery room symbol ize "both the cu ltur e and the heroine ," the second point of Fleeno r's definition of women's g o thic. In order to understand this symbolism , the reader must unde rstand Vict orian societal and medical viewpoints about women. This dis­ cussio n will provide further clues about the Victo r ian w oman's feelings of self-fear and self-di sgust mentioned a bove and stated as th e t hird point of Fleenor' s defini­ tion. Cont inuing the discuss ion of "The Yellow Wallpa­ per" as an exampl e of the Female Go thic according to

Juli ann Fleeno r' s definit ion , this chapter will c enter on the Victorians' bel iefs about women , how those bel iefs were reflected in the women's lives, and what sometimes ha ppened when women experi enced co nfl ict betwee n those beliefs an d their own ne ed fo r self-fulfill m ent.

Much of Gilma n' s writing as se rts that women were consi dered in ferior males and hence inferior hu mans b ecause the ideal human had been defined by male qual i­ ties. It is as if a vestige of the old Platonic idea of the goddess of love who ne vertheless possesses all male appendages lingers on in th is Vi ct orian soc iety: "

He a venly Aphrodite, or Love wh o springs from a go dde ss

1 07 whose attribu tes have nothing of the fe mal e , but are

al together mal e ... • and is [there for e] innocent of anY hint of lewdn ess" (Plato , �xm�g§iYm 535 ). Plato's atti­ tude is surprisingly similar to the pervasiv e attitude of

Victorian men and women that the fem a le reproduct ive o r gans, dominating her body and mind, were less attrac­ tive--more obscene even--than were the male re productive o rgans. Victo rian society decreed that woman should be

"chaste, del icate , and loving" yet that she was al so

" controlled phys ical ly and emotionally by her reproduc­ tive orga n s." She was perceived as a parad oxical crea­ ture "both higher and lowe r, both innocent an d ani mal,

pure y et quintessentially sexual • .•• driven by the tidal currents of her cyclical repr oducti v e sy ste m"

(S mith-RofJenberg, "Puberty" 24 ).

This Platoni c and Victorian concept of male superi­ ority is diametrical ly oppo sed to Gilman's theory that the female was the trunk of humani ty and the male was only a grafted bra nch . Perhap s two directly contradicto­ ry ideas struggling wi thin the sam e mind would be so unsettling as to propel the mind toward insanity. "The

Yel low Wallpaper" specifical ly addresses the problem which this Pl atonic interpretation of male superiority

108 presents; the narrato r's primary diffi cu lty appear s to be her inability to accept her unequal domestic and marital position which he r husband and guardian assumes as a given , as well as John's insistence upon his wife's conforming to his prescriptions for every detail of her

li fe, thus denying her individuality. In fact, if their culture tho ught that woman's will was so innately weak, then Jo hn' s insistence that the narrat or stringently

exercise will power to control her imagination amounts to a greater cruelty than cr it ics have previously noted, as he kno wingly urges her to overtax her wits.

The oon tradictions and confl icts evolve within the heroine because sh e is a child-woman whose culture ha s

decre ed that she must behave as both child and wo man.

No wonder she ha s difficult y in understanding the flo or

plan of he�r gothic edifice , not to mention her existe nce.

The effo rt to fulfill the two extremes of the male

co ncepts of fem ininity and o f motherhood has made her

sick; she suffer s from an illness called hysteria-- John euphemistical ly calls it "a slight hy sterical tendency"-­

whi ch was co m mon among all clas ses of women and some men

but wh ich especially afflicted middle-class wh ite wom en o f the nineteenth century. This strange malady and its

109 m anifestations which assaulted the inadequacy of medical knowledge in the nineteenth-century a re almost identical to the symptoms depicted in the hysterical woman in "The

Yellow Wallpaper."

Carro ll Smith- Rosenberg o bserv e s that hysteria may be viewed as an alternativ e which some women chose when they could not ac c ept or fulfill the role s soci e ty expect ed of them, and she cites three facto rs w hich inte racted to make hysteria a possibl e option fo r so many women ("Hy ste rical Woman" 65 5}:

first , the various experiences that caused a wo man

to arrive at adulthood with significant ego

weaknesse s; second, certain socialization patterns

and cultural va lues which made hysteria a readily

available alt erna te b e havior pattern for women,

an d th ird , the secondary gains conferre d by the

hy sterical role in terms of enhanced pow er within

the fam il y. (654n5 }

The ideal woman was expected to be "emotional , dependent and gentle--a born followe r ," while the ideal mother was

expected to be "strong, self-reliant , pr otective .•. , effi cient " (Smith- Rosenberg, "H ysterical Woman" 656 }.

In addit :lon, as Smith- Ro senb erg continue s, she was

110 expected to "face severe bodi ly pain, di sease and death-­ and stil l serve as the emotional su pport an d strength of her family" (657). Re ared to be fragile and de pendent in order to ga in her man, she was suddenly exp ected to be the opposite in relation to childbearing and ch ild reari ng. Thes e di chotom ous exp ectations seem enough to send any woman into her bed--al one--or out of her mind in search of some other reality. The hysteric was reacting against her socie ty's cultural conditioning in which women were "ro utinely socialized to fill a weak, dependent and seve r ely limited social role" (Smith-

Rosenberg, "Hyst erical Woman" 6 7 7 ). Discouraged fro m

"expressi ng competi tion or mastery in such 'mascul ine' areas as physical sk i ll, stre ngth an d courage , or in academic or commercial pursuits," th ey were "enco uraged to be coqu ettish, entertaining, non-threatening and nur­ turant" (677). Th eir ange r and frustrat ion spil led ov er into hysterical behavior, a social ly accept able form of reb ell ion. Gilman's narrator was, therefore, as Smith-

Rosenberg not es, "both product and indictment of her cul­ ture" (678).

Primitive childbirth practices of the narrator's culture pos sessed their ow n gothic elem ents, for child-

1 1 1 birth was a my sterious and frighten ing experience for which women were frequently unprepared. Kept ignorant of the facts of their own biolo g y, young women faced the birth of thei r first chi ld in utter igno rance of the procedure. The unknown was frightening enough, b ut sub-

sequent births possibly produced greater fear becau se of th e kn o wn, for primitive ch ildbirth procedure s di d not ge ner a lly include anesthesia nor were there cl as ses in na tural chi ldbirth. S. Weir Mitchell, the prominent ne urologis t ment ioned in "The Yellow Wallpaper," wrote that al though most wo men would experience pain as "a grim pres ence in their lives" (Mitchell, DQ��Q£_�ng_2��i�D�

84), they were not tra ine d to dea l with pain realis tically but "were encouraged to respond to pai n an d stress with tears an d the expectat ion of el aborate sympathY" (Mitchell 92) . Given these expectations, many women sought refuge in hysteria , an illness with varied

symptoms : "nervousne ss, depr ession, the tendency to tears and chr on ic fatigue , or of disabling pain" (Smith­

Rosenberg, 11 H y s t eric a 1 Woman11 6 6 0 ) • Du r ing the first part of the nineteent h century , the most characteristic symptom of hysteria was "the hys terical 'fit,'" whic h produced symptoms similar to an ep ileptic se izure. By

112 the end of the century, "physicians had categorized hys­

terical symptoms which include d virtually every known hum an il l":

They range d from loss of sensation in part , half or

al l of the body, loss of taste, smel l, hearing , or

vision , numbne ss of the skin, inabilit y to swallow ,

nausea, headac h es, pain in the breast , knees, hip,

spine or neck, as well as cont racture or paralysis

of virtually any extremi ty. (Smith-Rosenberg,

"Hysterical Woman" 662)

So me sympto ms were not physical, however . "An hysterical fem ale character gr adually began to emerge " in the medi­

cal literature :

Doctors commonly described hy sterical women as

highly impressionist ic, suggestible , and narcissis­

tic. Highly labile, their moods changed suddenly,

dramatically, and for seem ingly inconsequential

reasons •.•.[Sh e ] was egocentri c in the extreme,

h er invo lv ement with ot hers consistent ly superficial

and tange ntial. While the hys terical woman might

appear to physicians and re lat ive s as quit e sexually

arous ed or at tractive, she was, docto rs caution ed,

ess entially ase xual and not uncommonly frigid.

113 (Smith-Rosenberg "Hysterical Wo man" 662-63)

Fu rther, doctors were not alw a y s sy mpat hetic toward the

hy st eri c al woman. Many were "caust ic, if not punit ive"

towards her because they were baffled by the illness

it se lf and because th ese women "did not funct ion as women

were expected to functio n , and .•. the physician wh o

treated them felt threate ned both as a professional and

as a r e jected male" (Smith-R os enb erg, "Hy steric al Wo man"

663). Ann Douglas Wood reiterates Smi th-Rosenberg' s

assertion as she reports that nineteenth-century physi­

cians tended to view the se ai lments as a means of

shi rking do me sti c dutie s an d to consider those same

duties as their pa tient's cure, instead of the cause, of

her il lness: "Self-sac ri fice and al truism on a sp iritual

lev el and ch ildbearing and housework on a more practi cal one, constitu ted he al thy femininity in the eyes of most

ni neteenth- c entury Americans" (Wood 7-8).

Becaus e they be lieved that hysteria might not be a

real disease, doctor s frequently viewed hyster ia as th e

effec ts of the indolence and leisure preval ent in the

lives of the middle and up pe r classes or the gruel ing

labor and sensuality supposed l y prevalent in the live s of the working cl asses. They fel t th at moth er s sh ould dev el -

11� o p in their daughters self-discipline , dedication to

do me stic duti es, and fir m control of their emotions.

Phys icians and laymen alike equated hysteria with "[e]mo­

tional indul gence , moral weakne ss and lack of will power"

(Smith-Ro senberg, "Hyst erical Woman" 667).

S. Weir Mitchell, whose name is the most notable

amo ng all others in the Gilman canon, was one physician

who nevertheless appears to have been genuine ly sympathet-

ic to the hysteric and to women in general. His re st

cure was in direct contradict ion to the popular local

treat ments of wom en's "nervous" ailments, that of cauter­

i z at ion of the uterus wi th nitrate of silver or perhaps

with leeches placed "on the vulva or neck of the ut erus"

(Wood 4). Sometimes these leeches woul d enter the cer­ vix, and the Engl ish gynocol ogis t Dr . James Henry Be nnet ,

who had a wide follow ing in America, wrote : "I think I

hav e scarcely ever seen more acu te pa in than that expe­ rienced by sev eral of my pat ient s under these

c ircumst ance s" (Bennet 237). Compa red with these

ho rrors, patients would no doubt welcome Mitchel l's cure:

When he sai d "enti re rest," he meant it. For some

six weeks, the patient was removed from her home,

and all owed to see no one except the doctor and a

115 hired nurse. Confined to her bed flat on her back,

she was permitted neither to read, nor, in some

cases even to rise to uri nat e. The massage tre at­

ment which covered the whole body laste d an hour

daily. Be coming pro gressively more vigorous, it was

dest ined to counte ract the debilitating effects of

such a prolonged stay in bed. Meanwhile the patient

was expected to eat steadily, and gain w eight daily.

( Wood 5)

Even Mitchell, ho wev er, de scribed the hys terical woman as repre sentative of

the pest s of many households, who constitute the

despair of physicians, and who fu rnish those

annoying examples of de spotic sel fishness, which

wreck the constitutions of nurse s and devoted re la­

tives, and in unconscious or hal f- conscious self­

indulgence destroy the conf ort of everyone about

them.

266; fs�_sDg_�lg�g 37)

In "The Yello w Wallpaper," John's prescription for his wi fe accurately reflects Mitchell's treatment for hyste­ ria: rest in an isolated place, p lenty of good fo od , no excitement , and no wo rk . Although historians some-

11 6 times te nd to view physicians' harsh med ical procedures in dealing with women's ailments as indicative of male hostility toward women, the re latively unenlight ened state of medical knowledge and the harsh medical proce­ dures used on both men and women must be kept in mind.

During this period wh en so-called "heroic" medicine wa s prac ticed, doctors "'tortured ' men and women indiscrimi­ nately" ( Morantz 47). If physi cians we re p a rticularly hostile toward women--and s ome were --t hey were probably refl ecting th eir so ci ety instead of the medical profes­ sion per se , and these same men migh t have been host ile toward women if they had chosen any ot he r professi on.

One symptom of hyster ia which Gil man 's narr ator experiences well into her illness is ago rap hobia, the fear of open spaces or the ne ed to fe el enc losed and protected by walls. William James likened the agorapho­ bic's conce r n with re mainin g indoors to the "death­ shamming instinct shown by many animals" and likened the agoraphobic's "terror at the sight of any open pl ace or broad street which he has to cross alone" to the way that

"m any wild animals, especi ally ro dents, cling to cover, an d only ve nture on a dash acr oss th e open as a despe rate measure" (2:421-422). Gi llian Brown considers this

117 phenomenon a symptom of the conditi ons surroundi ng

"A merican economic life " (136) in her discussion of

Bartleby's a gorap h obia :

what inhi bits the ago ra p hobe is the commerce that

inhabits American life ••••The agoraphobic re­

course when outside the house to the protection of

interio rs or co m panions or shi elding edific es repre­

sents an effort to retain the stability and security

of the private sphere. (136)

Late in her illne ss after her "slight hysterical tendency" (Gilman 10) has beco me in sanit y, Gil man 's nar­ r ator develo p s agoraphobia. Early in the story she speaks of the "s!�.lj.Q.1.Q.lHl garden" ( 11) and does not like her room (12). As the story progresses, however, she begi ns to enjoy it:

I'm really get ting quite fond o f the big room, al l

b ut that horrid paper (15); I'm get ting reall y fond

of the room in spite of the wall-pape r. Perhaps

..Q�.Q�.Yll� of the wall-paper (19).

At this point in the story the narr ator is still walking

"a little in the ga rden or down that lovely lane" (19), but at the end of the story after she has identified with the w oman behi n d the w a 11pap er, she e xc 1 a i m s :

118 yo u don't get .m� [Gil m a n 's emphas is ] out in the road

there ! It is so pl easant to be out in this

great room a n d cre ep aro und as I please! I don't

want to go outside. I won't, even if Jennie asks me

to. [In this room ] . I cannot lose my way"

( 3 5 ) •

At this point the narra tor is guide d around the ro om by a

mark she ha s ma de on the wall with her shoul der .

Freedom to pro duce her own sel f, her thoughts, in­

stea d of fitting he rself to a circui tous mar k on the wall

might hav e ensured the narrator's san ity. In HQ��n_gng

]:..Q.QnQ�],.Q� . Gilman write s that "[e]conomic product ion is

the natural expression of human ene rgy" and that "the

desire to ma ke , to express the inne r thought in outer

form, 'just for the work's sake' is the

di stinguishing character of human ity. 'I want to mark !'

cries the child , demanding the pencil" (116- 117 ). As

Walter Benn Michaels notes, it is crucial to the narrator of "The Yellow Wal lpapaer" to make her mark , a synonym

for her writing , in order that she establish her

identity :

If the threat of hy steria is the threat of lo sing

se lf-control, of som etimes becoming so meone else,

1 1 9 the point of marking is to produce evidence t h at you

are still the same person. Your ma rk is a continual

reminder that you are you, and the production of

such reminders enfo rces the ident ity it mem ori­

a lizes. From this persp ective , the hysterical woman

embo dies not only the economic primacy of wo rk but

also the connection between th e economic primacy of

work an d the philosoph ica l problem of personal iden­

tity. The econo mic que stion--How do I produce myself?

--and the therapeut ic question--How do I stay myself ?

--find their parallel in th e epi ste mologi c al ques-

t ion , How do I know myse 1 f?--o r more sp eci ficall y,

as Ja mes puts it , Ho w d o I know toda y that "I am the

same self that I was y esterday"? (Michaels 7)

By th e time the narrator has becom e agoraphobic, sh e ha s been denie d he r writing, "the power of language to shap e

[her] vision" (Lidoff 110)--her "marking" as Michaels puts it--that might have ensured the format ion and preservati on of a more normal id entity. Sti ll, she find s a way to make he r ma rk and the reby keep her new ident ity:

"But here I can creep smoothly on the floo r, and my sho ulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way" (Gilm an 35 ). For we eks she has

120 crept along the wall , making her mark, until her shoulder

has fo rmed her ve ry own identifiable line , her signature , on the wa 11, a fact that had caused Jennie some cons ter­ nat ion when she found y el l ow d ye from the paper on the narra tor's clothes earli er in the story. With he r shoul­ der fittin g into her mark, she is consta n tly aware of her ide ntificat ion with or id entity as the wom an who came from behi nd the wallpaper , a bizarre id ent it y, indeed, but one she made her very own as sh e re peatedly made her mark on the wall over the preceding days and weeks.

The narrator's assumpti on of an alternate identity implies an unde rdeve loped sense of ego , or weak ego boundaries, one of th e effects of some wo men's upbringing

even toda y that can add to a woman's difficul ty i n establishing an id entity of her own. Although both se xes m ust separate thems elves from their oneness with their

m others in order to fo rm their o w n separate per s on al i­

t i es, gi rls apparent ly have more difficulty than boy s in effect ing individ ual iza ti on (Veede r 14). Caro l Gilli gan explains the reasons fo r this differen ce :

Girls, in identifying them selves as female, experi­

ence themselves as like their mothers, th us fus ing

the experience of attachment with th e process of

1 21 identity formation .•.. male development entail s a

'mo re emphat ic individuation an d a mo re defens ive

firming of exp erie nced ego boundaries'. For

girls an d women , issu es of fe mininit y or fem inine

id entity do not depend on the ac hievem ent of separa­

tion from the mother or on the progress of individ-

ua tion. (Gill igan 7-8)

Furthermore, Gilligan relates that "girls em erge fro m

this period with a basis fo r 'empathy' built into thei r

primary definition o f self" and that "females tend to

have probl em s with individuation" (Gilligan 8). Girls,

then, like their brothers, must de tach themselves from

the ir mot hers in order to fo rm their own identities, but

un like their brothers, they ca n not detach themselves

compl etely because they must learn the ir femininity from

their mothers. In order to feel empathy rathe r th an

sym pathy fo r someone , a woman must be able to p l ace herse lf mentally in th e othe r person's si tuat ion and to

fee l what the suf fering one must be feel ing, an act ion that often accompanies the nurtur ing instinct. It may be

that women frequentl y possess this quality mo re often

than men do be cause they do have weak er ego bou ndaries

that perm it them to m ove aroun d and merg e, at least

122 mentally, with their fellow human beings. In addition, a wo man's biological makeup can add to he r difficulties in forming a nd main tain ing an identity :

Woman's biosexual experiences (menstruat ion, coi tus,

p regnan cy, childbi rth, lactation ) •.. all involve

some challenges to th e boundary of the body ego.

( Chodorow 59)

Woman 's body is a host to other bodi es. With the ons et of pube rty when a young girl knows t hat he r body is cap able of producing a ch ild, she feels different , set apart from her brothers. In the past this diffe rence was not pleasant , for her activit ies were curtai led and she was taught that she must behave like a little lady.

Being a lad y freque ntly meant standing on the sidelines looking on while her brothers enjoyed li fe. She must cons erve her ene rgies "for the full development of her uterus and ovarie s" (Smith-Rosenber g , "Pube rty" 27 ).

Penetrati on of her body by her husband during coi tus, hosting another body during pregn ancy and then later in a di fferent way during lacta tion, and the helplessne ss to ai d her body du ri ng childbirth all wo rk t oget her to mak e a wom an also feel she has no control ov er her body; at the mercy of others during much of her life, she has no

123 real identit y excep t as som eone 's si ster, someone 's daugh­

ter, someone's wife, som eone's mother--Gilman's "preposi-

tional" re lationshi ps. As No rman N. Hol land observe s,

"[t]he more usual goth ic defin es its heroine's anxieties

as fears of nothing ness, of vulnerability, and, above

all , of sexual penetration" (Ho l l a nd and Sherman 220).

Thi s fre quent ly hidden theme in gothic literature

re flect s the conce rns i n women's lives.

In discussi ng both Gilman's and her heroine's weak

ego bo undaries, Veeder notes that Gilman hersel f "was

extreme ly open to relationships" as a chil d and that she

al so "felt ex tremely vulnerable to disinteg ratio n" (42).

Gilm an 's ow n fathe r was absent fr om the ho me , an d her

mother was strict and undemonstrative in her love for her

daughter. The narrator in "T he Yellow Wal lpaper" undoubt- edly possesses weak ego boundaries also. One evidence is

the unusual affinity she reports fee lin g for the furn i­

ture in her room when she was a child. She also person­

ifies the wallpaper :

I get po sit ively angry with the impe rtin ence of it

an d the everla sti ngness. Up and down and sideways

they craw l, and those absurd , unblinking eyes are

e v e r y w he r e • • • .I n e v e r sa w so m u c h e x p r e s s i o n i n

124 a n inanim ate thing before , and we all know how much

expression they have! (Gilman, TYW, 16)

She then wa nders back in her memory to the "kindly wink

the knobs of our big, old bureau used to have" an d to the

"one chair that alw a ys seemed like a st rong friend . I

us ed to feel that if an y of the ot h er things looked too

fi erce I could alway s ho p into that chair and be safe"

( 1 7) •

One expects a person to re member ho pping into a

parent's lap for safety, but the narrato r identifi es

instead with a chair. It is interesting that the narra­

tor' s parents are virtual ly absent from her story. All

family members are ment ioned except her father: her

brother is a physician , and he r mother accompanies sister

Nelly and he r child ren on only one visi t. This mother

then absent s herself, fo r whatever reasons, fro m her ill

daughte r just as that daughter absents hers elf from her

young son. Femininity and mot hering are learned from the

mother. Studi es ha ve shown that abu sed children bee om e

abus ing parents and that e ven animals must have mothering role models if they are to know how to mother.

Th is is not to say that the narrator has been an abused

child necessaril y, but perhaps sh e was a neglect ed chi ld.

125 Fo r so me reason even as a child she personified and

rel ated to the fu rni ture in he r room ; now as a young mother she is re belling against motherhood and forming a symbiotic relationship with her wallpa per inst e a d of with her ba by. Furthermo r e , her father is pointedly absent fro m the story, and her mother breezes in an d breezes out. These points in the story ironically fulf i 11 the part of Fl e e nor' s f if t h p o int that state s t hat w o men's go thic "reflects a pa triarc hal paradigm that wo men are

mo therless, yet fathered." In this case John an d the narr ato r's physician-brother appear as father fig ures,

and fo r a ll practical purposes there is no mother figure pres ent .

It is, however, impossible to di scu ss the for mation of female identity without dis cussing also the mot her­

da ughter bond in gr eater detail. A girl must identify

with her mot her , yet as st ated earlier, she must separate he rself from her mother enough to form her own identity.

Referring to Chodo row's theories again , Gardi ne r st ates:

To mot her maturely, a wom a n must develop an identity

sufficientl y flexible that she can merge

e mpath ically with he r child and still retain an

adul t sense of he rself as nu rturing yet independent.

126 •••le arning to be a mother •• • [is] learni ng to

experience one self as one's ow n cared-for ch ild and

a s one's own caring mother while simultaneously

learn ing to experi ence one's cre ation as other , as

separate from the self. (356-357)

Ttis di scussion of the impo rta nce of the mother­ dau ghter b ond in the fo rmation of the female personality brings the gothic novel b ac k into fo cus, for the go thic heroine is usual ly mot h erless but is the ward of a wick ed step mother of sorts. Jane Eyre , fo r exampl e, is the ward

of her Aunt Reed, a harsh, un loving woman, and

Radcl iffe's Emily is at the mercy of her aunt and the

wicked Montoni. In the goth i c, as Leona Sherman notes,

"one might find •.• tw o versions of mother: a nurturing mothe r who should be trusted an d a sexual mother who should not" (Holland and Sherman 228). This ambivalent attit ude toward the mother is a direct re sul t of a girl's at tempt to pull aw ay from h e r mother to fo rm her own identity while at the same time emulat ing her to fo rm her femalenes s. Juliann Fle en or writes that "th e conf lict

at the heart of the Female Go thi c [is] the conflict with the all-pow erful, devo uri n g mother":

127 This maternal fig ur e is al so a double , a tw in per­

haps, to the wo m an herself. For the mothe r rep re ­

se nts what the wo man will become if she heeds her

sexual self, if she heeds the self who seek s the

po wer that co m es with acting as the mother, and if

she beco mes pregnant. The ambivalence s surroun ding

the co nflict with th is awe some figure are in part

shap ed by the twofo ld knowledge that to be co me the

mother is to become the passi v e and perhaps

un willing victim of one's own body. .[T]h e

popularity of the Gothic for women writ ers and

readers appears to exist ••. because it expresses

this confrontation with one of the cent ral eni gmas

of fe mal e exis tence , the relationship of mother and

daughter. (lh�-E���1�-�Qtbi� 16)

The love-hate relationshi p between mothers and daughters may be clarified also by analysis of Eugenia C.

DeLamotte's dis cuss ion on the Hidden Woman in the goth ic genre alt ho ugh DeLamotte speaks only of "woman" and not of " mother. " This Hidden Woman can be a "Good Other

Wom a n, longsuffering and angelic , whose imp risonment and/or death was un merited" or she may be an "Evil Other

128 Wo man, who got no m o re than she de ser ved and is now either dead, or so r ry for her sins and about to die. The

revelation of these sins usua lly implicates her as a bad

(selfish) mother, a bad (un duti ful ) daughter, a nd/o r a

bad (sexual ) woman" (5). These two Hidden Wornen may

be view ed as two contrary aspects of every wo man's personality. The Good Othe r Woman, or the Go od Mother, a spects of the personality can be admired, but the Evil

Other Woman, or Bad Mother, aspects indicate sel fishness as opposed to selflessness , attention to self as opposed

to attentio n to others. recognition of her sexual ity and all its im plications instead of the assumptio n of asexuality or frigidity. To face and ac cept the Evil

O the r Woman or Bad Mo ther qualit ies within herself maY

not h a v e b e en p o s si b 1 e f o r m any w om en. Yet , to b e a 1 w a y s

longsuff erin g an d ang elic as is Th ackeray's Amelia, fo r example, meant to be nothing, to have no real identity

or selfhood. Gilman's narrator experiences conflict as

she, like her so ciety , equates formation of self with selfishness an d abdication of se lfhood--alway s concurring

with John's opini ons--with selflessness. As th is study

avers in a later chapter, one aspect o f her be ing also desires an active sexual 1 if e, a need she may interpret

129 a s evil. The gothic novel which po rtrayed evil, sensual women who received their just punishment an d the vindica - tion of the good but misunde rstood woman may have acted as a catharsis fo r thes e women . By reading these books, they could experienc e "evil " vicariously yet return to the safet y of their restricted lives unscathed.

One clue that the gothic served as a c at hars is for both its femal e readers and writers is the difference b et ween men and wo men authors' po rtra yals of marital bliss as a factor in female madness. M a 1 e aut h or s h a v e usually reflec ted their impress ions of the importance of marital bliss fo r women by having their women characters go mad if they are de prived of domestic felicity .

Eurip i d es ' Med ea, Shakespeare 's Ophel ia, Shak e speare and Fletcher's Jailer's Daughter, Dicke ns' Havisham,

Goethe's Gretchen , and Faulkner' s Emily Gri erson are but I a few examples of male writers' concepts of fem ale mad- ness, and in each ins tance, the madness co mes on al l at once as a direct re sult of depr ivat ion or anticipated dep rivation of marital felicity, loss of the desired male principle. Jason threatens to abandon Med ea for a yo unger mistress; Ophelia suf fers the double loss of marital bl iss with Ha mlet and the approval and l oss o f

130 her fa ther; the Ja iler's Daughter, suffering from unre- quited love for Pal amon, commits suic ide; Dic kens' Havi­ sham, rej ected at the altar , becomes a permanent ly im­ mured recluse ; Gretchen , abandoned by Faust , l oses not o nly any hope of marital bliss but loses her brother , kills her infan t, a nd degenerat es into a protective in­ sa nity ; a nd Emily becom es a recluse, murde ress, and mad­ woman, presumably because he r man will no t go to the altar an d intends to leave her. These women created by mal e autho rs go rnad almost in an instant because they are denied marital blis s. Apparently, therefore , men consid- ered marital fel icity nec essary for a wo man's re al happ i­ n e ss; the loss of her man was enough to drive a woman insane inst ant ly.

Characters created by female authors, h owever , have fr equent ly been driven mad by the dullness of dom est ic bliss. They do not fi t com fo rtably into the ir rol e s as calm, r esigned wive s and mothe rs. Specific exam ple s include the narrator in Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper,"

Doris Lessing's protagonist in "To Room 219," Kate

Chopin's heroine in 1 h�- A ��k� DlD� ( if , indeed , s he was mad), and Gloria Steinem's mo ther in "Ruth's Song

(Because She Could No t Sing It). " Contrary to a pater-

131 nal istic society's views, each of these women go es mad gradually, not instantly as male authors portray, a n d their madness is a re sult of th e lack of any real iden­ tity of their own , not because they are denied marital bliss but as a direct re sult of their attainment of it.

Be ing a "mirror image" wh ich merely reflects the male principal's life and vi ews means the sublimat ion of their own se lves. They att empt to cope in the roles assi gned to them , but ult imately one of the basic laws that de­ fi nes a human bei ng, the need to re cognize one's very own selfhood, interfere s, an d they cannot.

Unable to re cognize he r own sel fho od, the go thic heroine employs he r ca stle or room to sy mbolize both he rse lf and her culture, as Fleenor m entions in the se cond point of her defini tion. Further, Leona Sherman reiterates what th is study has illustrated th us far:

"t he prima ry motivating fear in gothic is of nothingness or nonseparation" (220). S he believes that the c astle is important to th e heroine because "in the castle , yo u can hav e the merging and the ot her ness, along with the threat of annihilation. There life exists on the bounda ry"

(220). The narrat or in "T he Yell ow Wallpaper" almost imm ediatel y feels som e sort of affinity for the house to

132 which she is taken. She realizes i t is "a hereditary estate" (Gil man 9), perhaps a metap hor for the patriar­ cha l society in which sh e lives , but she almost revels in its strangeness, perhaps a metapho r fo r her own mind : "I will proudly decl are there is somet hing que er abo ut it"

(9). She want s the house to be eve n mor e queer, haunted even, anot her indi cati on that it may be equated with her mind an d that she does not , at least on one level, wish to live in a normal house or to experience the world in a normal way . Perhaps she is haun ted by he r unf ulfill ed self.

At first the narrator does not like the large up­ stairs nu rsery that John has decreed will be their bed­ room , and she disl ikes even more intensely the ho rrible yellow wallpaper with its curves that "destr oy themselves in unheard of cont radictions" (13). Yet, as this study has illustrated, Victo rian society dictat ed con tradictory behavior fo r its women : passiv e acceptance on the one han d and active nurturing on the ot her. The nurs ery room symbolizes the narrator's infant ile p assivity to her hus­ band 's demands an d her subsequent rever sion to an infan­ tile sta te, and the cu rving contradictory paper symbol ize s the strugg le transpiring within the narrator as she at-

13 3 tempts to reconcile the two Victo rian dictates with each other a nd with her own inner di ctate for some autonomous sp ace in which to think, to write, to re al ize who she is,

to form an identi ty.

The g othic ed ifice, in this ca se the nursery room, can also represent the maternal re lationsh ip to the h e roine since it encloses her as she was fi rst enclosed within her mother , then within her m other's care and in flue nc e. (Undoubtedl y, the abnorm al mother-daughter rel ationship between Mary and Charlotte created tremen­ dous insecurities which were quite probably relegated to

Charl otte ' s subconscious.) Holland's and Sherman' s observation about th e gothic enclosure seems especi ally app li ca ble to Gilman's narrate r:

it [is] a recapitulation of that earl iest stage in

hum an deve lopment, when the boundaries between inner

and out er, me and not-me, are still not sharply

drawn, an d sel f cannot dis t ingu ish itself from the

mother, who is the out side world.

Bec au se ••• [it] presents a mark edly untrustwor­

thy Other that encompa ss es the entire not-me , physi­

cal escape becomes the only way of meeting its

threat s . From this comes the paradigmatic pattern

134 of the gothic: persecu tion fo llowed by fli ght,

flight be ing the outwar d tu rn from thre atened sexual

penetration or in trusion. (220-221}

The heroine in this got hi c space pursues an act ive qu est to discov er the secr et of t he wallpaper and ult im atel y of herself whil e also play ing the pass ive ro le. If she can accep t he r m o ther's sexuality , she ca n al so acc ept her own , fo r she identifie s wi th her mother as fe male . As

Sherman maintains, a wom a n must confront and accept her mo ther's se xuality an d treat it as "her [mother's] se cret":

The mysteries are th e issues of sex and birth and

death an d., too , the ne cessit y of knowledge and

concealment in a tension between known truths and

feelings within an d conventions and lies required

from without. The castle with its family secret is

the embo diment of this, the g othic denial. (231 }

Since the narrator' s mother plays no rol e in this story, it is diffi cult to ascer tain whether the narrato r can ac cept her mother's sexuality. Because she has di fficulty accepting her ow n, however, the reader can surmise that she mi ght not be able to accept any woman's sexuality.

DeLamotte's Good Other Woman and her Evil Ot her

135 Woman a nd Sherman's nurturing mother and sexual mother may be viewed as two aspects of the same person as she attempts to discover her own ide n tity and to resolve the seeming paradox of the dichotomous aspects of her psyche.

Thi s paradox re sults in a dread that Judith Wilt correct ­ ly observes creates the horror and the anger in the go thic (5 ). Whene ver people feel that their lives are out of their contr ol, for whatever reaso n, they be come frighten e d and angry. In a soci ety wher ein a person's destiny is controlled by biology, wherein that person is ke pt ignorant of the facts surrounding that biology wh ile viewing the eff ects of those facts on her mother and other women, t he mystery of life ca n easily assum e horrible face s which produce dread, terror, an d anger.

In ad dition to retarding identity form at ion in the woman, her biologic a l process es can create real fears that can assu me monstrous pro portions. Chi ldbirth, for example, can be traumatic, but de aling with the baby after i t i s born can be even m or e traumatic because child care can easily lead to loss of freedo m and even loss of identi­ ty, loss of s elf. Ac tually, in a sense giving birth can be viewed as losing a part of oneself. To say, there­ fore, t hat the mot her' s life is di fferent after sh e has

136 a baby is an under sta tement. The mother usually does not have an independent life after she has a baby. Espec ial- ly in the nineteenth century, a woman was expected to devote her entire being to her family at the expense of her own identity, a fact that may be at the heart of the popularity of the gothic.

As women wrote an d read gothic no v els, they wrote an d read ab out thei r own deprived and stultifie d lives, their fears and their hurt s. Mary Shelley , fo r example, wrote .fi:.2.E��.ll§!�.i.D during a period of prolific childbeari ng and prolific child death. She was constantly pregnant from the age of sixteen un til she was about twenty-one, and ILost of her babies died. No matter how much she loved Shelley, her life must hav e b een fi lle d with grief and angu ish . Th e fact that she wa s not marri ed (at least when she began wr it ing l !::�.D��.D§! �.i!!) must have ad ded to her pain, fo r he r fa ther disowned her and her soc iety condemned her. Ellen Moers calls rr�n��D=

�.t�.i.D "a birth myth" (92) in which Shel ley " brought birth to fiction not as realism but as Gothic fantasy"

(93). She adds that ".f..r�n.K�.n�.t�.i.D seems to be distinctly a li.Q!!! �n's myt hmaking on the subject of birth precisely because its emphasis is not upon what precedes birth, not

137 upon birth itself, but upon what fo llows birth: the trauma of the afterbirth" (93). Frank enstein aband ons his new born, n ameless monster, di splaying "revuls ion against newborn life , and the drama of guilt, dread, and fl ight sur rounding birth and its consequences" ( 93).

Whil e most mothers do ne t give birth to literal monsters, their babies can se em almost monstro us in their pa ra­ sitic features, in the weight of respo nsibility which the c onscient ious mother feels fo r he r child, and in the gu ilt she bears bec ause these feelings co -e xist with her m othe r- lov e. Frankenste in runs away when he realizes the

en o r m o us c o n s e q u en c e s o f hi s d a b b 1 i n g w i t h c r e at i o n •

Most mothers do not run away , but many want to at some ti m e, and m ost do suffer so me depression after child- birth; so me, in fact , suffe r such debil itating post­ partum depression they never fully recover.

In her discussion o f "T he Yellow Wallpaper,"

Juliann Fleenor stat es that "one of the m ajor themes in the st ory, punishment f o r becoming a mothe r (as well as punishment fo r being fe male), 1 s suppo rted b y the absence of the child" ("Prism " 235 ). There is a childl ike being pre sent , however. The n arrato r is an adult large child crea ted by her society general ly but by her husband

1 38 specificall y. Like Frankenstein, who pl ays at being a god by modelling a "human" being out of charnel house remains and who crea tes a monste r he ca nnot control, Jo hn insists on modelling his wi fe acco rding to his notions of w hat a wi fe should be and c r eate s a being as grotesque as

Frank enste in's monster and as impossible to contro l.

In her discussion of Frankenstein, Elizabeth

MacAndrew observes that his

hold on us is inescapable , mythic, because the con­

sequence s of his deeds are horrible out of al l

pr oportions to his intent in pe rforming th em. It is

j ust so that we lo o k on the possibili ty of evi l in

ourselves, know ing as we do so many mi tigating ci r­

cum stances, convinced as we are that w e are indeed

compassi onate beings" (101 ).

The sam e can be said for John, the guardi an o r his wi fe in "The Yellow Wallpa per." He is no doubt a compassion­ ate per son, but the consequences of his deeds are horrible out of al l propo rtions to his intent in per­ forming them. He , in fact , actual ly bel ieves he is hel pi ng his ward. MacAndr ew's com ment that i n attempting to create a man, Frankenstein has also made a monster of hims el f an d that his new creation is his

139 " do u b 1 e , r e presenting . . . his who 1 e, c om p 1 ex s pi r itu a 1

st ate" (103) is alm ost equally a ppl icable to John. Whe n

his wife becom es mad , her monstrousness reflect s his

own --and their so ciety's--m onstrously ban krupt sp iritual

state .

John faints, in fact , when he is forced to look at

the monster an d re ali zes in one breathtaking epiphany

wh at he has cr eated with his superc ilious and

condescending practitioner's prescriptions. Si nce the

story stops here, the reader does not know how he behaves

later, how he deals with the ineluctable consequences of

his monstrous cr eation resulting from his monstrous

fai lure, or wheth er, indeed, he ever realizes or admits

his culpability. As Fra nke nstein begins to pur sue his

monster to destro y it, he begi ns a "journey of self­

di scoverY" (Ma cAndrew 104) which re ve als to him his own

evil hea r t . John's story, however, could not be com-

pleted because Gilman herself did not kno w ho w it woul d

end. Since "The Yellow Wallpaper" dep icts a vi gnette out of one nineteent h- century marriage, r eaders must

analyze the info rm ation they are given and spe culate

about the ending. Without changes of moment and conse­

quenc e in the minds of both men and women, all marriages

140 ri sk such results emanating fr om the experience of in­ equality. If onl y John can arise to begin a "journey of

self-discovery" t hat will fre e him and his wife. If

on ly his wife can re gain her sanity and live to work productive ly in the wo rld alongside John.

In summary, the go thic conditions Victorian women freque ntly encountered in life made the go thic tradi tion in literature appealing to them both as reade rs and as writers. Inward ly angry and fr ustrat ed with their

society 's view of the ir status as human being s , a view which allowed them a na rrow sphere within that soci ety and Which oft en demanded that they behave as child-wom en, these women often , as has already been stated, deve loped

mysteriou s illnes ses as a means of escaping their onerous dut ies. F re qu ent ly they were dia g nosed as suffering from

hysteria, a st range but real illness that exhibi ted a

pot pourri of physical and emotional sympt oms. The one s ymptom all sha red , however, was th e inability to func- tion effective ly as wives and mothers. Using Fleenor' s five-point de finit ion of women's go thic as a loose frame­

work, this chapter an d the preceding one have discuss e d

"The Yellow Wallp a per" as an example of that genre. Th e following tw o chapters will contin ue the gothic interp re-

141 tation of the story with a stud y of two types of doubling fre quently enc ountered in th e got hie tradition, the dop­ pelgang er and the beloved Other.

111 2 CH APTER V

"THE YELLOW WALL PAP ER " AN D THE GOTHIC :

THE DOUBLE AS EVIL SELF

"Who are XQ� ?" said the Cate rpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a

conversat ion. Alice replied, rather shyly, "I--I

hardly know , Si r, just at present--at least I know

who I .WSlli! when I got up th is morni ng, but I th ink

I must have been changed several ti mes since th en. "

"What do you mean by that ?" said the Caterpil lar,

sternly. "Explain yo urself !"

"I can 't explain .m���lf , I'm afrai d, Sir, "

said Alice , ttb ecause I'm not myself, you see."

---Lewis Carroll

The Vi ctori ans ' smugness at what the y considered thei r uni qu e position a t the zenith of civili zation was shaken by a combination of the announcement in 1858 o f

Darwin's (and Alfre d Wallace's) theo ry of biological evo lut ion and arc haeolog ical ev idenc e that even greater civ il izat ions had existed millenia earlier. The realiza- tion that they were but one among m a ny civilizations, and perhaps not even the most advan ced, in the long evolut ion of man through eons of time coupled with the industrial revolution that w a s propelling people fro m their quiet lives in the c o untry into th e cities' bustle and confusion caused a fe eling of di splacement among many that led to feelir.gs of bewildermen t. Nothing seemed ce rtai n anym ore. Go d and His heaven reced ed and left a v oid in people' s liv e s th at they attempted to fill with monetary ga in and wo rldl y success. Time itself wa s mea­ sured differently. Railroad trav el , fo r example, oft en replaced the slo w pace of the coach, an d the steamship crossed the Atlantic at twice the speed of the w ind­ dri ven ship.

Nineteenth- century Eng lish literature as early as

Byron's �n11��-]�rQ1�211Zrlm�E& , for example, cont ains hints of the existenti al ism th at would be por trayed more graphical ly by others as the century progressed. Tenny­ son's l.!L.M��.Qri�.!!l and Browning's .Q.b.i,J..Q_.B.Ql�.n..QJQ_.t.b�.D.E-r.k

I.Q��r .CE�� are but t wo of several other examples that come imm ediately to mind. In Am erica the trend develo ped somewhat later, but w ell before the middle o f the century con ditions pr evailed that inspi red Poe to write his

144 go thic tales dealing with di vided personalities and a fe w y ears later inspired Me lville to voice his di s satisfac­ tion with Wall Street in hi s portrait of Bart leby who preferred to turn his face to the wal l rather than join th e race for riches .

The doppe l ga nger, a device fr equently emp loyed in go thic literatu re , is one reflec tion of the fra gmentation that people som et imes experienc ed as a result of the i ne vitable conflict s that arose when Vi ctorian attempts to live indust rious new life-styles that made every mom ent count collided with psyches geared to a slower age whe n time had be en measured by nature's revolving seasons. In addition, some people experienced the sense of a lo ss of identity in their attempts to cope with a new knowledge of the world that affected them in much the same way as Copernicus's di s covery of the sun­ centered unive rse affected many peopl e in the seven­ teenth ce ntury .

In p a rticular, women in the middle- and upper-classes sudd enly fouun d themselves saddled with a hitherto un­ known burden because, unlike their sisters in the lower classes who ha d to work outside the home to he lp feed t heir fa milies, these wo men we re expected to develo p and

145 m aintain a gentility and refine ment that excluded res pon- si bilities outside the home , excep t , possibly , engage- m ent in mino r ch ar itable ventures. Their status in the ir soci ety, that of a valuable and nec essary asset to their husbands' business success and to their children' s fut ure prospects , dictat ed that they develop tho se traits which would qual ify them as the An gel in the Ho use that

Virginia Woolf would later realize she must exorcise if she were to become a wri ter. F rom her pede stal the ideal

Victorian wom an ran he r household, her virtue and good­ ness di ffusing a gl ow o f tranquillity upon the home, making it a peaceful haven from the hu stle and bustle o f the out side world for her hu s band. Her brain, ho weve r, inc redib l e and incomprehens ible as it may seem a mere c entury later, was not considered sufficiently complex to ponder, let alone to promulgate, decis i ons on the

1-1 eig ht y is sues surrounding business, p olitics, religion, or any othe r intellectual pursuits of moment.

G il man bel ieved that wo men, lik e men, needed chal­ lenging work and mental stimulation to deve lop those qu alities that made her human. She viewed the tradi tion­ al home as antiquat ed and advoc ated communi ties consisting of kitchenless houses, c o mmunity kitchens,

146 laundries, and baby-gardens. Of the effect on w omen of confineme nt to the home, Gilman w rites in 3b�_]9�� :

She is feminine, m ore than enough, as man is mascu­

line more than enough; but she is not human as he is

human. The hou se-life d oes not br in g out our human­

n e s s , f o r a 11 t h e d i s t i n c t i v e 1 i n e s o f h u m an p ro -

g r e s s 1 i e out si de. (217)

The widespread nervous disorders among our leisure­

class women are mainly traceable to this un c hanging

mould which presses ever more cruelly upon the

growing life . Health and happiness depen d on smooth

fulfilme nt [sic ] of function, and the functional

ab ility of a modern woman can by no means be e xer­

cised in this a n cient coop. (225-226)

Because she is not allowed mental stimulat ion , the narra­ tor in "The Yellow Wall paper" expe rie nc es a di ssoci a­ tion within he r cooped self that re sults in her identi­ fic ati on wi th her "mirrored" double as she perceives her in the complex interlac ed pattern of the wal lpaper.

This chapter will examine the do ppelganger from a psychoanalytical view point and will use Otto Rank's semi­ nal work , �b�_DQYbl�i __ A ����hQ�n�1�t1��1-�t���. to de-

147 fi n e that pheno menon. It will also provide a detailed exam ination of Dos toevsky's 1.h,g _]2.Q.J.!..Ql,g an d Gil man's " The

Ye llow Wallpaper," fo llowed by a curso ry examinat ion of

several works that depict doubl ing by both men and women

autho rs , in an attempt to discov er whether an author's

ge nder influe nces the depiction of the doppelganger.

The discussion of Gi lman's st o r y will continue the original int erpre tat ion that runs throughout this dis-

sertat ion ; in this chapter the wallpa per's pattern is vi ewed as symbolic of the paternalistic male logic that entraps the narrator.

In Fre udian terms doubl ing sometimes happens in real life when the un conscious usurps conscious processes, enabling a person to "see" a part of himself, actually a split t ing off or fragmentation of one of the structur es of the personal ity as a separate being, or fragment.

According to Freud, all such man ifes tations can be traced

ba ck to infan cy when self-lov e or preoc cupation with s elf

predominated. Briefly, Freud divides the personality into three psychological processes: the id, the ego, and the superego , which are often compressed into two ontol og-

ical entities, the ego and the alter ego. The id is that part of the persona lity that "represent s the inner world

148 of subjective experience and has no knowledge of objec­

tive reality" (Hall and Lindzey 33). It "consists of eve rythi ng psychologi c al that is inherited and that is present at birth, incl uding the inst inct s" (33). If the id is allowed full control , a person will behave as an uncivi lized barba rian, satisfyin g instinctual needs at any cost. The ego is "the org anize d portion of the id" (34), the civilizer, so to speak. It mediates between the id and the external environment. The ego ca n be thought of as the conscious mind, while the i d can be thought of as the un conscious mi nd. The ego's "su bordi- nate object ives are to maintain the life of the indivi­ dual and to see that the species is reproduced" (35). It civilizes a person, b ut "i f the ego fails to satisfy the instincts, the j_ d reassert s its power" (43). One wa y or anothe r, the insti ncts will be satisfi ed. The third process is th e superego or what might be termed the co nsc ience. It is "the interna l representative of the t raditional values and ideals of society as in terpr et ed to the ch il d by his parents . . Its main concer n is to decide whether somethin g is right or wrong so th a t it can act in accordance with the mo ral standards authorized by the age nt s o f society" (35).

14 9 Ten sion results when these thr ee processes are not properly bal anced, when the ego opposes the id or the s uperego opposes the ego , fo r example. Let re pressi o n become too severe, and the person al ity may divide and the divi ded p a rt th en may project itsel f on to some "real o r imagined othe r" (Ve rnon 14); for examJ:le, in cases of paranoi a, the superego may split off from the other two processes to assume a life of its own: "Pr ojection re­ duces anxiety by substitut ing a lesser danger fo r a greater one, an d it enabl es the projecting person to express his impulses unde r th e guise of defending himself against his enemies" (Hall and Lindzey 50). The narrator in Gilman's sto ry, therefore, proj ected her identity upon the woman in the wallpaper becaus e that identity, though it result ed in insanity, prese nted a l e sser danger to h e r sens e of self than did living in John ' s world.

The d o uble in literatur e often repre s ent s these confli cts by appearing to the projecting person, and somet im es to ot her characters as we 11, as a mirro r image of the p rotagonist . In his essay "T he Uncanny ," Freud observes th e existence of such affinitie s as a result of s imilar phys ical appea rance :

Thus we have ch aracters who are co nsidered to be

150 identical because they look ali ke. This rel at ion­

ship is accentuated by mental processes leaping from

one of these cha racters to another-- by what we call

telepathy--so that the one poss esses knowledge ,

feelings, an d experience in co mmon with the othe r.

Or it is marked by the fact that the subject id enti­

fies himself with someone el se , or that he is in

doubt as to wh ich his self is, or substitutes the

extraneous self for his own. In ot her words, there

is a doub li n g, dividing, and interchanging of the

self (234).

For in stance, in Poe' s "William Wil son," the double acts

as the first William Wilson's conscien ce , arriving on the

scene at m o ments of extreme need . Wilson is al w ay s

furious with his dou ble' s presence and, finally, in an

at tempt to kill him kills himself. Ac cording to Otto

Rank, the "impulse to rid oneself of the uncanny oppo-

nent in a violen t manner belongs • to the essential

features of the motif" (.I.b�_.Q.Q.YJ21� 16-17). Unfo rtun ate­

ly, killing one p a rt of the self results in the death of

the entire self, as Wi lliam Wilson learns.

Freud's theory is illustrated by Hanns Sach s in

1b�-�r�a��Y�-�n92n§�2�� as he elaborates the idea that

1 5 1 the four brothers in Dostoevsky's Ih�-�rQtb�r�-K���ID��QY illustrate the "fragmentat ion of Dostoevsky's soul"

(Roge rs 3):

All four of th em are Dostoevsky himself. Each is a

par t of his mind. .Every one of th e four is a

p erfect absolute ly complete human being; wit h none

of them [do] we get the impression that he is only

a part or particle of an indi vidu al . Yet

wh ile all th ese figures are complete individuali-

ties as far diffe r ent from each other as hum an

bein gs can be , there is still a myst erious bond

between them; we fe el that they have in spit e of

all diversit ies a hidden identity which becomes

manifest in their common ur ge for parricide. (Sachs

343-44 )

Psychoanalysts who examined the subject "demonstrated that th is use of the doubl e-theme derived not so much from the autho rs' cons cious fondness for describing pre­

te rnatural situ ations ..• or separate parts of their

personalit ies .•. as fr om their unconscious impulse to lend imagery to a universal human problem--th at of the relation of the self to the self" (Tucker, Introduction,

Otto Rank, Ib�-�Q��� � xi v).

152 Whether or not Gilman's use of th e do ppelga nge r in

"The Yellow Wallpaper" was an unconscious impulse or no t is debatable. She di d tell William Dean Ho wells that the story was written "w ith a purpose" (1!.Y.1ns 121), but she averred that the purpose "was to reach Dr. S.

Weir Mitchell, and convince him of the error of his ways"

Another purpose may have been the explorat ion of the phenom enon of the di­ vided self. Though the story rises from Gilman's "so­ cial aw areness" of the situat ion of wo men in her century

(Hedges 46) , it is als o a fictionalized account of some auto biographica l exp eriences. Gilman writ e s that the story "is a descr iption of a ca se of ner vous br eakdow n beginn ing something as mine did, and treated as Dr . S.

Weir Mitchell treated me with what I considered the inevitable re sult, progress ive insanity" (1.i.Y..!.DS 119).

Gi lm a n 's biographer, Mary A. Hill , states that w hi le the sto ry may indicate Gil man's interest in hel ping other imprisone d women, it also "po rtrayed the violent anger that accompanied the fight to free herself, the desperate stru ggl e that ultimately re s ulted in the breaku p of her marri age" (gi� 151-152). In 1D�Qr�_Qf_1it��g�Y£� , Wellek

153 and Warren focus on a writer's doubling as revealing potential aspects of the self:

The novelist's potenti al selves, including those

selves which are viewe d as evil, are all potential

• Do stoevsky's fo ur brothers

Karamazov are all aspects of Dostoevsky. (90)

Lik ewise, the angry wom an in Gilman's story mu st be one fac et of he r own s e lf which she took out an d e xamined, perhaps in an attempt to understand an d dispe l h e r ange r.

Based on the examp le o f J�g-�r��b�r�-��r� ����� '

Ro g ers distinguishes between lg��D� and �gDif��� fragmen- tat ion. Lat ent fragmen tation a s illustrated in this n ovel is im pl ic it, while manifest fra gm entation as illus­

trated in Dost oevsky's no vella 1��-�£��1� is overt , or explicit (4). In I�!!_J2.9JJ...bl!! the protagonist, a clerk named Golyadkin, encounters one Go lyadkin , Jr., his alte r ego who is almost a physical (manifest) "mirror image" of himself but wh o is quit e un like him in action and bearing. In th is same study Rog ers uses the terms "dou­ blin g , sp litting , fragmentation, and decomposit ion" syn­ onymously, as well as the terms do u ble and composite character (4). He also dist inguishes between "doubling by mult iplication and doubl ing by divisi on. " Ih!!_Dr��b�r§

154 ��r���Z2Y exempli fies doubling by div ision,

"the splitting up of a recogn izable unified psycho­

logic al entity into separate, com plem entary, di stin­

gu ishable p a rts represented by seemingl y autonomou s

characters. Illu strat ive of doubling by multiplica­

tion would be the appearance in a story of sev eral

character s, al l of whom are [for examp le] father

figu res representing a single concept of , or atti­

tude toward, the father" (5).

Gilman's "T he Yellow Wallp aper" de monst rates doubling by mul tiplic a tion, for the many women she sees creeping behind the wallpa pe r and out in the open countryside , and the woman beh ind the wallpaper with whom she fin ally identifie s , represent women like herself who are stifled within a patri archa l soc iety. Dostoevsky's lh�-�Q��l& exemplifi e s simple division of the protagonist into one other re cognized by Go lyadkin as himself and named Golyad­ kin, Jr. Late in the story this simple di vision i s compounded by mult itudinous doubl ings which all look like

Go l yadkin. In this re spect they are simil ar to the women behind the wallpaper in G ilman's sto ry.

Otto Rank assesses Go l y adkin as "paranoiac." He be lieves that Do stoevsky "lent many traits of his own

155 personality" to Go lyadkin, and quotes Hoffman as saying that Doestoe vsky "repeatedly termed him his 'c onfes­ sion'" (Rank 47; Ho ffm an 49). Lawrence Kohlberg di sagrees with this assessment on the grounds that a typ ical para­ no id se es himself as an innocent person unjus tly perse­ cuted by others , a person who cannot conceive of an evil double of himself. He argues that Go lyadkin , as w ell as

Dostoevsky's other doubles, app ears to be obsessive­ comp ulsive instead of parano id. Rather than a spl itting of selves (or the facets of the personal ity) , this type of decomp osit ion is "an obsessive balancin g or undoin g of one idea or fo rce wi th its opposite" (345-362). Rogers thi n ks Kohlberg must be th inki ng of the mani fest do uble:

His argum ent that awareness of a double self is not

characte ristic of paranoi a natural ly does not ho ld

for instances of the .lg,J!�.n.t double; in fact , latent

do ubles like Shak espeare's Iago and Melville's

Claggart turn out to be classic paranoi d personali­

ties. Projection, the defense mechanism so ba sic in

paranoia , is only one t y pical characteristic and by

itsel f not a de fining feature ; i.e., projection can

be seen in other syndro mes and even in "no rmal"

psycholo g y. (177n30)

156 A close re adi ng of Ig�-�QYbl� r eveals trait s of paranoia as well as of the obses sive-com pulsive pe rson­ a lity. Since many readers, howev er , may not be famil iar with this no vella , a brie f synopsis of it will introduce or refamil iariz e, a s the case may be, and will illustrate

Golyadkin's disint egration of per sonality so as to clar- ify Do stoevsky's treatment of this device. Later in this cha pter a co mparison of DostoevskY's an d Gil man's handling of in cipient insanity and of the double will provide a deeper insight into Gilman's narr ator an d her relationship wit h her double.

Do stoev sky's Go lya dkin is a clerk on the low er scale who regards hi mself as a ski lled copyist. He is fl aw ed even in the fulfil lment of his re sponsi bi liti es as a cl erk, and he is almost devoid of all social gra ces and skills. Hi s internal agony becomes incr easingl y ev ident as the story progresses. One vi gnette depict ing a visit to hi s doctor captu res in a capsule his soci al ine ptness:

Having neglected to get ready his first sentence,

which was inv ariably a stumbling block for him on

such occasions, he muttered somet hi ng--apparently an

apolog y--a nd, not know ing what to do next, took a

157 chair and sat dow n, but, realizing that he had sat

down without being asked to do so, he w as imme­

diately cons cious of his lapse, and m ad e haste to

effect his offense agai nst etiquette an d good

breeding by promptly get ting up again from the seat

he ha d taken uninvi ted.

Belatedly rec o gni zing his incompetence, he attempts to

rectify thi s lack of social grace:

on sec ond tho ught, dimly perceiving that he had

committe d two stupid blunders at once, he immediate­

l y decided to com mi t a thir d--t hat is, tried to

right himself, muttered something, smiled, blushed,

was overcome with embarrassment, sank into exp res­

sive silence , and finallY sat down fo r good and di d

not get up again.

Then, to protect his ego and apparently to counter any

suspicions the doctor might possess about his sanity, an

indication that Go lyadkin harbors some suspicio ns him­

se lf, he decides to go on the offe nsive and glares at the

d octor d efiantly:

This gl a nce, mo reover, expressed to the full Mr.

Golyadkin' s independence--that i s , to speak plain­

ly, the fact th at Mr. Golya dkin was "al l right,"

158 t hat he was "quite himself, lik e everybody else,"

an d that there was "nothi n g wrong in his upp er

storY." (Do sto evsky 63-64 )

Golyadkin's double, Golyadkin, Jr., appears on the scene aft er Gol yadkin , Sr., has again made a fool of himself, this tim e by crashing a fa mily birthday party g iven for the beautiful Klara Olsufyevna. Aft er bein g fo rcibly evicted, he rushes in humil iation "away hea d­ long, anywhere, into the air, in to freedom , whereve r chance may take hi m" (92). As he flees from his "ene- mies," he fancie s that someone is beside him ; then later he actually sees a stranger whom he kno ws "perfectly

we11" ( 9 7 ) • To his amazem ent , t he man precede s him to his o w n fla t an d is waiting for Go lyadki n when he ar- rives. From this mom ent on hi s mani fest "mi rror image" insinuates himself into every situation Golyadkin encoun­ ters, even finding employment as a clerk in Gol yadkin's d epa rtm en t .

On meeting his man ifest "mirro r image ," Golyadkin is struck wit h horror. Earlier hi s paranoia was evid ent in his statement to the doctor that he has mal ignant enemies who have sworn to ruin" him, an d that he wants the doctor to tell him how to ge t his revenge (68). Later

159 his paranoia re assert s it self as he attempt s to under­ stand the phenom enon of a man wh o is so much like himself that in a sense he is hi mself and yet he is not himself.

"T h ey are simply p lott ing to frighten me , perhaps, and when they see that I don't mind, that I make no prot est, but keep perf ectly quiet and put up with it

meekly, they 'll gi ve it up ••." (100). The reader does not comprehend the ident ity of the "they" that Golyadkin continually mentions but suspect s the prono un re fers to everyone who is not Gol yadkin ; he perceives some sort of o v erbearing power in almost eve ryone in his world.

Giv en his personality, this percept ion of evil in ot hers appears to be a proj ection fro m his own psyche onto mankind. His perceptions that others behave in a mean­ spirited fashion from ulterior motives emanate from his own malicious cha racter whi ch he hides behin d a se rvile demeanor, and he fin ally perceives thi s qu ality in a double who lo oks exact ly like himse lf.

Although Go ly adkin's double is ph ysically his twin, he cond ucts himself in society as Golyadkin wishe s he c 0 u ld . Go lyadkin, Jr., is so successful at work that he is soon giv en special assi gnments an d is admitted to th e inner ci rcl e that Go lyadkin so envies. Readers have

160 di fficulty knowing whether Go lyadkin, Jr., is projected on to a real man or whether he is merely a figment of

Golyadkin's imaginat ion. For example, at one point Gol­ y adkin talks wi th Ant on Antonovitch, his superior, ab out the new cler k's striking r esemblance to himsel f, and

An ton Antonovitch ag ree s that they are similar, but by this point in the story, it is not cl ear that even this conversation actually takes pl ace o utside Go lyadkin's mind or , i f it do es, that Anton Antonovitch is not just humoring Golyadk in (106-107). The narrator is not

Go lyadkin, but frequently he does tell the stor y fr om

Goly a dkin's perspective , alb eit he oft en adds nu anc es that escape Golyadkin but reveal to the re ad er the actual state of affairs in Golyadkin 's external world as well as the conflic t taking place within Gol yadkin's mind.

Sometimes , t hough, he is silent an d allows readers to form their own opinions about the reality of Go 1 y ad k in 's

WO rld.

Another amb iguous incident presents itself in Go l­ yadkin's r eceipt of a letter from Klara Olsu fyevna beg­ gi ng him to e 1 ope with her. As he waits in her yard at the designated time, deliberately planni n g to leave while a party is in pr ogress, he feel s for the letter but finds

1 61 that it is miss ing. Golyadkin is certain that it has

fal len into "evil hands," those of his double who will n ow use it as ev ide nce against him. Suddenly he no tices

that those inside Kl ara's large hous e hav e crowded to the w in dows en masse to gap e at hi m. His d ouble then ru sh es

out and drags him ins ide against his will, "straight up to Olsufy Ivanov itch," Klara's fath er (204).

After Olsufy Ivanovitch re ceives him warmly, the narrator makes the interesting observation that Go lyadkin

feels reconc iled with everyone , even "h is noxious twin

(who seemed now t o be by no means noxious, and not even to be his twin at al l, b ut a person very agreeable in

himself and in no way connected with hi m) ••• " (205).

It seem s possible to hi m now, and to the reader, that

the civil service hired a new clerk coincidentally at the

same time Go lyadkin' s hal lucin at ions began , that Go ly ad­ kin rea red this cle rk was hired to replace him, and that

he projected his double's feature s onto thi s man who is everyt hing Go lyadkin would like to be .

After this brief p e riod of lucidit y, Golyadkin expe­ riences a mom entary loss of cons ciou sne ss and feeli ng

fo llow ed by the two Golyadkins pe rform ing a mirror act ion as th ey attempt to shak e hands, an action that

162 mi g h t have reconciled the two selv e s had it been success­ fu 1. The m i r r or ing ends, however, a s G o 1 y adkin' s par a­ noia r easserts it self:

At this point it ������ [italic s supplied ] to Mr.

Goly adkin senior that his perfi dious friend was

smiling, that he gave a sly, hurried wink to the

crowd of on lo okers, an d that there was so mething

sin is te r in the face of the worthle ss Mr. Go lyadki n

j unior, that he even made a grimace at the mo ment

of his Jud as kiss •••• (207)

The verb "seemed" in the above citation , rather than the simple statement that Golyadkin, Jr., was sm ilin g, pro­ vides one clue that much of the act ion of the story actually transpi res w ithin Go lyadkin's mind , and his inability to reconcile wi th his dou ble indi cate s the final b r eak between his two selve s.

As the Judas kiss is pla nted on his cheek, G olya d­ k in , like Gil man's narrator, experiences multitudinou s doubling: "it seemed to him that an infinite multitude, an unendin g series of precisely sim ilar Gol yadkins were

noisily b ursting in at every door o f the room •••" (207).

At this point Mr. Golyadkin juni or and the physician appear on the sc ene to assist Mr. Go lyadkin senior into a

163 carriage which whisks him away, presumably to a sanitar­ ium , his dou ble running alongs ide the carr iage fo r some distance. The kin dly doctor, possib ly like the kindly

Dr. Weir Mit chell or the kindly John, now appears to

Golya dkin as an emissary of Sata n sent to transport him to he ll : "Our hero shrieked an d clut ched h i s head in his hands. Alas! Fo r a long whil e he had been haun ted by a presentiment of this" (210).

The paranoia manife sting itself in th e minds of

Go lyadkin and of Gil man' s narrator results in simple doubling and for whatever reasons--for protection or destruction--manifest s itself also in multitudinous doub­ ling but not necessarily in th e sa me order in each char­ a ct er. Acco rding to Otto Rank, four motifs are common to al l authors who use the doubling device:

1. The double "pri m arily a ppears to the main char­

acte r as a reflec tion."

2. The double "w orks at cross-purposes with its

pro totype ."

3. "The catastrophe occurs in the relat i onship

with a wo man, predominant ly ending in sui cide

by w ay of deat h intended fo r the irksome per­

secutor ."

164 Jt. The protagonist often suffers fro m the "perse­

cutory delusion ••. thus assumi ng the pi c­

ture of a total parano ic system of delusions."

(l'!.HLD..Q.Y.Q.l� 3 3 )

All these criteria occur in whole or in p art in Dostoev­ sky's novella except that Golyadk in does not attempt to kill his doubl e as, for examp le, Wil liam Wilson or Doria n

Gray do, al though he do es hate Golya dki n, Jr. , en ough to kil l him and except for his pusil lanimous natur e would do so; an d he certainly wishes to exterminate him from his sigh t by escaping fro m hi s pre sence.

Gilman's st ory also do es not meet all thes e crite- ria. Her narrato r's d oubl e is a more diffused "mirror image"; her double 's worki ng at obvious cross-purposes is more subtl e because the narra tor first resists her, then whole-hear tedly joins he r as this siren sucks her in to madness; the ultimate catastro phe does in vo lve the opposi te sex, in th is case, a man, but , cont rary to

Rank's crite ri a, the narrator wants to lib erate rather than kill her double; the narrator does suffer from del usi ons of persecution , and there fore she is pa ra noid.

Much of Gilman's narrator's conflict arises from the

165 s ame so rt of p atriarc hal society which spawns Golyadkin's con flict. There are some pa rallels betwee n the sta­ t us of a cl erk, one of the lo we st orders of publ i c ser- v ants, in nineteenth-century R ussia and that of a middle-class married woman in nin eteenth-century America.

The cle rk had little money with which to be ind ependent, and although the woman may have had some access to her husband's mo ney, she was not independ ent beca use he de­ termined its use and her actions. Golyadkin ultimately loses his sani ty because he is essentially wit hout identity, a nobody who despe rately wants to be­ come a so mebo dy but who lacks the self-con fidence an d the social knowledge and grac e to interact successfully with other peo ple. Consumed by his ego , Golyadkin's super­ ego , like that of Poe's William Wilson, splits off and instructs hi m in the proper behavior necessary to excel.

Gil man's narrator, however, fac es a som ew hat diffe r ent situation. He r con fl ict arises fro m the difference s be- twe en her in nat e se nse of logi c and that of th e patria r­ chal society which shapes both her and her husband 's world view s. She and her husband are di fferent in dispo- sit ion an d perception , yet because she has interna 1 i zed the belief that the male view is the correct one, sh e

1 66 fi nd s it difficult to trust her own impressions. She

laments that "John is practical in the extreme. He has

no patience with faith, an in ten se horror of supersti­

tion , an d he scoff s openly at any talk of things not to

be felt and seen and put down in figures" (Gilma n 9).

In contrast , the narrator intuit s "things not to be felt

and seen and put do wn in figures," and she po ssesses a lively imag ination that w ou ld like to pretend that the

deteriorating mansion which they hav e rented for the

summer is haunt ed. The reader who thril ls at hint s o f m ystery and gothic phenome na can fe el her del ic ious sense of adve nture as she speculates on that possibility.

John is also a pract ica l physici an who bel ie ve s his

wife's "slight hy sterical tendency" can be healed by a r egimen of "ph osph at es or ph osphit es . t onic s, and

journeys, an d ai r, and exercise" and no "work" (10). He tells his wife and friends and relatives that sh e has

onlY a "temporary ne rvous depression," but the pati ent

hers el f bel ieve s she is sick and that "congenial wor k,

with excitement and change , woul d do me good" (10).

So begins a de scent into madness through which the narrator will finally exp erience a doub ling of her person­ ality. The conflict betw een John and his wife an d within

167 the narrat or herself is reflect ed in the following schema:

• She be lieves she is ill, and she be lieves that John

does not bel ieve sh e is ill;

* She disa grees with John about the conditions of her

cure; her view of the world, contrary to her

u p brin ging, is in many respects different from

his ;

• She is ambivale nt about her writing, which can be

viewed as amb ivalence towar d a more independent,

active 1 i f e • 0 n th e on e han d, she be 1 i eve s it i a

good fo r her; on the other hand, she agrees with

Jo hn that it is not;

• She feels guilty because sh e disagr ees with John's

log ic.

The narrator's imp a tience with Jo hn is easi ly u nde rstood.

He seldom agree s with his wife's ana lyses. He laugh s at her when she thinks som ething about the house is queer; he shuts the window and tells her she fee ls a draught w hen she says "there is someth ing st range about the h ouse--I can fee l it" (11}; she hate s their be droo m, but

John has "logica l" reasons why she ca nnot mov e to pre t­ tier ones do wnstai rs; in short, they actually agree on little. She w ants to trust her own intuitions, but she

1 68 h as been condi tioned to trust instead John's learned logic. As she accepts his an alyses an d explanations and always negates her own, she finds herself negating her very self.

Writing might be a me an s of realizing her identity, but she is am b ivalent about her writing, wishing to write but not wishing to disobey John, her physicia n and her husband, or her brother who is also a physicia n : "I di d write for a while in spite of t h em; but it .St.Q�� exhaust me a great deal --having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition" (10).

This confession sugg ests that her exhaustion is re lated more to her guilt at disobey ing John than to the writing itse lf. John is "stern" a n d "reproachful"--and frighte ned. If h e we re not frightened, he would allow his wife to name her il lness, and he cou l d discuss it with her. Inst ead, he inadvertently succeeds in assurin g her that if her condit ion deteriorates, it will be her own fault : sh e will have fancied it so str ongly, she w ill hav e brought it to pass. Now she has so mething else to f eel gui lt y about. Gu ilt, according to Otto Rank , is the "most prominent symptom of the fo rms which the double

takes ••• [it] fo r c es the hero [and we must assume the

1 69 heroine , I suppose] no longer to a c cept responsibility

for certain actions of his ego, but to place it upo n

another ego, a double" (76). Gil man's narrator gradual-

ly places the respons ibi li ty fo r he r independent thinking

upon the woman she perceives in the wallpaper.

Like Golyadkin , Gilman's narrato r som etimes sees the

multitudi nous doubl e. Un like Golyadkin who sees his

doub le early in the stor y, she imagines that she sees mult itu din ous doubles before she fo cuses on her singl e

do uble : "I always fancy I see people walking in those

n um ero us path s and arbors ( 15). Then she grad ual ly

begi ns to di scern a single entity inside the pap er:

Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get

cleare r eve ry day.

It is always the same shape, only ve ry numero us (22).

Som etimes � think there are a great many women

be hind , and som etimes only one ••.. (30)

She final ly identifies the multitude of ey es in the paper

as those of wom en who have di ed try ing to escape : "T hey

get through , and then the pattern strangles them off and

turns them upside down , and make s their ey es white!

( 3 0 ) •

Unlike Go lyadki n who ultimately identifies with the

1 70 multiple doublings he sees as "many Golyadkins," thi s narrator sees many women who she thi nks may have come from the wallpaper, but she ultimately identifies with only one of them :

"I don't like to l,..Q.Q.!_{ out of th e windows eve n--the re

are so mar.y of thos e creep ing women, an d they creep

so fast.

I wonde r if they all came out of that wallpaper as I

did? (35 )

At this point the nar rator has become one with the woman she discerns in the wallpaper.

Also like Go l yadkin, sh e exhibit s many of the clas­ sic symptom s of paranoia . The earliest indicat ion of a mild paranoia is her realization and resentment that John does not think she is real ly ill when it is obvious that they came to the country solely fo r her recuperation.

He r paranoia beco me s mo re ma rked later as she becomes possessi ve about the p a per and suspicious of Jennie's and

John's intentions. She relates that she h a s wat c he d him and "caught him several times l.Q..Q.!_{j�z_�t_!b�-����� 1 an d

Jennie too. I caught Jenny with her hand on it once."

171 She asked Jenny "in a quiet , a very qui et voice, wit h the mo st restrained manner possi ble, what she was doing with the paper." Jenny was so st artle d, "she turned around as if she had been caught stealing, an d looked qui te angry-­ asked me why I should frighten her so" (27)1

Later, when Je nnie is amazed at bow much paper her sister-in -law has pul led off the wall, Jennie lau ghs and says she wouldn 't mind pulling it off hersel f. The nar rator reacts with paranoia : "How she betrayed he rself that time! B ut I am here, and no person touches this paper but me--not �J.i.Y� I" (33). By the very en d of the story, the narrator as submissive wife is no more. S he has rescued the woman fro m behind the wal lpaper and identifies with her fully. She shrieks at Jo hn that she ha s go t t en out at 1 ast " i n spit e o f y o u and J ane " ( 3 6 ) , in di cating that sh e was also responsible fo r her patriarchal imprisonm ent , if, indeed, her name is Jane as some critics, including this on e, believe. Her c o ope ra­ tion is indicated by her vacillation throughout the sto ry toward John's ov erbearing conduct. The part of ber that ha s been con di tioned by he r society and prev ented f ro m maturing want s to c o operate with John in continuing the immat ure behavior that al lows her to be c ared for as a

172 child ; anot her part of he r being, however, demands the opportunity to grow and mature. Som e cr itics have seen thi s en ding as an escape , a kind of vi cto ry over John.

Ac cording to Gil man's philosoph y , howeve r, both John an d hi s wife are losers. Gilm a n believed mankind was capa b le of evo lving into a higher order onl y if the female were al lowed to develop her potential along with the male. Otherwise, wom an's im matur ity and de pendence would hold the race back from its fu ll grow th.

Dostoevsky's Gol yadkin an d Gilman' s narra tor both see their "mirror images," then , but with a difference.

Gilman's narrator is able to identify with the creeping shadow woman because she appears as that submi ssive wife perceives h e rself to be: a creeping shadow figure. W hen she identifies fully with this phantom, she is no l onge r

Jane, a sane wo man struggling to be, to have an identit y, but a non-person wit h no name. Gilma n in many respects has followed the cl assic exampl es of doubling in litera­ ture, but instead of hat ing he r double and attempting to k ill it as male doubles frequently d o , Gilman's narrator eventual ly begi ns to love her doub le and attempts to liberate her as sh e would like to be lib erated hersel f.

When that act is complete, she and her double are one

173 and the sa me in her torm ented min d.

These women st ruggling to free themselves from the bars created by the multitudinous line s that fo rm the pattern of the wallpap er sugges t an interpretation of the wallpaper as symbolic of the nineteenth-century societ y which imprisoned wo men in their ho mes and kept th em fro m developing fu ll self-identity, especially since the pat­ tern's contradiction s and co nfusi ons stimulate th e nar- rator' s ins a nity. Viewed fro m thi s perspec tive , the pattern represents patriarchal logic, a "sprawl ing flam­ bo yant pattern committing every arti stic sin" wh ich spreads fl amboy antl y ove r the fabric o f soc i ety . This logic is em bedded so firmly in people ' s minds that it is

"dull" and therefore uno btr usive but so pr ev alent it seems to be a nat ural law. It is pronounced enough, th ough, to be a constant ir ritant and to "provoke study ," but to no avail. The wallpaper pattern curves lamely, but p ersistently, before com mit ting suicide by plungi ng into "unheard of contradiction s" (13), as much of pater­ nalistic logi c wou ld be seen to do if it could be exam­ ined objectively.

In addition to the curv e s and cont radict ions, the pattern con t ai ns "a recurrent spot where [it] loll s like

174 a broken nec k a nd two bulb ous eyes st are at you upside

dow n. • absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere" (16).

These e yes coverin g the walls (multitudinous doub ling)

watch her constant l y with "much expression" (16). Big

Brother makes sure she does not write, or, at least , he

watches while sh e do e s , r eminiscent of the old Protestant

hymn, "There's An All-Seeing Eye W ate hing You." No doubt these eyes are a product of th e guilt sh e feel s when sh e

di sobeys John by writing or by thinking her o wn subver­

si ve thoughts. As her illness progresses, these e yes, these multitudinous doubling s, be come e mbedded in wom en' s h ead s which are "s trangled off " as the women at tempt to

esc a pe :

"I think that is why it has so many heads.

They get through, and then the pattern strangle s

them off an d turns them upside do wn, and makes

the ir eye s white!

If those head s were covere d or taken off it wo uld

not be hal f so bad. (30)

This pattern of recurring heads and bulbous eyes is "not

arranged on any laws of radiat ion or altern ation, or

r epetition, or symmetry , or anyth ing else that I ever

heard o f" (20 ). The la ws of this pat e rnalistic logic,

175 then, actual ly fo llow no natural laws at all. If looke d

at fr om one p e rspective, "eac h br eadth stands al one, the bl oated curves and flouri shes [denoting pompous circumlo­

cutions and ci rcumstanc e] ••• go waddling up and d ow n in isola ted col umns of fatui ty" (20). Ea ch principle seems to stand alone in isol ation, b ut actually on clo ser inspection 11 t hey connect diagonal ly, and the sprawling out lin es run of f in great sl anting waves of optic hor ror , like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase" (20).

Thu s each prin ciple is proppe d up by another principle in a dia go nal weaving so that the entire l ogi c which at first ap peared straight is no w seen to slant on th e bias.

To make mat ters worse, it also "goes horizontally" an d is capped of f with a "horizontal breadth fo r a f r ieze , and that adds wonderful ly to the confusion" (20). This pa­ t ernalistic "logic" produces a confusing pattern of in­ terming led st rai ght , diago nal, and horizontal "truths" that will later be se en to fo rm bars that imprison a shadowy woman who rep resents half the human race.

Sunlight (or daylight) and moonl ight play con­ trasting ro les in illum in at ing the truths in this sto ry.

The room has many window s an d evide n tly no shade s or cur­ tains, so sunlight , perhaps sugge stive of the male god

176 Apo llo, and moonlight, perhaps symbolic of the f emale go ddess Diana, stream throu gh the room withou t con­ straint. The sun light masks the bars so that all that is visibl e is confusi on to the narrator, the pattern's

"lack of sequence , a defianc e of law, that is a consta nt i rri tant to a normal mind" (25) that rep resents the paternalistic logic the nar rator ca nno t dec ipher. At this point her mind is beginning to show signs of st ress caused by he r efforts to co m p rehen d the "to rturing" pat­ tern of the logic that has been forced upon it:

You think you have mastered it, but just as you g et

well unde rway in following, it tu rns a back-somer­

sault and there yo u are. It slaps you in the face,

knocks you dow n an d tramples upon you. It is like

a bad dream. (25)

This passage subt l y expresses a woman's experience in a man's wo rld. She at tempts to master the rules, once she th ink s sh e has finally deciphered th em, on ly to have th e m turn on her. Only then do es she re alize that the rul es were no t establish ed that ��� might have a life but that her sole contributions to the world would be to prov ide com fort, consol ation , and child ren to its male inhabi­ tants--in short , to prop up the live s of ot hers.

1 77 The da yl ight shows th e p at te r n to be "a florid arabesque," and male logi c is likened to "a fungus ," a grow th which thrives in dark , da nk, unhe althy places, an d to "a toadstool in joints, an intermina ble string of t oadstools, buddin g and sp rou ting in endles s convo lu­ tions" (25). Jointed toadstools a re unnatural, as is the twisted logic the narrator endures. John, how ever, suf- fers no discomfort from the convoluti ons of the patt ern; he remains in the room at night and is unwil ling to allow his w ife to leave. If he sees the horrors she visu- al izes, then the only explanatio n fo r his refusal to allow her to move to anot h er room is sadistic, and the text does not support this conclusion. No , the logic that appalls the narrator seems perfe ct ly natural to

John, as it perhap s has to her in th e past befo re she began to st udy it.

The pa ttern changes, howeve r, as the light changes:

"By moonlight I wouldn't know it was the same paper . At night it becomes bars !" (26). Il lum inated by

Diana's moonlight , the pattern fin ally becomes clear to the narrator: These vertical , diagonal, horizontal prinCip l es that cross and criss-cross to fo rm so-called

"n atural" law s actually fo rm bars to imprison the female

178 members of the rac e. Further, onl y at night is the woma n behind t he bars revealed: "By day light she is subdu ed, quiet. I fancy it is the pattern that ke eps her so still. It is so puzzling . It keeps me quiet by the h our" ( 26). Male logi c serves to keep women quiet either in resigned acceptance of their fate or in at ­ te mpts to decipher the puzzle; female logic reveals to the nar rator the truth about her situation: h ers was "a

1 if e with no be yo ndI " ( G i 1m an, "T o the Young W i fen in

Gi lman, l.!L.I.D..1JL.Q..Y.r_.l!.Q.r.l..Q ; quoted by Scharnhors t 10-1 1 ) .

Rath er th an face that prospect, G il man's na rrator ironi­ cally takes refuge in a new id entity whose o nly "be y ond" i s within her own mind.

While signi ficant diffe rences do exist in the atti ­ tude s of Dosto ev s ky an d Gilman toward the doubles in the two works discussed in this study, t here ar e also rem ark­ able sim ilari ties. Perhaps gender , the r efore, does not a c count fo r the di fferences. A cursory exa min ation of doubling or the manifestat ion of the other self in

Jose ph Conrad's "T he Secret Sharer," Edi th Wharton's "The

Triumph of Night ,n Fl annery O'Connor's "Ev e rything Tha t

Rises Must Conve rge, " an d Virgini a Wo olf's M.r��.ll.Q�a� , for instance, a ppe ars to provide evid e nce that an

17 9 author' s sex is not an important factor in the doppel­ ga nger trea tmen t.

Ther e are, fo r example , unm istakable parallel s between Gilman's narrator and Conrad's po rtrayal of a helpful double in his short story, "T he Secret Sharer."

Like Gilman's unnamed narra tor, Conrad's untried sea captain is neve r given a name, though his double, a fugi ti ve from just ice, is named Leggatt. The young sea captain, like Gilman's narrator , is in a stressful s i tua­ tion at the mom ent his double enter s his li fe. This is his first com mand, and he is an xi ous to p e rform well, but he is aware that the crew watches and judge s ev ery move ment. Ju st as Gilman's narrator's iden tification with an d assumption of her double' s identity gives her courage t o proclaim her iden tity to John, Leggatt infuses this cap tain with the aura of authority ne cessary fo r success­ ful leade rsh ip as he identifies with Legga tt's power of command in oris is. Un like Gi lman's narrator who fi n al ly merge s with her double, the ca pt ain alwa ys realize s that

Leggatt is a separat e be ing, albeit he doe s call him his

"s econd sel f" (382). Neverthe less, he makes an interest­ ing o b servation that causes the re a der to wonder about the realit y of Leggatt's physical presence:

180 an irresis tible doubt of his bo dily existence flit­

ted through my mind. Can it be, I asked myself,

that he is not visible to other eyes than min e? It

was like being haunted.

I think I had come creeping qui etl y as near insani ty

as any man wh o has not actually gone over the bor­

de r. (374)

The same sentime nts are ec hoe d by Gil man in her autobi­ ography as she reports that one phys ician who read her story asked if she had been there and sh e ans wered, "A s far as one can go an d still come ba ck. " Her narrator , of cour se, creeps toward perhaps irredeemable in sanity by the stor y's end. Conrad's sea captain, however , wins the approval of his crew bec ause he is a succ essful captain.

Leggatt 's retreat into the sea to avoid det e ction and there by to save his innermos t self, n ot from death so much a s from the censure of th ose who adhere to the le tter of the law but esche w its spirit , resembles Edna

Pontellier's escape into the sea to save her innerm ost self from being abs orbed by the identity which so ciety has reserved for her. Leggatt does not vi e w himself as a si mple murderer, as th e law of his society does, and he ,

1 8 1 like Edna, refuses to be judged b y it. After all, he had actually given a com mand that save d the ship an d twenty­ four lives dur ing a storm when th e sh ip 's captain had become afraid and " whi mpered" instead of taking charg e

( 370). In the midst of th e c onfusi on Leggatt kil led one who refu sed to acknow ledge his leadership in the crisis.

Leggatt, u nlike Edna who actively seeks death, hope s to reach land and become lost to formal law by being ab­ sorbed into another sea of fo reigners. At best, he will be homeless but not s elfles s . Cho pin's Edna commits suicide rather than lose a self she has just begun to discover, b ut the re is no evidence she is insane ; she, in fac t , ap parently makes a sane choic e to end her life.

Women as well as men write about evil doub les.

Edith Wharton, for exampl e , portrays an evil double in

"T he Triumph of Night." This sto ry has an un usua l twist in that John Lavington, a man described as having an

"intensi vely negative personality" (329), re fuses t o ackno wledge his evil double , h is true s el f, which is made visible to anot her person, the narrato r George

Fa xon. F axon is a decent enough man, a secr etary to the wealthy, who propiti ously b e comes acquainted with the wealt h y nephew, Frank Rainer, and the wealthy uncle.

182 Although Jo hn Lavington professes a great deal of affec ­

tion for Rai ner , F a xon is amazed to view an evil double

of Lavington standing behind that one 's chair and leering

at R a iner wi th unadulter ated hatred, but no one appears

to see this cr eatur e exc ep t Faxon. When asked if he has a double , Lavington den ie s the possibili ty, but the very

tone of his de nial indicates that he i s aware that one

e xi sts: "A h? It 's poss ib le I've a do zen" (33 7). De- nial of exi stence in this case is po sitive assurance that he is fu lly aware of the exis tence of h is double , in this

case an an om alous evil. Un like Conrad's sea ca ptain who a ccepts, welcomes, an d app reciates hi s dou ble, Wharton 's

Lavi ngton at tempts to ignore his out of exi stence and as a res ult succe eds in creating doubts of the double's

existe nce in th e mind of Fa xo n, who has previously suf ­

fe red a mental diso rd er. Finally driven to terror, Faxon

rushes from th e Lavington estate an d leaves Rain er to his

fate. Only later does he re alize that fo r so me myste­

r ious reason he h a d be en selected by some outside force

to save Rainer, but he had fled instead and Rainer died, leaving his estate to his uncle. In this one poss ibly

u n i que ins tan c e o f dou b 1 ing , Lavington , with the ai d o f his evil d o uble , has thwarted the rescue of the narra-

183 tor 's double, Raine r , Lavington's nephew.

Un like the oth er doubles mentioned , Rainer and Faxon are lat ent rather t ha n manifest doubles, an d so are the

doubles in Flanne ry O'Connor's "All That Rises Must

Converge" an d Virgi nia Woolf's Mr�� D�llg��� . O'Con-

no r's protag onist is kno wn only as Julian's mother--o ne of Gilman's preposition a l positions --a white woman in a

South that is ra pidly changing. Her doub le , a black woma n wearing a "h id eous hat" (16) ident ical to hers, is

responsible for an epiphany that causes Jul ian's

mo ther to die almost instantly: she suddenly realizes

that the w orld as she has known it is go ne and that there is no longer a place in it fo r her. She dies because, as

h er merciless son Julian informs her, "Y ou aren 't who you think you are" (22). Woolf' s Mrs. Dallow ay's double is the insane Septimus Warren S m ith. The docto r has told

Septimus's wife that she must make him "take an interest

in things out side himself," fo r there is " n othing what­

ever seriously the matter with him" except that he is "a little out of sorts" (31); indeed, Septimus's wife ex­ plains to her m ot her that he "has been wo rking too hard"

(33). When Mrs. Warren Smith consults the spec ialist,

Dr. William Bradshaw, she is told, however, how very ill

184 her husband really is, and the cure he must t ak e is very similar to Dr. s. Weir Mitchell's rest cure:

re st in bed; re st in soli tude ; sil ence and rest ;

rest without friends, without b ooks, without mes­

s a ges ; six months ' rest; until a man who went in

weighing seven stone six comes out weighing twelve.

( 1 5 0 )

The doctor orders Warren Smith to "lie in bed in a be autiful house in the country" (146) an d to try to

"think as li ttle about yo ursel f as po ssible" (149); and

later both doctors "sai d e xcitemen t was the worst thing for him" (212). Clarissa Dalloway wit h her "affinities

. with people she ha d never spoken to" (23 1) feels an

affinity with Septimus Warren Smith in his death and in his loathing and dread of the physician Sir William

Bradsh aw. She dislike s Dr. Brad shaw , just as Septimus

Warren Smith dislike s him and fo r much the same reasons.

Clarissa identifies with Septimus Warren Smith as she imagines him going to Bradshaw fo r treatment:

A gr eat d o c t or ye t to he r obscurely evil, without

sex or lust , e xtre mel y po li te to women, b ut c a pable

of some indescribable out rage--forcing your soul ,

t hat w a s i t-- i f t hi s young m a n had gone to h i m , an d

185 Sir William had impressed him, like that, with his

power, might he not then have said (indeed she felt

i t no w ) , L i f e is m ad e in t o 1 e r a b 1 e ; t hey m ak e 1 i f e

intolerable, men like that? (281)

As she cont emplates the man 's death, she ide nti fi es fur­

ther with him, first feeling empathy as she imagi ne s how death ca me to him and bo w be met it (280 ), then thinkin g

that so mehow "it w as her disaster--her disgrace"(282).

But , sh e f e e 1 s no pi t y f o r hi m b e c au s e now be is f r e e

from fear as she is not: "She felt som ehow very like

h im. She felt glad that he bad done it; thrown it

away. • • • He made her feel the beauty ; made her f eel

the fu n" (283-284).

Woolf's Dr. Bradshaw sounds very much like Gilman's

Dr. Mitchell in his personal charact eristics, and his

admoni tions to Sept imus Warren Smith are similar to

Mitchell's admonitions to Gilman and to Gil man's narra­

tor's experience wi th her husband Jo hn who was obviously

following Mitchell's cure. Since Virginia Woolf suffered sev eral breakdowns herself and at one time was trea ted

by a physic ian who employed that now infamous cure , she,

like Gilman, wrote about it from p e rsonal experience.

T be dop p e 1 g a nger a s t he m i r ro r i m age o f t he o t her

186 self, frequently the evil self or that self that society cann o t accept, is a useful vehicle fo r de picting in literature the dark got hic side of li fe . Confli cts that cannot be res olved can be projected onto som e other real or imagined person , an d sometimes the psyche is able to come to terms with this other part of it sel f and can int egrate the t w o as in Conrad 's "The Secret Sharer" or

Vi rgi nia Woolf's Mr�D�112M��· for example. More of ten, howev er, the person i nvolved eit her em braces the double or attempts to de stroy it and i n the process loses the former identity in insanity or death. Both Dostoev sky's and Gil man's stories illustrate the de stru ctive elements of the do uble as their protagonists retreat into madness.

Sometimes a d o uble is de pict ed as a vicious othe r sel f wh o is dangerous to other people, as Edith Wharton por­ t ray s in her aptly named story, "The Triumph of Night."

In a still diffe rent depi ction of this occurrence, reco g­ nition of her double and all that the recognition im­ plies results in death for Julian's mother in Flan nery

O'C onnor 's, "All That Rises Mus t Conver ge ." The variou s treatments of the double i n these exam ple s indi cate that gender is not neces saril y an influence in the depic­ tion of the doppelganger in lite rature. Apparently, the

187 di fference s occur fro m autho r to author reg ardl ess of sex. It is intere sting, however, that of the works men­ tion ed, only Gilman and O'C onnor depict female do ubles, and G ilman's treatment of a manifest double is di sti nct ly femal e. This observati on suggests that th e subjec t of th e female do ppe lganger may be a promising area for further research .

188 CH APT ER VI

"THE YELLOW WALL PAPER" AN D THE GOTHIC :

THE DOUBLE AS LOVER/DESTROYER

Fi f teen years form a face, gentleness ebbs wi th expe rience, and he was always aware of his own responsi­ b ility. He had l ed the way: the experience that had com e to her was the experience select ed by himself. He had formed he r face. ---Graham Greene

To attem pt to analyze doubling in liter ature, male or female doubl ing, mirror images or role reversa ls, is to enter a com plex psycho logi cal arena. As Albe rt J.

Gue rard has not ed , the te rm "is emba rrassingly vague , as used in lit erary criticism." The doubling in "The Ye llow

Wallpa per " conforms to Guer ard's de scription. In addi­ tion to the doppelgang e r motif, another type of doubling, the search for the bel oved Oth er, is also present.

Aristophanes explains the concept as t wo incomplete people seeking their comple ment in Plato 's S��PQ��y� , and, to co mplicate matters fu rther, Ovid's sto ry of

Narci ssus and Ech o exe mplifie s th e tendency of som e to be

189 drawn to their own mirror image s as their Othe r or , a s the epi graph to this chapter suggests, to att empt to form the mate into a suitable image. In this ch apter the marriage of the couple in Gilman's story will be e x­ amined in a n attempt to analyze the failure of the rela­ tionship bet ween t he married couple in "The Yellow Wall­ paper" as the product of two immature people who have not successfully completed the Oedipus or Electra phase of ado le scene e. Unabl e to ch oose a co mple m enta ry mate, as Ari stop hanes sugg ests, they choose their mates for na rcissistic purposes that de stro y them.

Aristophanes defines love as a joining of tw o ha lves to form a whole ent ity. He relates the story that pe op le were originally an drogynous , possess ing four arms, fou r legs, two head s, and so forth, until Zeus in anger split ea ch person in to two s epa ra te ent ities which became man and woman. Because of this splitting asunde r, each of the tw o halves seeks its Other to reunite into wholeness:

• a ncien t is the desire of one ano ther which is

impl anted in us, reuniting our orig inal nature,

s e e k i n g to m ak e one of t w o, a n d t o h e a 1 t he s t at e o f

m an. Each of us when separated having one sid e

190 on ly , like a flat fish, is but the tally-hal f of a

man, and he is always looking for his other ha lf.

( 127)

Thus Aristophanes expla ins the phenomenon of love be­ tween man an d his ot h er half, an d, by ext ension, love b et ween a wo man and her other half (or love between any two hum ans).

Jun g clarifies Aristophanes' concept that each per son is but a half being see king the ot he r half with his th eory of the male anima and the female ani mus, the programmed primo rdial images of the opposite sex which have deve loped through eons of hi story and are stored in the collectiv e unconscious; on the co nscious level a man and woman do not necessarily understand the reasons for their sexual attraction to each other. What some c o nsider "chemistry," a c cording to J ung , is merely in­ stinct generated by distant an cesto rs. Whenever a man a nd a woman can receive the pro j ec tions of eac h other's souls, they have the capacity to become "one" :

No m an is so entirely ma scu lin e that he has nothing

fe minine in him. The fact is, rat her, that very

masculine men have--carefully guard ed and hidden--a

very soft emotional life , often incorrectly de-

191 scribed as "feminine." A man counts it a virtu e to

repress his fe min ine trai ts as much as poss ible,

just as a woman, at least until rece ntl y , consi dered

it un be co ming to b e "mann ish ." The repression of

f e m in ine t r a i t s an d i n c 1 i n a t i o n s n a t u r a 11y c au s e s

these contrasexual demands to accumulate in the

unconscious. No less natura lly, the image of woman

(the soul-im ag e) becom es a receptacle for the de­

mands, which is why a man , in his love ch oic e, is

strongly tempted to win the w oman who best cor re­

sponds to his own unconscious femininity--a woman,

in short , who can unhesitatingly re ce ive the projec­

tion of his soul. (189)

So metimes, ho wever, peopl e seek their own mi rror images instead of the ir ot her half as their mate. Like Narcis­ sus, they long to se e their own reflection in the beloved in stead of their beloved's face .

According to Ovid, Narci ssus is a beaut iful youn g man who has spurned al l pote ntial lovers, inc luding Echo, a be autiful n y mph who languishes in her lov e fo r him.

Echo, who h as lost he r spee ch because she kept Juno from di scovering Jove's sexual infidelity with her chatter, can only repeat the last syllables of Narcissus' speech.

192 She does have a bo dy, however, so she throws her arm s

around Narcissus' n eck only to be re jected. After run­

ning away, Echo's body shriv els, and after some time only

her vo ice remains. Final ly, one spurned lov er in

exasperation prays that Narcissus will be brought to lo ve

hims elf, and Nemesis hears t he prayer and brings it to

pass. Thus , on one fatal day Narc issus fal ls in love

with his refl e ction in the water and from that day longs

for that which he cannot have , a longing which eventual ly

causes his death. A later variation of Ovid's legend

re lat ed by P au san ias (]�§..Q.rj.�!1.21L..Qf Jl.r..e�..Q� VIII. 9.31 .60,

quoted b y Rank in I.b..e_ .D..QJ!...Q.l� 68) reveal s that Narci ssus

is griev ing because of his twin sister's death wh e n he

sees his own reflection in the water. Because of his

res emblance to hi s beloved sister, his g r ief is som ewhat

assuaged , but l ove of sel f leads to death in this

instance also. While Narcissus' followers pursue their

own psychic duplication, however, the Aristo phanean half­

bei ng seeks the Other.

Love can be fulfilling or destructive, depending

upon the circumstances involved. Sometimes, as in Poe's

I.b�_ fs.ll_ ..Q!_ .t.b�_ H.Q.Y.§�_ ..Q!_!.l.§.b�.r , for example , the search

fo r the beloved Other leads to fi xation on a mirro r

193 image of the self, in thi s case a twin sister.

Roderick and Mad eline in their narcissistic longing for the unattainabl e self eventual ly and predictably destroy each other; somewhat similarly, John's attempts to create his own narcissisti c d o uble appare ntly con- tribut es to his Wife's de struction in Gilman's "T he

Ye llow Wallpaper . "

The sexual developm ent of both John and his wife appears to have been arrested at a fa irly early age.

As Freud explains the Oedipus complex, the mother is the first love object for b oth sexe s, and as the little boy grows up, he views his father as his rival for his mother's affections. The little girl, ho wever , trans fers her infantile sexual wishes from her mother to he r fa ther and views he r mot her as her rival for her father's atten- tions. As the children mature, these normal desi res are repressed and trans ferred to other more acceptable ob­ jects during adolescen ce. The m al e ch ild must be come re conciled wi th his father and the fem ale with her mother, a n d both must repress and ult imatel y r elinquish their sexual desires fo r their parents. Children who do not successfully ac complish this sep a ration grow up to be neurotic (Mu llahy 2 3-50). While Freud an d Jung

194 dis a greed mo re than t h ey agr eed, Jung does state his

belief that "children can have 'incestuous' tendencies

in the extended sens e used by F reud." {Jun g �Qn�rl��tlgn�

119-124). Especially significant fo r the purposes of this

st udy is his comment that the "fundamental basis of

incestuous de sire is the thought or impulse of becoming

a chi ld again, or turning back to the parent s' protection

•••" {Mullahy 154, par aphrasing Jun g .I.b�_.f.§.I..Q.b2.1.2S.L..Q.f tb�-�D..Q.QD�..Qj.Q�� 446 ) . Sib lings who are narcissistical­

ly inclined may confuse the trans fer and may fix the ir

af fections on a brot her or a sist er , an attraction that

is easily confounded as the narciss istic love of one's

self, the search fo r one' s Ot her , or a bal ancing of the anim a and an imus. Even then, however, the real object

is the pare nt. Otto Rank poin ts out that the actual occurrence of "bro ther-sister incest is a substit u t e for

child-parent incest--what the brot her seek s in his sister

is his mother" <��.§-�D�§.§�=�Q�jx_ln _]!..Qb���S-�D9-��� '

quoted by Irwin 43), a theory with which Freud concurs

{Mullahy 27).

Western liter atur e contains many exampl e s of ov ert an d latent narcissistic ince stuous loves. Poe' s "T h e

Fall of the Ho use of Usher" is but one example. The

195 tragedy of the Usher family is th at the "entire family

lay in the direct line of descent." Because of fa mi lial

interrelationships there is a de fi ciency "of col lateral

issue" (Poe 115). This situa tion bas apparently existed

for ge ner ations, and as the st ory open s Roderic k Usher

and his twin sister Madeline are the last survivors of

t heir fa mily. TheY bear a "st riking si militude" in ap­

pearan ce, and "s ym pathies of a scar ce ly i ntelligibl e

nature bad alw ays existed between them" ( 125). T here is no ne ed fo r Roderi ck to at tempt to fo rm Madeline's face

in to his own mold, for a multitude of preceding ge ne ra­

tions has already for med both male and female into the

same lik e ness. Wheth e r their in cestuous de si res are

latent or act ive is beside the point fo r the purpose s of

this study. Cri tics are in gene r al agreement that the

basis of their illness es is a genetic weakness caused b y inbreeding compounded b y gui lt be cause of their own

incest uous and narcissisti c desires. Madeline can be

viewed as Ro de rick' s alter ego , the opposite side of his

personality or his second self. William Bysshe Stein

writes that she symbolizes "the emot ional or ins tinct ive

side of h er brother's pers o nality whi ch h a s stagnated under the domination of the intel lect. " He further ob-

196 serves that repressed feelings eventually r evolt , an d

"the outraged unconscious sw allows up all conscious au­ thority, and Roderick is rendered com p letely insane, " while Madeline, symbolizing the instincts, "escapes her death- i n -life confinement. ( 9 7). Giv en this interpretation, Roderick has attempted to fo rm Made line, fo r he has not allow ed her own unique qu alities to flourish.

Poe's tale and Gilm an's story p a rallel in several respects. At le ast one critic, in fa ct , has called

Gilman' s story "The Fall of the House of Usher" told from

Madeline's point of view (Scharnhor st 17). John and the narra to r's union is also an example of doubling alth ough it is not imm ediately re cognizable as ince stuous. Al­ tho ugh Joh n an d his wife are no t brother and sister as are the Ushers, they in effect were attracted to a sib­ ling's like n e ss which th e y saw in each other. John is very like hi s wife' s brother, anoth er physician "also of high standing" (Gilman 10), and he beha ves lik e a father figure to her. As William Veeder in his Freudian reading of the sto ry in terpret s the i n terrelat i onships, the narrat or would be attracted to both brother and husband "as fath er sur rog ates" eve n as she felt

197 "'hatred' for their overbearing fo rce" (954). A telling

remark is he r description of the wallpaper which "is to rn off in spots, and it sticketh closer than a brother--th ey

[the children who she ima gi nes lived there once] must have had perseverance as well as hat red" (Gilma n 17).

Another indication that the narrator perce ives her b r other and her husband as a uthority figures lies in her attit ude a b out the threat to send her to We ir Mitchell

fo r a cure if her heal th d oes not improve soon. She repo rts in her diary: "But I don't want to go there at

al l. I had a fri end who was in his hands once, and she say s he is just like John and my brot her, only mo re so!"

(19). This p a ssage reveals not onl y the narrator's re­ alization of m ale autho rity over her, but it also re­ ve al s her aversion to th at authority.

Akin to the bond bet ween the narrato r and her broth­ er is the str ong bond between John and his sist er Jen- n ie. She is hous ekeeper at this estate and will be responsible for preparing their redeco rated townhouse f o r t he fam i 1 y' s ret u r n. As Vee de r f u rt h e r o b s e r v e s this relationship , he notices that Jennie reflects

John' s vi ews just as a model wife would have : "Like

John, 'she thinks it is the writing' that makes the

198 heroine 'sick' (8); like John, 'Jennie too' comes to focus on the wallpaper (13)" (55 ).

Although th e narrator loves Jennie, she also resents

her ; poss ibly she unconsc iously recognizes Jen n ie as

John' s narcissistic other self. She ge n erously, but probably condescendingly, observe s that Jenni e "i s a perfect and enthusiastic houseke eper, and hopes for no b etter profession" (Gilman 17-18). As Veeder furt her obs erves , she perhaps means that Jennie's imagination c ann o t en vi s i on a b e t t e r r o 1 e t ha n t hat o f h o us eke e per , but "her wording allows for [another] possibility":

[Perhaps] Jennie can indeed 1 m�g!n� a better profes­

si on but has no .h.Q.P� fo r it. Does Jennie hope ••.

for the sexual as well as the domestic respon­

sibiliti es of surrogate wife to John? Such hop e s

are interdicted b y the incest t aboo, but imaginings

are free. (56)

Although some cr itic s have ass umed that the name

Jane which the narrator shri eks at the en d of the story is the Christia n name of Jenni e, John's sister, (and they frequent ly ref er to his siste r as Jenni e/Jane) other cr itics feel that Jane is the narrator's name, never mentioned unt il she sere ams, "1 've got out at 1 ast

199 i n spite o f you an d Janel" (Gil man 36). C onrad Shumach er,

fo r example, obs e rves that Jane is the narrator , "the

wife she onc e was" (597) ; Elaine Hedges spe culate s that

Jane may be the narrato r's "self as defined by marriage and society" (63); and Catherin e Golden notes that "the narrator elects to re m ai n nameless unt il the very end of

the story, where she hints that her name may be Jane"

(195). If John's wife is named Jane , then the fa ct that

h is sister is na med Jennie is further indication that

do ubling is intended sin c e the name Jennie is the diminu­

tiv e form of the name Jane. Also, if the na rrator's name

is Jane , then her sch izophrenic character is even more easily ascertained as she abandon s her Jane self to

assum e a nam eless identity. In this chapter the name

Jane will be used to refer to the narrator.

The siblings involv ed, then, are John the husband, his si ster Jenny who runs th e hou se, his wife Jane who

suffers postpartum depression an d as a result is permit ­

ted little latitude in her regimen of resting and eating,

and Jane 's unnamed brothe r who is also a physician like

her husband. Indeed, the main point of the st ory is the

ment al con flict wh ich John and Jane experience as each

at tempts to sh ape the other into a predete rmined image.

200 Jan e's molding of John consists si mply o f passive ac cep­ tance of his aut hority even as she accepts her brother's authority. Her ac quiescence allows John to become more and more demanding and domi n eering. Thus, only to this extent is she instrumental in shapi ng him. John, ho w­ ev er, as th is st udy re veals, cons istent l y bul lies his wife and forbids her the freedom she nee ds to devel o p her own unique qualities that would have contributed a h ea lthy bal ance to the marriage . As a result, Jan e, like

Poe 's Madeli ne, seeks e scape fro m her confi nement.

Bo th John's and his wife's mar ita l and sexua l diffi culties apparent ly arise from their fai lure to traverse successfully the Oedipal phase in th eir adolescence . Each suffers fr om ar re sted se xual development in that neit her expresses any obvious sexua l fulfil lment ; the child in each of them has felt attraction for the parent of the opposite sex and has transferre d that affection to a substit ut e brother or sister for whom the husband or wife proves in turn an unsat isfa ctory surro gate.

The text implies that both John and J a ne have d ifficu lty accepting their sexual roles. Joh n is quite serio us in his role as Jan e 's f ather-brother sur rogate

201 a nd grasps every opportunity to form Jane into the narci ssistic reflecti on which he actually desi res; Jane appears to accept John's authority , but she rebels inter­ nal ly and instinctively as she res ists her husband's desire to mold her to his liking. As Berman obs erves, he r weak ego boundaries do not permit her to re sist the narcissistic tendency of her hu sband and to matur e into an adult:

From the psychoanalyt ic point of view of object

relations, the narrato r cannot separat e her identity

from th e ba by's: She is bo th the hysterical mo th er

search ing for freedom an d the ins atiable chil d de­

mandin g attention. The angry chil d within the adult

seem s r e sponsible for the mot her's illness. (56)

This observat ion calls to mind Jung's hypothesis cited

ear1 i e r that in his v i e w i n c est u o us d e s ire s have the i r b asis in the adult 's desire to become a child again in order to be once mo re under the protection of the parent.

The child in Jane wants h e r fa ther 's pro tection ; the adult wants to be independent. The text ind icate s this dichotomy throughout. Berman correctl y observes that the

story's movement suggests Jane's attempts to avoid a

sexual relationship with her hu sband who repeatedly at-

202 t empt s to coerce her into conforming to his own idea of co rrect femal e behavio r:

The movement of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is suggestive

o f the wife's effo rts to avoid se xu al defilement ,

beginning with her abo rtive attempt to sleep in the

room down stairs, with its single bed, an d en ding

with the outrag ed hus band's cry f or a n ax to break

into the room where she has barricaded herself.

(56)

Yet, the re are also in di cations that one part of he r own self desires a physical and sexual re lationship . Fo r example, Jane lame nts, "It does weigh on me so not to d o my duty in any way ! I had meant to be such a help to

John , such a real rest an d co mfort, and here I am a compa rative burden already!" (14). Significant ly, Jane als o d o es not like their upst airs bedroom, which she perhaps interprets as a deprivation of the "l ower" in- stincts; one reason she wants the dow nstairs room to whi ch Berman refers is its beauty in con trast to the u g 1 i n e s s of the r o om she is gi v en : " I want e d o n e dow n - st airs that opene d on the p iazza and had roses all ov er the window, and such pretty ol d -fash ioned ch intz hanging s!" (Gi lman 12). Perhaps she also want s to leave

203 the nursery for an adul t bedroom; however, as Berman notes, that downstairs room to whi c h she refers has room fo r only one bed, obviously a single one since they are sl eeping in one bed in the nursery, and John 's osten- sible objection to the room is that "there was only one windo w and not room for two beds , and no ne ar room fo r him if he too k an other" (12). At this point in the marriage , however, he r need to flee John's oppression is no doubt para mount.

Instead , John has ch osen an upstairs room for her,

"a bi g, airy room ••. with windows that look all ways

(12). The windows have bars instead of roses, though, and the horrible ye l l ow wal lpaper and "rings and things in the walls" (12) instead of chintz. S he obviou sly re sents John's choice and, therefore, hi s authoritarian and domineering, all-know ing attitude, her resentment building as she an alys es the wallpaper whi ch symbolizes inartisti c f laws in the male constitution:

I never sa w a wors e p a per in my life. One of those

sprawling flambo yant patterns com mitting every ar-

tistic sin ..••Th e color is re pellant , a

smou ldering, uncle an yellow • • ( 1 3 )

204 The color yellow pervades Jane's world. Not only is the wa llpape r y ellow, but she also co mplains of a strange

"yell ow sm el l" which "creeps all over the house" (28), permeat e s her hair , an d even invade s her space at ni ght.

The co lor yel low has alway s ca rried both posi tive an d ne gat ive connotations. Constance A. Pedoto observes that in Rosetti's Ib�-�1��§�£-��mQ��l. "the madonna is a blue­ e y ed blonde with tre sses falli ng do wn he r back, 'yello w

1 ike ripe co r n,'" and proceeds to draw the question a b 1 e conclusion that the color implies that "the young virgin may be quite fertil e and worldly matured" ( 4). It seems more likely that the madonn a's yellow hair signifie s her purity since the blond woman in li terature is usually th e social ly acceptable "pure" one as opposed to the brunet te wo man who usua 11 y s y mbolizes unacce ptable, earthy sexu- ality. Hawthorne in Ib�- M��bl�-f��n and In� �ll�D�= g�l�_.BQm�.n.Q�, fo r exampl e, creates such blonde and bru­ nette opposites, as does Melville in £��rr�. Pedoto does, however, make several valuable observations about the negat i ve connotations of the col or yellow.

Fo llowing her observations abo ut George Ferguson 's study in iconog raphy, < �i£D�-�.n�-��m�91§_!�-�hri�!i�.n_A��

205 153), she concludes that this color was used in

Rena is sane e paintings to suggest "infernal light, de gra­ dation, jealousy, treason, and deceit." Judas Iscar iot, for example, is often shown "in a rob e of di rty ye llow.

Furt he rmo re , he retics wo re y ello w a nd, du r ing the Middle

Ages, contaminated members of soc iety (and zones of plague contagion) were mar ked by yel low crosses"

(Ferguson 153; Pedoto 4). The color y ellow as re presen ­ tative of heretics, plague victims, and perhaps the most famous traitor in history is appro pri a te fo r Gil man' s

"old foul, bad ye llow things" (28 ). The re may even b e an indi ca tion here that a traitor is at wor k in her world.

If s o , the o b vious trai tor may be not only John but society itsel f which betra y s its female members in it s traditional denial of equa lity.

Critics have interpreted the "yellow smell" 1in Gil­ man's story in various ways other than th ose sugge sted above. William Ve eder interpret s it as "urine" and "t he saturated diaper of childhood" (48); Mary Jacobus views it as the "smell of decay" (24 2), as the smell of femal e genitalia which in a mult itude of mal e con texts

"becomes identified with the sm ell o f sexuality itself"

(243), an d as "t he smell of male hysteria emanating from

206 her husband--that is, fear of femininity as the body of

the mother ••. which si mult aneously threatens the boy

wi th a return to the powerlessness of infancy and wit h anxiety about the ca stration she embodies" (244); J effrey

Be rman observe s that the sm el l's "mysteriousne ss contri­

butes to the indefinable sexual menace lurking throughout

the house and penetrating the woman's body" {56); and

Gilbert and Gubar view it as a "subtle aro ma of decay"

{90). Otto Rank 's discussion of death and narcissism

pr ov ides a clue to the meaning of the colo r and the s m ell as they re late to decay alt hough he all ud es only to aging and the fear of death , which also sugge st decay and

s t a gn at ion :

One motif whi ch reveals a ce rtain connection be tween

the fear of death an d the narcissisti c attitude is

t he wish to rem ain forever young. On the one hand,

this wish repres ents the libidinous fixation of the

individual onto a definite development stage of the

eg o; and on the other, it e xpr esses the fear o f

becoming old, a fear which is really the fear of

death {77).

Since Jane 's psychotic mind may r ealize she is be ing

destr o yed, the image s she uses in de scrib ing the paper

207 a nd the smell m a y re late to decay and d eat h . This nar­ cissistic fear of destruction finally propels her into act ion . Late in the story she begins to strip the p a per from th e walls in earnest, and eventually she "frees" the wo man imprisoned there . Since she completely ident i fies with the woman at that point in the story, she believes she is free ing herself from impending destruction.

While the ye llow smell doe s suggest the decaying state of the narrato r's min d, it also sugge sts the f ear of sexuality just as Jacobus an d Be rma n indicate. It seems natura l that t he rat ional John would choose an u pstairs room that symbolizes a le vel above the "lo wer" instin cts . Jane 's artistic temperament might prefer romantic roses and ch intz, but to John the practicality of air, sunshine , and barred windows is personally much more attractive. His rationality apparently does no t re cognize the healing effects of beauty, and perhap s he also d o es not recognize the implications of his choice, for the upstairs room sym bo lizes the bead, the rational part of man, while the do wn stairs room sy mbo lizes th e body, man's sensual faculty. Furthe rmore , as Jane tries to persuade John to allow her to visit "Cousin HenrY and

Aunt Julia," she begins to cry:

208 And de ar John gathered me up in his arms, and just

carried me upstairs an d laid me on the be d, and

��.t by me and .r��_g t o me till it ti red my ..b��g

[italics mine] ;(2 1)

Ho w different migh t the outcome have been if John had manifested an active love instead of a passive one, i f he h ad arouse d a sexually vibrant head instead of en couraging a listlessly "tired" one.

It do es not take a Fr eudian or a Jungi an to recog­ nize that there is mo re than one kind of tired or aching

" h e a d." F o r e xa m p 1 e , C h au c e r' s T r o i 1 u s 1 a m e n t s to his friend Pan dar us that Pan darus woul d understan d l ove's torments more appreciatively if his "hede s ak e fo r love " a s do his (.I!'.Q.!.l.Y�_2.ll.Q_J;:ri§�.I.Q� II. 549). The reader not es the plural , of course, but the secondary meaning on ly beco me s cl eare r when Pandarus approache s his niece

Criseyde on the mo rning f ol lowing a night of a tremendous sto rm accom panied by a fl oo ding rain and deafening thun­ der. After spe nding the nig ht in the same roo m, his own room, where t he lovers, Troilus an d Criseyde, became a

"mirror image" of each other and formed a uni on of their ha lves , Pandarus observes to his niece, when Troilus has d eparted, that the storm has ke pt him aw ak e al l night.

209 The uncle insidiously and possibly in vidiously laments

that so m e "he d e s a k e" ( I I I. 1 56 1 ) • 0 b vio us 1 y, he is

implying that Troilus and Cris eyde suffer from one kind

of headache while he ostensibly suff ers from anot h er

kin d. S hak espeare dips in to Chaucer, and his Panda rus

und erstands only too well Chaucer's and Pandarus' use of headaches when Panda rus chur lishly blurts out this ques­

tion to T roil us an d Crise y de, w h o was c e r t a in 1 y no vir­

g in: "How now, how now , how go maidenhead s?" (IV. ii.

23 ). Obviously, both Chaucer and Shakesp eare recognized

various spe cies of heads. In Gilman's sto ry, John, who

seems to possess the most rational head, make s the reade r

w onder what he does with his less rational "head" during

the many no cturn al hours wh ich he spend s away from home

ostensib ly to be with ill patients. Since he apparently

tells his wife in adv ance that he will not be home o n

certain nig hts, the reader assumes that his patients

sched ule their illnesses. Perhaps he is fol lowing the

Victorian double st anda rd and is taking another wo man

in to some "lower" room somewhere else.

The re is al so some indication that the narrator

reverts to masturbation, an activit y that would indi cate that she re c o gn izes her sexual need s. Veeder in terprets

210 t he "long, straight, even §ID.Q..Q.Q,!l " on the wall t hat looks as th ough "it had been rubbed over and over" (Gilman 15) as a suggestion of masturbation :

The erotic connotation of "smooch" an d the insistent

rubbing suggest a recourse to masturbation which is

consonant bot h with the heroine' s regressive tenden­

cies and with the hysteric 's inclination to auto­

e roti ci sm. Narcissism directs eros (smooch) back to

the sel f as projection on ce again configur es the

heroine 's inner life upon a wall. (Veeder 61)

Although Jacobus no tes that in 1890 the word "smooch" had not y et taken on its twentieth-century connotat ion, she doe s indi c ate that the mark on the w a ll sug gest s "dirty ru bbing" which "might be both Do ctor John's medic al ver -

dict on sexuality. • • [as well as that ] the di rty stain of smoo c hing would constitute. the sex ual etiology of hysteri a." In addition, she concludes that it coul d also represent Victorian re pres sion of "the

representation of female sexuality. • "(242).

In this sto ry John fails in every instance to appre ­ ciate or to value the contribution of his Ot he r to their marriage ; above all he i g nore s he r s e xual ne eds, opting instead to treat his wife like a child whose

2 11 pe rsonality and character are st ill pliable. For example, at the very beg inning of the sto ry Jane recalls,

"J o h n lau ghs at me, of course, but one expects that in marr iage" (9), and later his scoffi ng at the wal lpaper almost proves that he identifies it with his evil do uble when he denies the pot en tial evil in it in muc h the same way that Edith Wharton's Lavington denies his evi l double' s existence : "He laughs at me so a bout this wall­ p a p er" (14). Still l a ter when her illness has progressed considerably, she arises fr o m bed "to feel and see if t he p a p e r ..Q.! .Q move;" J ohn awa kens to ask, "W hat is it, little girl?" (23), a st atement which implies that he does not recognize her as an adult. During that same conversation, Jane at tempts to speak seriously about he r c o ndition, but John's word s and actions resemble th ose of an in dulgent Agamemnon of a father as he at­ tempts to al laY her anxiety:

"Bless her little heart!" said he with a big hug,

"she shall be as sick as she pleas es. "But now

let's improv e the shining hour s by going to sl eep,

a nd tal k about it in the morning!" (24 )

Like many " fathers," J o h n also refuses to acknowledge his "little girl's" sex ualit y, just as

212 Agamemnon refuses to acknow ledge Elect ra' s sexuality. I t

is as though Jane has done her duty in pr oducing an heir

fo r her husband, and no w she ha s been placed on the

p e destal to which many Victoria n wo men we re relegated.

Mary take s care of the baby, Jennie takes c are of John

and the house , John take s care of al l of them, so what i s

left fo r Jane? She is not allowed to write, nor is she

in vited to meet her husband's sex u a 1 need s. The read e r

re ceives several hints that thi s interpre tation is no exaggeration. For example, John's response to the pre­

viously cit ed instance of Jane's request to move to a

room downstairs is cl early patroni zing and indic ates an

unwillingness to take her to any place on a lower level

that might symbolize removing her from her pedestal to a

mo re sensuous sp he re : "Then he took me in his arms an d

ca lled me a ble ssed littl e go ose, and said he would go

down to the cellar, i f I wished, and have it whi tewashed

into the bargain" ( 15). He will not, of course, take his

li ttle girl into an y areas t hat must be "whitewashed" to m ake them resp e c table. This de si re to have the "cellar" of the "little goose" "whitewashed " if she wished sug­

ges ts a confused desire on the pa rt of both John and Jane

to indul ge and to deny simultaneously their Oedipal

213 inclinations. Electra, therefo re , rep ressed an d unful­

fille d, is left with unrealizable sexual feel ings. As a

result of se xual depriva tion, a head can ache or be

"tired. "

In a s e nse John also wa nts his wi fe to play Echo to his Narcissus. She, like Echo , wants to love him , but he

runs from her. L i ke a father teaching a ch ild, John

tel ls Jane that she must use he r "will" (22) to keep

"proper sel f-control " (11 ). Jane tries to pull herself

into line wi th John's expectations bY attempting to ac­

cept his opinions as her o w n: "It is an airy and

co mfort able room as an yone need wish , and, of course , I

would not be so silly as to make him uncomfortable just

fo r a whim" (15}. Jane, then, worries about maki ng her

h usband un comf ortable when she is suffering agony unto

insani ty, an d she accuses hers elf of acting out of ca­

pr ice . Like Echo, she loses her power of original

speech, inco rporat ing "John says ,n an d "J o h n thinks"

into many of her statements. The confu sing design of

t he w a 11pap e r f o r c e s h e r to a b and on he r p e r c e p t i on s o f

re al ity, but John must not be made uncomfortable . Still

later when Jane write s that John "loves me very dearly,

and hates to have me sick" (21 ), the reade r senses that

2 14 she is trying to persuade herself that his affe ction an d conc erns are true ; i f she believes he loves her , she will

feel gui lt if she does not cooperate with hi m in her treatment , b ut if sh e does not be lieve he love s her, she will feel justified in her anger. Fin ally, at th e end of the story she in one respect , like Echo, lose s her body when she e m brae es the cr eeping ph an tom and bee om es one with her. Unlike Echo , howeve r, her n e w vo ice produces he r own word s, not a re p e tition of her husband's.

In some respects John is a conscientious man who is trying to fulfill his duty to a si ck wif e, and there is no doubt that he l oves Jane in a narciss istic way. The point is th at as a result o f societal conditioning, he assumes a fat herly role that doe s not all ow himse lf or

Jane to c om plete fully the Oedipal stage s of their dev elo pment; as a result of that sa me societal condi­ tioning, Jane strives to accept his opinions ov er her ow n a lthough a part of her refuses to accept John' s innate supe riority. As she c ontinually de ni es her real se lf in an attempt to real ize John's image of her, the part s of her personality that are repressed spl it of f and project themsel ves on to the woman in the wallpa per, first in the fo rm of multitudinous doubling, th en into a single "mir-

215 ror image" with whom she identifies and eventually merges at the cost of her own sani ty.

So me cr it i c s vi e w Jane 's e s ca p e in to in san i t y a s a vi ctory ov er the life she is compelled to live, a life they would consider death-in-life. Othe rs view it as ultimate def eat of her desire to live a life acceptable to her, an in sanity whi ch may be viewed as death-in-life or life-in-death. Eit her way, she is alive, but she is al so dead. John, certain there are no c omplexiti e s in li fe that he cannot deal with in a moment , ackn o wle dges only the perceived superficialities, but Jane is torn between her cultural conditioning that assures he r that

John is right and her own inst in cts which inform her d i fferent ly. This battle in Gi lman's sto ry takes place, just as in Poe's story, within "ancestral halls, " "a he reditary est ate ," (9) a symbol of patriarchal soc iety that has formed bot h of them.

By denying Jane permission to write and by constant- ly admonishing he r for using her ima ginative po wers,

John quietly asserts a di c tum which denies her the ri ght to e xerc ise he r creative po wers, just as he does when he ostensibly denies he r his sexual favo rs. By the end of Gilman's stor y, John experie n c es the re ali-

216 zation that the rat ional facu lty al one is not sufficien t fo r survi va l; the igno red non-rational faculties that his w ife repres ents in his life, his alter ego or the anima, will turn on him with fu ry an d render him literally unconscious. Like Madeline who bursts from her crypt to throw herself upon Rode rick, G ilman's narrator escapes fr om the wallp aper to creep over John 's prostrate form repeatedly. John has formed a grotesque face for his wife, a woman who, like Nar cissus's Echo , is destro y ed.

In her ins anity she mirrors his hysteria which, as Jaco­ bus o b s e rv e s , i s bas e d o n h is f e a r o f t h e f em i n i n e , h is ani ma .

In their search fo r a be loved Other, both John and

Jane we re at trac ted to at tributes which reminded them of a sibling of th e opposite sex who, in turn, was a substi­ t ute fo r the parent . During the marr iage , John att em pts to form his wife in to his image o f perfection, a female version of himself. Beli evin g in a l ogic based on co n­ crete facts, h is scorn of his wi fe's intuit ive logic and her imagination causes her to mist rust her self. She resists John half-heartedly but fin ds som e sat is fa ction in re ve rting to the role of the little girl played to his role of fathe r. Finally, howeve r, the adult within her

2 1 7 rises an d demands an accounting. This fairly thoro ugh analysis of Jane 's feelings (t he narrator's thoughts) and

John's response s sugges ts that John and Jane, in the same simplistic sense that their common names suggest , are still socially in their adolescence , that they are in­ cap ab le of realizing a mature s e xual relationship.

218 CONCLUSION

A h, but a man' s re ach shoul d exceed his grasp ,

Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-gray

Placi d an d perfect with my art : the wo rse!

I know both what I want and what might gain,

And yet how pro fitless to know , to sigh

"Had I been two , another and myself ,

Our head would have o'erloo k ed the world!" No doubt.

-- -Robert Brown ing

Gilm an re ached within her ow n gothic wo rl d fo r the inspi ration of "The Yellow Wallpa pe r," and in doing so, she created a gothi c heroine to whom women of her own and succe eding generations could relate. Although this st udy exam ines the eleme nts in G ilman's life that helped h e r t o c r e a t e t h i s s t or y , u n 1 ik e m a n y o t h e r s t u d i e s , i t treats "The Yello w Wallpa per" as a work of art apart fro m it s author as much as possible. Her aim was to hold a mirror up to woman's true nature as she perceived it to be in order to contrast that re flection aga in st man' s traditional 1 imi ted proprietary view of her. Emp loying the gothic genre to expr ess her outrage and horror at th e crippling effects of this treatment , she skillful ly ma-

219 nipul ate s the narrative voice in "The Yellow Wal lpaper" to de monstrate Jo hn's--and there fore patriarchy's--crea ­ tion of a grot esque monster , an example of the enormity of patriarchy's sin against its f emale members and Gil­ man's percept ion of the de formed state of wo man hood under patriarchy.

While suffering her "slight hys te rical tendency , " as

John te rm s her il lness, Gilman' s narrator experiences an identity crisis. Conditio ned by her culture to be submissive to her husband and other male memb ers of her family, she acquie sces to his judgments and proclamations on one leve l, but at a deeper level, she rebel s.

Forbidden to write and perhaps thu s to define herself, she lies for hours attempt ing to interpret the pattern of her w a llpaper and finally realize s that the pattern fo rm s bars that i m prison the women she sees inside the p a per. Ultimately , she identifies with on e of these wo m en. Thus , she allows the wal lpaper , interpreted in this study as a metaph or for patriarchal logi c, to define her as John's prisoner . The paper's pattern, like p atriarchal logic, appears on the surface to be rat ional , but a closer inspecti on reveals tha t its premises are propped upon each other lengthwise, cro sswise, and di ag-

220 on al ly. If one we re moved, ap parent ly the enti re structure would collapse li ke a house of cards.

Unable to ext ricate hersel f physically f rom her sit uation, the narrator "frees" herself mentally by m erging with her d oppel gange r. Th is study has examined

Gi lman's po rtrayal of the doppelganger and fo und it to be unique. Alt hough sh e fulf ills much of Otto Rank's cri­ teria rega r ding the double in literature , a study of other doubles reveals that Gilman's portrayal i s unlike any of the other authors' wo rks examined, male or fe male.

Perhaps an auth or's gender i s not a determining facto r in the treatment of this litera ry devic e; perhaps, in fa ct, it is not a factor in th e use of any literary device. It may well be proven in the fut ure that an author's life experiences determine hi s/her treatment of literature , that to read a story and immediately deter­ m ine that it is written by a woman simply mean s that th e wom an is writ ing about what she knows and that society expects her to write from its precon ce ived ide a of what a woman's vantage point is. Female authors' depiction of the doppelganger in literature is an area that wou ld profi t f r om more exhaustive research.

This st ud y also examine s the sexual relat ionship

221 t hat exists bet ween John and the narrator and determines

that they suf fer from arrested development in this area, a di s covery that is not too surpri sing since the pat riar­ chal sy stem encouraged women to be chil d- women to a large d egree. Gil man hypothesized that the system wa s as ha rm­ ful to the ful l deve lopment of the male as it was to the

female, and her hypothesis pr oves true in this s t ory in the marriage bed as well as in other areas. If a father lov es his daughter or if a brother love s a sister roman­ tically, it is considered incest. John behaves like a father to his wife , and his wife like ns him to her brother ; in addition, this st udy ha s exp lored the possi­ bility that the narrator's name is Jane , the Christian name for Jennie, John' s sister, wh o plays a wi fely role i n this story. Thus, there is a possiblity that another type of doubling is at wo rk here on a subliminal level between John and his sister Jennie an d the narrator and her brother the physician.

Forced to make a decision about he r identity, the narra to r chooses to be someone else. She c a nnot function indepe ndently as Ja ne , the wife of Jo hn the physici a n and the si ster of he r brot her , another physician. They are too controlling. He r solution is to free her dopple -

222 g a nger fr om within th e wa llpaper and to merge with her.

After its publication, this story was for got ten fo r over hal f a century, as Gilman hersel f wa s largely for g otten. Since its resurrection, however , its inf lue nce on and impo rtance to the feminist canon has accelerated with every decade . At first upon rediscove r y, readers focused on th e femaleness of the writ ing rathe r than on the document as a literary monu­ ment . Critics have used its text as a means of explor ing women 's writing--both its subject matter and its tech­ ni ques--and in the process exploring and attempting to understand female thought processes, as well as woman's historical ro le in society and the effects that role has played in limiting he r growth as a human bei ng. The exhaustive annotated bi bli ography of Gilman criticism in cluded in this st ud y illustrates the wid e spect rum of inte rpr etations gi ven this sto ry over the past three de cades. Prese nted in chronological order, it provide s an historical view of the evolution of literary criti­ cism itself since almost each interp retive school that has e m erg ed on th e scene is re pre sented in the cr itici sm of this story.

All of the interpr etative di rections have prov ed

223 help ful in placing thi s sto ry of incipient femal e madness

in its prope r perspective. It is almost conclusive as an

analys is of female authors' writings that fe male madn ess

resul ts from an excess of domesticity, no t from a threat or ac tual depri vation of dome stic felicity , as most male

aut h ors have supposed. As a matter of fact , prese nt

cr it ici sm of thi s literary masterpiece indicates the need for rejecti ng the application of a singl e critical slant because each critical school uncov ers new meanings within the laye rs of this story of ma le domination and of doubling as a form of avo idance of or escape from the

problems created by do mest ic and cultural pra ctices in a

man's wo r ld. These interpretations di sappoint those readers who may e xp ect any singl e obser vation, or a

si n gle group o f cr i tic al essays fo r that matter , to create an epiphany. The value lies in a holist ic examination of all published views, preferably read in chronolo gical order , which will provi de the searching an d patie nt reader with an unde rstanding of the impo rtance of this story as a so cial document a nd, equal ly as impor­

tant , as a literary masterpiece.

"The Yellow Wallpa per" is not exc lusively a cultura l document , it is no t solely a feminist or wom an's text , it

224 is not entirely go thic, or misandristic, or antagonist toward male phys ic i ans treating female h y steria, and abov e all, it does not offer the most de sirable mean s fo r persecuted, dominated, and subjugated fe ma les to escape their prob lems. Instead, fu t ur e criticism should fo cus on an d should dev elo p interpretat ions of "T he Yellow

Wallpap er" based upon it s existence as a literary monu­ m ent, not obviat ing the fact , of course, that the author was a fe m a le in a male-dominated world, a Western and

Eur opea n cul ture dom inated by cla ss, gender, and et hnic values.

Cha rlotte Perkins Gil man, like Browning's Andrea del

Sarto whose words form the epigraph to this portion of th e study, may be considered a "Faultless Pain ter." Her re ach exceeded he r grasp, her e y e never left her goal o f woman's equality, all her many and varied wr itings in some way pro ject that goal, her fiction is mechani cally c o rrect and quite readable, yet som ething is often missing. As she herself admitted, she did not wr ite to entertain so much as to teach her truths, ye t occasionally there are flashes of brillance that sugge s t the heights she might have reach ed as an artist if she had al lowed he r imag inat ion ful l play. "T he Yellow Wall-

225 pap er" is the most vivi d of those flashes in the Gil man

canon. It is unfo rtunate for the fe minist m ovem ent, th e

ranks of wom en writers, the comparat ively small canon of

women's l i terature, and the world at large that Gilman

suppre ssed her imagin ation, he r "fancie s," in order to write strictly didactic fiction. In the pr ocess sh e ,

like Andrea d el Sarto, became a skilled craft sperson, but h er work frequently lacks the "soul" th at is the mark of art , and art , as Browning knew, is the ultimate weapo n

to teach truth :

• it is the glory and good of Art,

T hat Art remai ns the one way poss ib le

Of speaking truth , to mo uths like mine at least •

• Art may tell a truth

Obliquely, do the thing shal l breed th e thou ght ,

Nor wrong the thought , missing the medi ate wo rd.

So may you pa int your pi cture, twice sh ow truth ,

Be yond me re imagery on the wall ,--

So write a book shall mean beyo nd the facts.

(1D�-�jn£_ED�-���-�QQ� , XII, 838-8 62)

Gilma n's "The Yellow Wallpa per" may be her on ly work that means "beyon d the facts. " It is Art.

226 Throu gh h e r as siduity of purpose, Gilman probably ha s co ntributed as much to th e ultimate equalit y of the sexes as any person of he r time an d has assu m ed a rightful place in the fo refront of the femin ist movement long after sh e ha s left the scene . Furthermor e , the ove rfilled room at MLA an d the pl eth ora of Gilman articles, bo o ks, an d dis sertations appearing in print ea ch month will ass ure her continued in fluence through at least the last de cade of this c e ntury .

227 HISTO RICAL SUMMARY

AND

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAP HY

OF

GILMA N C R ITI CIS M

1956-1989 THE EARLY HISTOR Y OF "THE YELL OW WALLPAPER"

When "The Yellow Wal lpaper" was published in the .N&.H

.E.nE.l9:1HLM.SE�.Z..1.D.e in 1892, its im med iate reception was ra dically different from the types o f re adings which i t would receive over three-quarters of a century later.

Gilman's contemporaries saw it as a gothic hor ror story on the order of those by Poe. As Gary Scharnho rst re­ ports , "many early re aders considered it a tal e of the grote sque , 'The Fall of the Ho use of Ush er' told from the point of vie w of the Lady Madeline'" (17).

According to Gil man, a revi ew er fo r an issue of L..1��ra=

1�r� fo un d the story "worthy of a place beside some of the weird masterpi e ces of Hawtho rne and Poe," a n d years later Gilman used this quote to adve rt ise the story for

(October, 1910: 33 is but one inst ance of se veral such ads ) . She wrote to her good friend Martha Luther Lane that Martha must read her

" a w f u 1 s t ory . W a 1 t e r says he h as rea d i t f .Q yr times, and thinks it the most ghas tly tale he ever read.

" Says it beats Poe • (27 July 1890, �.b�.rl.Q.t��

229 f�rkiD� Y�1ID�� £���£� 20; quoted by Scharnhorst 19).

Poe's sto ries produced many of the same effects on

hi s readers that Gilman' s would later produce. In a

letter to the editor of Ih�-��tlQD, 9 December 1880,

Henry c. Lea reminisces ov er the impressions the "wei rd

and somber effects so artistically prod uced " in many of

Poe's sho rt storie s ha d ma de on him forty years earlier ;

and in dis cussing some of Poe's horror stories, B. M.

Ranking describes the effects of Ma deline 's ascent from

the burial crypt to Roderic k's room above, the strange fo rebo ding noises, and the final ho rrible revelation , as

causi ng the reader to shudder o ve r "the weird story. In

sob er ea rnest , I know o f nothing more aw ful, unless it be

th e last scenes of 'The Duchess of Malfy"'

(1i iD�_MQD�h1�-M�EEZlD� VIII, Septem ber 1883: 359).

A reviewe r for the �hi��EQ_N��� observed that Gil­

man's "T he Yellow Wa llpaper " "stands among the most

powerful produced in America ," anot her quote Gil man used

in her .fQ .r�!:.Y.lllHU ads (I October 191 0: 33 is but one

instance ); and Anne Mont gomerie wrote in the ��D��.ryg��.r

that the "simple, serious, sly, fa scinating, to rtur ing

[story] gro ws an d increa ses with a perfect cres cendo of horro r" (10 [1899 ]: 60-61 ; quoted by Scharnho rst 17). In

230 he r autobiography Gilman recount s how she sent the story to W. D. Howell s, who in turn attempt ed to persuade

Ho race Scudder , editor of the Atlan���-M�n�n1� · to print it. Sc udder sent the story back to Gilman with the fol lowing note:

De ar Madam,

Mr. Howells has handed me this story . I could

no t fo rgive m y self if I made others as miserable as

I have made myself! <1.1Y.1ng 119 >

His attitude was not unl ike that of the anonym ous rev iewers who found reading Poe "a sickening task"

(�9.1.ll.rga�_.!t�.Y.1�H 802-3 ) or who reported that "The Fa ll of the Ho use of Usher" "leaves on the mind a painf ul and ho rrible impression , wit hout any redeeming admonition to the heart" <��M�h�rn_1�1�r�r�-��§��DE�r 708).

In 1899, Small, Mayna rd, and c o. of Bo ston reprinted

"The Yello w Wallpaper" in a chap book with yellow c overs that simulated the ir imp ression of the wallp a per.

(Rec ently, one of these chapbo oks was adv ertised for sale at $600. ) In 1920, W. D. Howells in cluded the story in hi s ant holo gy, �h�_Qr �9.1_M�9�rn A m�.r��an_�t�r.i�§ , and w r ote in his Introduction :

It wa nt ed at least two generations to freeze our

23 1 young blood with Mrs. Perkins Gilm an's story of

Ih�-I�ll��-Hgl1_£���£ , of which Horace Scudder (then

of Ih�-A�l���i� ) sa id in refus ing it that it wa s so

terribly go od that it ought never to be printed.

But terrible and wholly dire as it was, I could not

rest unt il I had corrupted the editor o f Ih�-N� �

�nEJ�ng_ M�ESZi�� into publishing it .•.. I shiver

over it as much as I did when I first read it in

manuscript, t hough I agree th at it wa s too

terribly go od to be print ed. (vii)

He goes on to call the story "t his awful study of incip­ ient madness" (viii). In response to thi s publication ,

H . P. Lov ecraft called th e story "one of the great 'spec­ tral tales' in Americ an literature" (Scharnhors t 18;

Lane , xvii).

As fu rther ev idence that the story was perceived primarilY as a gothic horro r story, Ih�-N�H-��EJ�ng_Ma8�=

�1�� p ubl ished it in an issue that deals with witchcraft.

The story preceding it is "A Salem Witch" by Edith Mary

Norris, and in the same issue is an insta llment of an a rt icle entit led "Stories of Salem Witchcraft" by Win- field s. Ne vins (January 1892). In 1933, Gilm an's story was reprinted in �gJg�n-�g�k · an d in 1934, it was

232 rep rinted in a Finn ish translation (Scharnhorst 18).

Gilman herself said she wrote this story not as a gothic fanta sy bu t to show the effects on s ome women of

Mitchell 's rest cure which had so incapacitated her.

"The Ye llo w Wallpaper" provoked , in turn, varied medical re sponses. One physician wrot e to Ih �_1r � E��r1�! that such a story should no t be prin ted as it could drive some susceptible people mad (�1Y1nE 120); anot her respond ed that the story was so realistic he wondered if she had been there. Her answer : "As far as one can go and come back" (.L!YJ...Dg 121). Her intent ion, she said , was no t

"t o drive people cra zy, but to sav e peopl e from being driven crazy, and it worked." She reported that the family of at least one ill woman had read the story, had

"l et her out into no rmal activity and she recovere d"

("Why I Wrote The Yellow Wa llpaper?" 217). Another phys ician wrote to her:

When I read "The Yellow Wallpaper " I was very much

pleased with it ; when I read it again I was

del igh ted with it , and now that I have re ad it

again I am overwhelmed with the delicacy of your

touch and the correctness of portrayal. From a

doctor 's standpoint •..you have made a success.

233 So far as I know , and I am fair ly well up on

literature , the re has been no detailed account of

incipient insani ty. (L.iYi.ng 120)

Her g reate st joy over the story's reception, however, came when she wa s told years afterward that Mit chell " had alt ered his treatm ent of neurasthenia since reading 'T he

Yellow Wallpaper"' ("Why I Wrote 'T he Yellow Wallpa per'"

21 7) •

While repudi ation of Mitchell's cure may have been Gilma n's osten sible reason for writing this story,

"T he Yellow Wallp ap e r" concerns much more than the effects

Mi tchell' s rest cure had on some of his patie nts. This story written in the early part of Gilman's career might be viewed as a microcosm of the patri archal society

Gil man knew , for it represent s in figures writ larg e her view of the possible end result to b oth man and w oman of the unco rrected repressed condi tion of women, a topic that woul d be her primary fo cus during the forty years sh e actively wrote and lectured.

In 1973 , the Feminist Press presented "T he Yel low

W a 11paper" to the pub 1 i c once again with its edition of the sto ry and an Afterw ord by Elaine Hedges , whose essay was the first femini st reading of the story . That publi-

2 34 cation is now Feminist Press's "best-selling vo lume," and it is also "one of the best-s e lling w orks of fiction by university presses in the Un ited St ates." In addi t i on, it has been "reprinted in Engl and, the Netherl and s , West

Germa ny, Sp a in, Sweden and Iceland, and it has inspi red several films and dram atizations and even an opera"

(Hedges .ML.A 1).

Since Hedges's femini st read ing of the sto ry, it has been the subject of a var ied spectrum of readi ngs. As

Hedges obse rve s in the pap er sh e delivered at the recent

MLA conference , the st ory's read ings are "a most revealing graph of major cr itical shift s both in si de and outside of feminist literary theory and practice" (10).

He r ow n reading is biographical as she dr aws parallels between Gilman' s own life and that of her narrator. Such a biographi ca 1 reading conti nues in the interpretations d ependent on the psychoanalytical theo ries of suc h psycho ­ a nalysts as Freud and Lacan, for these interp retati ons, too, attempt to psychoa nalyze Gi lman along with her nar ­ rator. The story has also been examined according to ge nre as a n example of realism, of modernism, and of the fe male gothic; as a Marxist-feminist document ; according to the theor ies of the reader-response critics; as dis-

235 course theo ry in which the wallpa per represents woman' s attemp ts to read--and writ e--her self; and by the New

Historicists who investigat e the story's "complicitous­ ness with ideology" (Hedg e s 9).

The wallpaper itself has been cited as a metaphor fo r every aspect of the narrator's life situation a s it is regula ted by her pa triarchal society, and also, sine e the narrator is a writer , as a met ap ho r for the situation of the fem ale author in search of a language of her own as well as fo r the re lationship inherent between gender a n d r e ad i n g a n d w r i t i n g. A b o u t h a 1 f t he cr i t i c s i n t e r - p ret the sto ry's ending as victory, about half interpret it as de feat, a nd sometimes the sa me cr iti c sees both in terpretations as valid. The narrator's madness is thus viewed variously as "a higher fo rm of sanity" (Hedges 2), a reversion to infantile behavior, or a total and utte r defe at.

236 ANNOTATED BI BLIOGRAPHY

This annotated bibliography of Gilman crit icis m is arra nge d in chronological order beginning with Carl Deg­ ler's 1956 article that reawakene d interest in Gilman and incl uding unpublished di ssertati ons and published crit­ icism through 1989. Since critics who deal principal ly with other aspects of Gilman's w ork than "The Yellow

Wallpaper" frequently mention that story at least in passing, all t he criticism is grouped together with the symbol YW denoting wo rks that deal principally with "The

Yellow Wallpaper ."

1956

Degl er, Carl N. "Charlotte Perkins Gilman on the Theory

an d Practice of Feminism." A��ri�gD_Qyg£��r1x. 8.1

(1956): 21-39.

In this article which drew public attenti o n once

more to Gilman, Deg ler draws on much of Gilman's

work to explain her theories of feminism and the

means by which she thought women coul d be freed from

237 the chores of mot he r/housewife in order to work

outside the home. This synopsis o ffers an excel­

le nt presentatio n of Gil man's theories and is the

perfect pl ace to begin a st udy of her work.

1966

Deg ler, Carl. Introduc tion. .H.Q!!! �n-�.ng_ .E.QQ.P.Q .Ill i..Q.£1. By

Charlotte Perkins Gil man. New Yo rk : Harper and

Row, 1966. vi-xxxv.

Degler avers that Gilman probab ly wrote from memo ry,

was not a care ful scholar, and di d not always check

her facts, but "the value and power of her book

does not today rest on the truth of its histo ry or

anthropo logy any more than it did when it was pub-

lished." Instead, her purpos e "was to analyze and

critic ize contemporary relations be t ween the

sexes," an d she drew her information "from com mon

k no wledge and her own systematic, b ut wide reading

" Using log ic as her m et hod of attack, she

targeted the inconsistencies she saw "betwe en the

pretensions and practices of society," merc iless ly

picking up "ever y social idiocy" that sh e felt

su ppo rted "the conv ent ional wisdom about w o men,

238 subje c t ing it to witty ridi c ule" (xxxi ). Degler

emphasizes that Gilm an's en tire argument is based

up on soci al evo lution, principles of growt h. "She

was no pro ponent of the eighteenth-cent ury idea of

natur al la w. Those static defenses of equal ity she

ab andoned in the fa ce of the triumph of Da rwinian

ev olu tiona ry though t " (xxxi ii-iv) .

1973

Hedges, Elaine R. By

Charlotte Pe rk ins Gilman . N e w Yo rk : Feminist P ,

1973. 37-63.

YW Hed ge s gives a brief history of the story and of

Gi lman, re lating the two since the sto ry is fi ction­

alized autobi ography. She also di scusses Gilman's

technique in writing the story as she presents its

f irst feminist re ading. In addition, Hedges examines

Gil man' s feminist theo rie s as exp ressed in H.a.m�.ILg!}.Q

.E.C.QDQilli.C� .

Wood, Ann Dougla s. "'The Fashionable Diseases' : Women 's

Co mplaints and Their Treatment in Nineteenth Century

Ameri ca. " !h�-�.QYrnal_�f_ln��rg1��1�11n�rx_�i�t�rx

4.1 (1973): 25-52 .

239 YW In her dis cussion of medical practice s on women in

the nineteenth century, Wood perceiv es that the

physician' s attitude toward women was indicative of

the general ma le attitude toward women 's sexuality

and identity. She determine s that the male ph ysi-

ci an "on some unacknow ledged level, feared his

female pa tient" because in some ways she threatened

his o wn sexuality , and she discusses Catherine

Beecher's 1�i!�£�-�£_!g�-��Q�1�-�D ���1!D_gD�_]g��i=

n��� and Gilman' s "The Yello w Wall paper" in this

ligh t. She al so examines S. Weir Mitch ell's theo­

ries, and provides insight into the hi story of the

female do ctor.

1974

M o r a n t z , R e g i n a • " T h e L ad y a n d H e r P h y s i c i a n • " l;1! ..Q...!.§

�QD§�lQY�D�§§_]gl§�gi-_M��-��r����!lY�§_Qn_!b� Hi�=

!Qr� �I �Q��D. Eds. Mary s. Hartman and Lois Banner.

New Yo rk : Harper , 1974 ; r pt. Octagon, 1976. 38-53.

YW Mo rant z takes issue with historians who view the

Victorian woman solely as a victim of the male and,

therefore , of her male doctor . She exa mines the

stat e of the p ractice of medicine in the nineteenth

240 century, espec ially that of S. Weir Mitchell, in an

att em pt to put the profession an d its procedure s in

pe rspect ive an d discusses the ideas of some female

docto r s of the period "to explore how some Vi ctorian

women vi ewe d their rol es in ni neteenth-cent ury Amer-

ican soc ie ty." Marantz advo cates loo king at the

women's condition in soci ety from more than one

v antage poi nt , not s o lely "from the perspecti ve o f

male domination."

1975

MacPik e, Lo ralee. "E nvironment as Psychopatho log ica l

Symbo lism in 'The Yellow Wal lpaper.'" A.m�r.i.!HtD

L.!.t�r.iiU.'.Y_.fi��.lilil!!! 8 ( 1 9 7 5) : 2 8 6-8 8.

YW MacP ike deals with the sym boli sm in the story, spe­

cifically the nursery, the barred windows, the

bedstead, an d the wallpaper. She believes the story

ca n be considered realism, but that it represents

"what is real t�_.th�-�Yth2r " since Gi lma n was a

"subje c tive observer" of "integral (ma le ) socie ty."

Pannill, Linda Su sanne. 11Th e Artist-Heroi ne in American

Fiction, 1890-1920." Diss. U of No rth Carolina at

Chapel Hi ll, 1975.

24 1 Pan nill discusses the art is t-heroine prima rily i n

the fiction of Ell en Glasgow, Willa Cather, an d Mary

Austin, b ut menti ons many others, Gilman among

them , as well. She deals with Gil man as S. Weir

Mitc hell's "most notorious fa ilure" and br iefly

discusses "The Yello w Wal lpaper" as a "psycholog ical

ho rror tale" (71 ).

Sch opp-Schilling, Beate. "'The Yellow Wallpa per': A

Rediscovered 'Rea l istic ' Sto ry." Am�r1��n_L1��r�=

.rx_ Re�J.l-.§.!!1 8.3 (1975): 284-28 6.

YW Schopp -Sc hilling uses Adlerian d ept h psyc hology to

interpret "The Yellow Wallpaper" as a realistic

po rtrayal of ps ychological processes involved in the

narrator's psyc hi c disintegration as sh e attempts to

overcome fee lings of in feriority. She f e e ls tha t

more needs to be d one with this aspect of the story.

1978

Fleenor, Juliann Evans. "Giving Bir th : Images of Inte­

rior Space." Diss. U of Toledo , 1978.

YW Fleenor in sists that fictional women can ga in free­

dom only "at the pr ice of celibacy . . These

fictional women fe ar heterosexuality •.. (6). The

242 narrator's nursery in "T he Yello w Wall p a per" "as­

sumes a womb like atmosphere " (7). As the wal lpaper

imag es increase and multiply, there "is the sugges­

tion in these pa ssages that the narrator is giving

b irth to defo rmed beings, that she canno t shap e her

exp e riences exce pt as grotesque forms" (9).

Acco rding to Fle eno r, "the male is a symbol of

disor de r or imposed order, an d that is why his

p r esenc e limits the cr eativity of th e wo man" (13).

Go rnick, Vivian. "Twice Told Tales." .I.b�_lf.S!:�.i.Q.P. 23

Se ptember 197 8. 278-281.

YW Go rnick com pares the narrator of "T he Yel low Wall pa­

per" with Anna in the novel A..D.P.a by D avid

Reed(1976). Both women have mental breakdowns; the

narrator tells her story in "The Yel low Wallpaper,"

and Reed, the husband of Anna, tells hi s wife's

story. The two stories have so many parallels that

Go rni ck sees Anna's story as essentially a duplica-

tion of Gil man 's , especial ly in "the fa tal suffo-

cation of spirit that com monly lay beh ind a nine­

teenth-century woman's happily married life" (28 1 ).

Go rni ck vi ews both husband s as basically good m en

with go od intentions whose basic problem is their

243 position as husbands; the nature of marriage co m­

pels them to do their work at the expens e of their

wive s if necessary. Work defines them and should

define their wives as well. Instead , the wives loose

their sense of self.

1979

Gi lbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. 1b�-M� � ����n_!n

j!.b�_.A.t.t.!.Q. 1979; rp t. New Haven : Yale UP, 1984.

Gilbert and Gubar wrote this l andmark book in an

effo rt to understand the co mmon patterns, themes,

and images that they d etected in the works of di spa­

rate wom en writers from "Jane Austen an d Charlotte

B ronte to Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, and Sylvia

Plath" (xi). What unfolds for them and the reade r

is a cohe renc e in lite r ature written by women that

can be explained "by a c o mmon, female impulse to

strugg le free from social and literary con finem en t

through strategi c rede finitions of self, art, and

soc iety" (xii ). Th is work is an at tempt to expand

upon and to define further the female literary tradi­

tion whi ch Ellen Moers and El aine Showalter have

locat ed in earlier studies by focusi ng on "crucial"

nineteenth-century text s. B a sing their met hodology

244 on Bloom 's premise that "literary history c o nsi sts

of strong action and inevitable rea ct ion," these

authors seek to "de scribe both the expe rience th at

g enerates the metaphor and the metaphor that creates

experience" (xi ii ). In their dis cussion of Gil man's

"The Yello w Wallpaper," these autho rs liken Gilma n's

story of "fe male confinem e nt and escape" to

.sl �IHL.EY.r� ( 8 5); both heroines , for e xa mple, exper­

ien ce fragmentations of sel f. They view Gilman's

narrator's madne ss as a tr iumph because he r hus ban d

"h as be en temporarily defeated, or at least mom en­

tarily stunned," b ut of even mor e consequence are

the narra tor's "ow n imag inings and creati ons, mi­

rage s o f health and freedom with whi ch her autho r

endows her like a fairy godmother showering gold on

a sleeping hero ine" (91 ) .

Hill, Vicki Lynn. "Strategy and Breadth : The So cia list­

Femini st in American Fiction." Diss. State U of

New York at Buffalo , 1979.

In her attempt to "locate and discuss attention paid

to sexual and economic power relationship s in fic­

tion writt en by American women during the y ea rs

b etwee n the Jacksoni an bank cr isis and the first

245 World War" (iii), Hill discusses Gilman's .H..2m�..o

.sl..DiL.E..Q.QD.QIDi,..Q.s, N.2Yi!!1L.t..h�_l:f.Q.Y.D..t.a1,.n, and H�.r1a.n..d as

works in which "social conditioning rather than

biological inevitabilit y was responsible for sexual

role behavior" (229).

Pringle, Mary Beth. "'La Poetique de l'e space' in Char­

lotte Perkins Gil man's ' The Yello w Wallpa per .'"

E��.n�b-�m�r1..Q.a.n_R�Y1�� 3 ( 1 9 7 9): 15-22. YW Using a house as a framework f or analysis of the

psyche , Pringl e fi nds that the narrator has juxta­

posed her memories of her childhood house as "suc­

cor" with her present abode which ha s barred win­

dows and a wallpaper who se pat te rn forms bars. "Out

of yellow wallpap er the narrator shape s the only

thin g she knows : a cage . "

1980

Glenn, Ellen Walker. "T he Androgynous Wo man Cha rae te r in

t he A merican Novel." Diss. U of Colorado at Boul-

der, 1980.

Glenn states that "the androgynous woman does exist

to some extent , and current research has attempted

to give a conc rete port rait of the and rogynous per-

246 sonality" (7); androgyny, however, is "an ideal; it

assumes that me n and women are free to choose their

behavior and their attitude s in an at mosphere of

equality" (14). Gl enn refer s to "the and rogynous

woman" in ]�rlaDg (25) and discusses the an drogynous

qualities of He ster Prynne. The first two chapters

discuss Haw t horne al most exclusively. In her di s­

cussion of Gilman's ]�r lan£ , she stat es that the

women there are "total l y and rogynous. They blend

what we call masculine and feminine traits with

ab solut ely no conside ra tion of the ap pro pr iateness

of mascul ine traits for wo m en" (110). Among other

femini st utopian novels, " o nly in ]��l�Dg is man­

ness or becomin g a man absent " (1 17). She writes

that Ellador of H�rl�D£ "is so androgynous th at she

can convince a man of the value of a world without

sex ro les" (122).

Hill , Mary A. "Charlotte Perkins G ilman: A Feminis t 's

struggle With Womanhood." M�����D���!�§_]� Yi�li

21.3 (1980): 503-526.

Hill e xamines Gilm an' s private strugg les with the

theories she formulated and expounded, citing pas-

247 sage s from her pe rsonal diari es and letters to

various people that il lustrate the agoni es she

endured as she stru g gl ed with her woman's desire to

love and to be loved an d her h uman desire to be

independent. Her era's view of women's innate and

learned characteristics were often blurred and

difficult to reconcile with her idea of woman' s

superi or ity to man, t hus , the contraditions in so me

of her writing, the di chotomy between her private

and public selves.

---·�D��l2�t�-i��kin��i1m�ni_ _ 1h�-M��i�E_Qf_A_��g1gEl

r� m.i.ni§�.J. 1.8.Q.Q= 1.6.2.6. Ph i ladelphia: Te mple UP,

1980.

This definitive biography is the first vo lume of a

pro po se d two-volume set. Hill traces Gilman's life

chronological ly through 1896 after Gi lman's return

from England and her invitation to contrib� te to

the Am��i���-I�Q1g�. He r objective is "to trace

chronologically the ori gins of Charl otte Gil man's

248 feminist convictions and to explain some of the

patterns of her early l ife." The central fo cus of

the book is Gilman's "struggle with th e 'burden of

our com mon wo m anhood, ' or, mo re accura tely, the

burden of our common humanity."

Kolodny, Annette . "A Map for Rereading : Or, Gender an d

the Interpr etation of Literary Texts." N��-1!��r=

g.r:�_Hi�.tsn:Y. 11 (1980): 451-67.

Kol odny exa mine s the l i mitations of Bloom 's model

for the process of reading "a syne cdoche fo r a

larger whole including other texts." Since wom en's

texts hav e few precurso rs and wo man writes from her

sphere of experience and not fro m man's, man can not

understand women's l i terature if he cannot "read"

woman; woman , however, o fte n accepts man's reading

of her. She discusses Gilman's "T he Yellow Wallpa­

p e r" and Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers" as

stories that illustrate man's inability, even

u n w i 11in gn e s s, t o i n terpret w oman an d her world.

"Revisionary rea ding" is ne c essary, in Kolodn y's

opi nion, to "open new ave nue s fo r comprehending

male texts [and to] al low us to apprec iate

the variety of women's literary exp ression .•.."

249 Lane, Ann J. In troduction. 1D��h�rlQ���-i�rk�n� Q�lm�n

Ii ., , Jl�.§:.Q� . N e w Yo r k : Pa h eon Boo k s 1 9 8 0 • i x-x 1 i i.

Lane's bo ok is al so a good place to begin a study of

Gi 1 m an. She offer s a succ inct biograph y of Gi lman,

synopse s of the ele ven short stories an d portions

of seven nove ls inclu ded in the collec tion , and a

good overvi ew of Gilman's social views an d of

her w ork as a who le .

1981

Hayden, Delores. ID�-�r�n.Q_�Qm�§�1�-]�Y�l��12DL--�-��§=

�QrX 2f f�min!§�-��§!Bn�_fQr_Am�r!£�D-�Qm�§�-N�1gn�9r=

DQ.Qds..t_�ng_�!.t.l.:�· Cam brid ge: MIT Press, 1981.

The author fo cuses on "material feminists" who

"demanded economi c remun e ration fo r women' s unpaid

househol d labor" {3). Gilman was not an extremist

but was only one of many women who advocated the

"feminine transformation of t he home" {4 ). The

material fe min ists represent the cha sm separat ing

Marxism and feminism . The industr ial revolution

increased the impetus toward mass pro duction an d

"s ocialized labor ," but conco mi tan tly the housewife

"becam e m ore iso lated from her hus band" (13) and

250 from society. The greatest legacy of the material

feminists was their reconsideration of a variet y of

alt ernatives to feminine do mesticity (28). In Part

V, entitled "Charlotte Perkins Gi lman and Her In­

fluence" (181-278), Hayden presents an interesting

and accurate portrait of Gilman an d her varied activ-

it ies, both "pra ctical and fa nciful" (183) b ut

certainly no t e xtreme: 11 In many w ay s her program

was a somewhat conservative syn thesis of earl ier

material feminist ideas with po pular theories of

social revo lution" (183). Many of Gilman's ide as

for domestic reform were ind eed influential , probab-

1 y because th ey were 1 ogi ca 1 and practical: jj���D

.§lHi ]:.Q.Q.D.Q!!li.Q§ w as consider ed a "'bible' by college

women at Vassar, and m any women's group s aro und th e

c ountry attempted to put some of Gilman's ideas into

practice .

Kennard, Jean E. "Conv ention Coverage or How to Read

Your 0 wn Life." N�.lL.!t.!J!_g..r�.rx_.Hj.§J!.Q.r.Y 1 3. 1 ( 1 9 8 1 ) :

69-88.

YW U n t i 1 r e c e n t y e a r s "T h e Y e 11 o w W a 11 p a p e r n h a s be e n

read as a Poesque hor r or story of incipient mad­

ness, but conventions ch ange acco rding to th e needs

251 of the "interpretive com munity." Kennard exa mines

some of the "associative clusters" of meaning

which readers now accept as conventions and which

make possibl e a femin ist re a ding of this story as

she addresses the conc ep ts of p at riarchy, madness,

space , and ques t . She al so di scusses feminist

readings of the story by Elaine Hedges, Annette

Kolodny, and Sandra Gil bert and Susan Gubar in

conjunctio n with her own and advocates creating

meanings within a text instead of merely

dis cov ering them in a f ixed text.

Pearson, Carol. "Coming Home: Four Femini st Utopias and

Pat ri archi al Expe rience." f�1Yr�-f�m21�§i__j_�r!�!��1

E d. Marleen S. Barr. Bow ling Green :

Bow ling Green State U Popular P, 1981. 63-70.

Pearson examines Mary Bradley Lane's M!z.Qr�__ j

fr.Q�b���' Gilman's H�r1�Dg , DorothY Bryant 's In�

..K.11L..2LA..t.sL.!r�.Hg_i t.inL.f.Qr_1.QY , and Mary Staton's

Ir.Qm_tb�-L���ng_.Qf_�1�l for simil arities in "these

seemingly divergent works," similarities " which can

be explained by the similar conditioning and exp e­

riences women sha re. "

252 19 82

Bader, Julia . "The Dissolving Vision: Realism in

Jewett, Freeman, and Gilman." A �� ri��D- ] ��11���

Ed. Eric J. Sundquist. Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins UP, 1982.

YW Examining fem ales in local color works, Bader dis­

covers that a tangi bl e, real, order ly pl a ce can

dissolv e into one that is gr otesque and blurre d ,

provi ding "a somber com mentary on t h e process and

the hazards of female perception and self-percep­

tion" (176). Gilman's story "cal ls into question

the decipherability of the phy sical world" (192).

As the p aper co nstantly shifts "in meaning an d even

i n visual detai l" (193), o rder and readability of

the phy sical world gradual ly dissolves and becomes

grotesque as the narrator's ill ness progr e sses.

Bartkowski , Frances. "Toward A Fe mini st Eros: Readings in

Feminist Utopian Fiction." Diss.U of Io wa , 1982.

Bartkowski refers to Gilman's ��r1��g as a world

253 "i nherently flawed, mis-reco rded , mis-remembered,

an d even, perhaps , censo re d by the narrator" (19).

S he discusses "The Ye llow Wallpa per" as "a short

fictional piec e whos e heroine un dergoes the infa m ous

rest-cure of S. Weir Mit chell, nerve specialist in

the era of neurasthenia and hY steria" (21-22). She

also refers br iefly to Gilman's novel Ki �n_ H&r_in

Q�rl��� (28), and there is another brief refe r ence

to ��rl��g (100), but otherwise there are no more

refe rence s to Gilman, and in the ge ne ral conclusion ,

there is no obvio us allusion to Gilman .

Fe hr, Av Drude Daae von der . "Charlotte Perkins Gilman's

'The Yel low Wallpa p er' : Ansatse r Til e n Semiologisk

Tekstan al yse." I:!!g.a. 1 (1982): 39-53.

YW Von de r Fehr of fers the fa miliar commen ts about the

narrator's domesti c relationship with her husband

John and her si ster- in-law Jennie as she notes the

wife's imprisone d condition a n d her gro wing

interest in the wallpaper (114), as well as John's

attempts to squelch he r de sire to write and to

com munica te (4 6). In the mo st original pa rt of the

art icle, von der F e hr puzzles over the splitting o f

the ego s in the case of Us her/Madeline in Po e's

254 �.f�lL2L.t.hL.H.Q.Y1HL.QL!!.§ll�.r " and the narrated and

nar rating' s egos in Gilm an's "The Yellow Wallpape r"

("i spalt ningen av j e g 'e t, Usher/ Madeline, og de t

fo rt alte og det fo rtellends j eg; "The Yellow Wall­

paper") (51). Vo n d e r Fehr points out that both

Poe and Gilman use the word "arabesque" (51 ). This

author also argues that Poe of fe rs a biologi c al

exp lan at ion fo r the degene rat ion of the Ushers while

Gilman insists on a social an d sexu al caus ality.

The text ual me ani ng becomes clear in both stories

through a study of metonymi cal relationships (52) : a

gradual res em blance develops between the hous e win­

dows and the owner's mental condition in Poe's sto­

ry ; the bed an d espec ially the wallpaper gradually

c ome to represent the woman in the bed observing the

wallpa per in Gilman's story (52).

1983

Arms, Geo rge , ed. Introduction . ��».Q��l1§�--S�1��t��

j,.�J!Jt�.r�. Vo l. 6: 1912-1920. Bo ston: Twayne,

1983.

Arms mentions Gilman's le tter to Howells expres sing

her plea sur e that Howells wanted to pub lish "The

255 Y ellow Wallpa per" and explainin g to him her own

breakdown und er Dr. s. Weir Mitchell's trea tment.

Gilman to ld Ho wel ls she sent a cop y of the stor y to

Mitche ll and learned in later y ears that it ca used

Mitchell to al ter his treatment of neu raesthenia.

Com bel lick, Katherine . "Feminine Fo rms of Closure : Gil­

man, De ming and H. D." Diss. St ate U of New York ,

Bingha mpton , 1983.

This critic di scusses "the problem of closure" in

w omen's text s by us ing Elaine Sho wal ter's three-part

framework as a "paradigm for the evolution of wo men

writers in the nine teenth to twentieth centurie s:

feminin e, feminist and fema le." The wom an author

intern alizes male conv entions, b ut "betrays, espe­

c ially at the moment of closure, he r pe rspec tive of

non-centrality" (3). G i 1 m an ' s w r i t i n g, h o w e v e r ,

"e merges fro m the initial 'femin ine' stage; it is

ambiguous in its al legiance to the heroine's percep­

tions. This heroine's perception [that of th e nar­

rator in TYW ] is undercut by the damage it infl icts

on h e r. She is 'right' and 'wrong' at the same

time" (10). At first , sh e has so internalized male

values that she "perceives hersel f as synonymous

256 with her responsib ility a s wife •••.Whe n she

speaks of the house it is a description of the

strictures on her own life. The house is orde red by

a system of rules an d co mpartm ents which the heroine

finds 'beautiful "' (43). T hough John ridicul es her

perception s , his fear of them dictate "hi s increas­

ingl y tigh t strictures of h e r confinement " (43).

Her circular, li mite d movement s around t he room fo rm

a "groove" on the wall which becomes "comfortable"

to her (50). "At the moment of closure , the he roine

inhabits the position of complete power" (52).

Fleenor, Juliann. "The Gothic Prism : Char lotte Perkin s

Gilman's Gothic Stories and Her Autob iography."

I.b�-f�.m�l�_.OQj!,hj.Q . Ed. Juliann E. Fl eeno r. Mon-

treal an d Lon don : Eden P, 1983. 227-241.

YW Fl eenor observe s that the theme s of Gi lman's auto­

biography and of three of her short stories, "The

Yellow Wal lpa per," "The Wisteria ," and "The Ro cking

Chair," are within th e dom ain of fem ale go thi c , or

go thic a s it is produ c ed by women. All four e x -

press an ger at the patriarchal treatm ent of women ,

amb ivalence a b out the rol e of motherhood, and "a m­

b iva lence about the capacit y of the female imagi-

257 nation and female cr ea ti vit y." Viewing motherhood

as Gilman's central confl ict , Fleeno r suggests that

she never came to terms with it and was "at odds

with her society, ••• those of he r own sex, a nd

p rimarily . with herself" (24 1 ). "Mate rnity and

creation" are so closel y "intertwined, •• • wo man

as author is depicted in the autobiography ••• as

a wound ed woman in const ant to rment" (240).

Freibert, Lucy M. "World V iews in Utopian N ovels by

Women.".H .Q!!! �.!Lg lHLJ.J!..Q.P.i.a. . Eds . Mar leen Barr and

Nic holas D. Smith. Lanham, MD: UP of America,

1983. 67-84.

Freibe rt examines four fem inist utopi an works-­

B�rl��� b y Gi lman, 1915; In�_Di��Q§��§��g by Ur sula

LeGuin , 1974 ; H2m9n_.Qn_1h�-�gz�_Qf_�im� b y Marge

Pie rcy , 1976; and Ih�_ H Qn ��r&r2Yn� by Sally

Miller Gearhart, 197 9--for shar ed pr inciple s and "a

pattern wh ich is emerging in the feminist canon."

This pattern is that of an "organicist root metaphor

[which] embodies •••th e idea of a living, pro-

greasing system. H�r19�g is based on the metaphor

of m oth erh ood," while the ot h ers are bas ed on the

metaphors of anarchy, p erson h ood, and sisterhood

258 respectively. These metaphors advocate "the uni on

of rea son and nature , rather than the domi nation

of nature practi ced by the cu r rent male- oriented

culture ."

Gubar, Susan. ".SiH� and .IL�r..lan.si : Feminism as Fantasy."

�Q2�.si!n����i--i.l��!DB-��l�n��-rl�ti2n_�n�-r�n!��� ­

Ed s. George E. Slusser, Eric S. Rabkin, and Robert

Schol es . Carbondale: Southern Il linois UP, 1983:

139-149 .

Fe minism as fantasy imagines a possible rea lity

rather than the probable one fo r women. Gubar

transpo ses the syst em of sign s used to read H.

Rider Ha ggard's .§n� into Gilman's .H��.l�n.si to "trace

the dial e ctic between the father's curse and the

mothe r 's ble ssing in the re lat ionship b etween [the

two works] because �b�'s power and popularity trans­

f ormed the colonized cont inents into the heart of

female darkness that Charlotte Perkins Gilman would

rename an d reclaim in a utop ian feminist revision of

Haggard's romance" ( 143). Gubar observes that Gil-

man attempts to portray a culture un like her own in

its harmony with nature.

259 Huckle, Patricia. "Women in Utopias. " .l'.b.!L]�Q.Pi.g_.ILYi.§i.Q!l.i

��x�n_E§§��.§_Qn_�b�_9yin���!�nnisl_gf_�ir_Ih2��

MQr� . San Diego : s an Diego UP, 1983. 115 -136.

Huckle juxtaposes nineteenth-century utopian novels

and efforts to e s tablish ut opian communi ties with

twentiet h-century fe mi nist scie nce fiction and com -

munes; "Each is examined fo r assumpt ions and prac-

tices in terms of sex ro le sp ecializat ion , patterns

of relati onsh ips, and a t tempts to achieve new so­

cial structures." Novels discussed in some detail

are Mary Gr iffi th's Ihr��-Byngr�g-��gr§_��ng�

( 1 83 6) an d Gi 1 man's ��rlgn.Q; J canna Russ's 1..h�-l�=

m�l�_MgD and Marge Piercy 's HQmsn_Qn_!g�-�gE�_Qf

11�� . and many others are ment ioned. A few of the

communitie s discussed are the Rappi tes , th e Sha-

ke rs, the Ow enite s, Comm unia i n Iowa, Kaw eah in

Ca l ifornia, Nashoba in Memphis, Tennessee, Lo rna-Land

in Califo rn ia and othe rs. "The fe minist visions of

the future are gro unded in contemporary va lue s and

m ores, and pos it new and wond rous options. The

nov el s , therefore , are more successful at social

criticism than the y are at cl arifying pract ical

methods for achieving ut opia" (125).

260 Keys er, El izabeth. "L ooking Ba ckward: From H�I'1 S..IH! to

YMll�Y�r's �I'S.Y�l�. �tMgl�§_in_Am�I'l£S.D_Ii£��Qn 2. 1

(1983): 31-46.

Keyser draws parallels between .G.YlliY�r's_.II'sY�].§ ,

especially the Fourth Voyage , and ..B� r1�n.Q . She

po stulates that "Gilman uses Swift's sat ire on

h uman pride in general as a mode l for her attack on

male pr ide in partic ular, offers an explanation for

the Yahoo in h uman nature, and , fi nal ly, suggests

how the Yahoo ca n be era dicat ed, " unl ike Swift who

offered no recourse .

Miller, Margaret. "T he Ideal Wo man in Two Fe minist

Sc ience Fiction Utop ias." ��i�n£�-I�£t�gn_���g���

10 (July 1983): 191-198.

Miller compare s and contrast s Gilman's H�.!'.lE.!!.Q

(1915) with Suzy McKee Charnas' Mg�h�£1lD�� (1978)

to see what each writer believed the female poten­

ti a l to be under different and in so me ways supe­

rior conditions to our own an d to see if and how

feminist assumptions ab out the nature of woman have

changed dur ing the interv al betwe en publ icati on of

thes e two wo rks.

261 Poirier, Suzanne . "T he Weir Mitchell Rest Cure : Doctor

and Patients. " H.Q.!P��-�Jlyg_j,�§.L-A.ILl.ni�.rg.i.§.Q.iQ..J,j=

.llS:l'.Y_J.Q.lll'.Dgl 1 0. 1 ( 19 8 3) : 1 5-40.

YW In des cribing Mitchell's cure at length, Poirier

tel ls of the experiences of some famous patients

whose number included Jane Ad d ams, Gil man, William

How ells' daughter Wini fre d (who died of orga nic

causes while undergoing treatment and being fo rc e­

fe d) , Edith Wharton, and Virginia Wool f, who was

treated late r by another doc tor who espoused

Mitche ll's theories. Mitchel l believed that b ody

and mind were so connected that healing the body

meant healing the mind. From his re co rds about a

wom an who was taught to cra wl before learning to

walk again after much bedrest (and who evidence

strongly suggest s is Ed ith Wharton), Mitchel l

writes: "Y ou see that , follow ing natur e 's lessons

with docile mind, we have treated the woman as

nature treat s a n infant" (,l.�.Qi.Yl'�12-.Q!LJ2.i§�s§�£L.Qf

!E�-��rY.Q.Y§-�.Y§i�.m 47; Poirier 3 2 ). The women

Poirier dis cusse s "had to redefine themselv es to

themselves, of ten in defi an ce of all authority

fi gures aro und the m" (35).

262 19 84

Fryer, Judith . "Women and Space : The Flowering of De­

sire." irQ§��£t§i __ An_!nnY�l_JQ�rDgl_Q!_Am�r�£�D

.Q�lt.llr�l_f?��.d.!J�§ 9 ( 1984): 187-230.

In her exploration of the "rel ati onship of space to

the female im�&iDg!jQn," Fryer notes that at the

turn of the century in America, men and women moved

in tw o di st inct and separate spheres, the men in

spheres of busi ness and industry, the women in

sphere s of culture and their ho mes . Citing Erik-

son' s studies showi ng that "women have been co nd i­

tioned not to move in space •.• but to stay filed

in their model houses, " she asks. "what j§ the

relationship, in America, of spaces to the fe male

imagi n ation?" She concl udes that women need both

private and public space in which to move freely so

that there can be dialectical interact ion be tween

the two. In an over view of the history of

t heo ries of hom e building in America from abo ut

1900, she deals with Gi lman's progressive theories

of the family and kitchenless homes a nd their pos-

263 sibil ities as freeing influences on the women depic ­

ted in �Qm��-�D�-����gml�§ . �b�-H��� . H�rl�n� . and

]���-»1�����-�lg , as well as the nega tive effects on

a woman, such as the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpa­

per," who must live in "s paces that en clo se and

entrap," that do not "free the imagination.""

Krieg, JoAnn P. "Char lo tte Perkins Gilman and The Whit-

man Connection." ��1�-��i�m��-��r��rlx_]�Yi§� 1.4

(1984): 21-25.

Krieg traces the "chain of events, peopl e, and ide as

that led to Charlotte Perkins Gi lm an's participation

in the la st meeting of the Walt Whitman Fel low ship

i n 1919.11 Ho race Traube l was the key fi gure respon­

sible.

Paye rle, Margaret Jane. "A Little Like Outlaws: The

Metaphori cal Use of Restricted Spa ce in the Works of

Cert ain American Wom en Realistic Writ ers." Dis s.

Case Western Reserve U, 1984.

YW Payerle fo cuses he r dissertation on "the preoc cupa­

tion with physi ca l environment , spe cific material

object s, and pe rsonal space in the works of five

American women realist writers: Mary Wilkins Free­

man, Edith Wharton, Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perk ins

2 64 Gilm an, and Su san Glaspel l. The fi fth chapter enti -

tled " 'Different Kinds of the Same Thing' : Madness

and So lid arity as Es c apes from Re st riction in the

Works of Charl otte Perkins Gi lman and Susan Glas­

pell" treats Gil man's "T he Yellow Wallpaper" and

Gla spell' s "A Jury o f H e r Peers" as "new directions

for wo men who ne ed to escape the loneliness and

confi nem ent in the ir lives" (148).

Treichler, Pau la A. "E sca ping the Sentence : Diagnosis

and Discourse in 'T he Yellow Wallpaper.'" 1�1.§R

�!.ll..Q..i�.§ i.P .H..Q!P�ll�- 1.1-t�.rg!.Yr� 3 (1984): 61- 77. rpt.

E�m.iD.i.§.t_l�§.l1�§_1D_1.i.t�rgr�-����],gr§bi�. Ed. Shari

Ben stock. Blo omington : Indiana UP, 1987. 62-78.

YW Treichl er per ceives the story as a clash between

"ancestral" patri archal lan gu age and a new "vision-

ary" wo men's discourse. She interprets the wallpa-

per as women's writ ing and the woman within the

p aper as "a representat ion o f women that becomes

possible on ly after wom en obt ain the rig ht to

speak." The narrator , diagnos ed by the phy si c ian ­

husband, recei ve s a "s entenc e" that includes "isola­

tion, deprivation, and alienation from •.• [he r]

own senten cing possibilities ." For her an d all women

265 to "escape the senten ce" pa triarchal representatives

p a ss on them "involve s both linguist ic innovation

a nd ch ange in material conditions of speaking. "

Tre ichler pres ents a good explanation of the way s

in which language reflects one' s concept of reality.

1985

Berman, Jeffrey. "T he Unres tful Cure: Char lotte Perkin s

Gilman and 'The Yello w Wallpa per.'" ..l'.b�_.I,gl.k.!.IH�

��r��--L.!��r,gr� R��£�§��t��Jg��_gf_i�x�!!Qs�,glx§J§.

New Yo rk : New Yo rk UP, 1985. 33-59.

YW Be rman offe rs an in tensive , concise, c omprehensive

psychoanalytical re adi ng of both Gilman and the

narrator of her short story. In the i n troduc tion to

the book in which he discuss es "fict ion al acc ounts

of psychotherapy" (26) , noting that Gilman and

Be r tha Pappen heim , Breuer's patient whom he cal ls

Anna 0. in the lit eratu re, were contempor aries , he

draws parallels between their lives, comme nt in g that

Gilman 's "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a succe ssful

account of the "opp re ssive socia l, political, and

sexual forces responsible fo r the heroine's fatal

entrapmen t in her Victorian anc estral hous e" (26),

26 6 Whereas Breuer's "Fraul ein Anna 0." fails fo r lack

of the t y pe of "rest raint an d clinical deta c hment"

which Gilman achieves. (26). In th e chapter de voted

to Gi lman , he pra ises he r insight into he r--and her

narrator's-- childhood expe riences as th e source of

her illness an d her instinctual knowledge that

"psychological illne ss worsens when it is not ac­

knowledged as real an d that the rest cure is anti­

th etic al both to th e talking cur e an d to the thera­

peutic value of artistic creation" (56).

Ford, Karen. "N otes and Queries: 'The Yello w Wallpa p er'

and Wome n's Di scourse." ..l'.Yl§.SL �..t..J.!.g.i��-.i.D_.H.Q!!L��.§

Li.l!�.r�t.Yr� 4 < 198 5 >: 3 o 9-31 4.

YW For d begin s with the basic tenets of Trei chl er's

seminal articl e , "Es caping the Sentenc e: Diagnosis

and Discourse in 'The Yellow Wallpaper'" (1984),

and he r assumption that the na rrato r's mental b reak­

down is potentially every wo man's p rob lem; she

"proble matizes the imag e of the wallpaper, there b y

calling into question the notion of women's

discourse" (309). Arguing that Treichle r has fixed

"t he si gnificance of the wallp a per too rig idly"

(310), Ford asks several important que st ions about

267 Treichler' s c o nclus ions, such as "if the wallp a pe r

s tands fo r a new vision of women, why i s the narra-

tor tearing it do wn?" (310). Ford then flou nde rs

in he r own in terpretation : "I am in terested in the

notion that the wallpaper represents women's di s­

cours e to the e xtent that the wallpaper is impos­

si ble to de fine" (311). It is diffi c ult, however,

to take a critic s eriously when she doe s no t get

the characters in the story straig ht. F ord is lamen­

tably amiss in callin g Mary the sister-in-law be-

cau se Jennie is the sis ter-in-law, and Mary is th e

nurse. In addition, Ford perhaps confound s readers

b y equating the narrator's tearing a way of the

wallpaper with "a retreat from discour s e precisely

b e c a u s e 1 an g u a g e is m a 1 e - co n t r o 11e d" ( 3 1 2 ) • T ru e ,

the languag e of Gilman's time was male-do minated,

b ut Gilman's own thoughts of fer proof th at the la n­

guage was not exactly "male-controlled."

Hill, Mary A., ed. ED�Yr�� Ib� Q!�r!�§ QX �h�rl�§ Hgl!�r

�t��§�D· Philadelp hia : Temple UP, 1985.

YW Selected diary entries from Augu st 1883 th r ou gh June

1888 sh ow Walt e r, Charlot te's fir st husband, to b e

a well- meaning man who loved Charlotte but who

268 wanted a tradi tional wife. Like John, the husband in

"The Yellow Wallpaper ," he thought he knew what was

best for her, and as she acq uiesced to his wishes

she, like the nar rator in her sto ry, came near to

losing her mind. A p reduct of his age, he ascrib ed

more importance to his work than he did to his

wife's.

Le narcic , F aye Martine. "The Emergence of the Passionate

Woman in American Lite rature, 1850-1920." Diss.

Syracuse U, 1985.

Lenarcic's di s cussi on of H� .r.J:.�.n..Q is mostly an in­

terpretat ive retelling of the novel. She specula �es

that perhaps "because Freem a n, J ewett, Phel ps, and

Gilman were them selves victims of hostilit y, they

were able to create in their fiction memorable por­

traits of the New Woman in confl ict wit h socie ty"

(26 7).

Neel y, Carol Tho mas. "Alternative Wo men's Discourse."

1Y1�� S!yg���-1n_ HQ��.n��-111�.r�1Yr� 4 (1985): 315-

322.

YW In this articl e Neely addresses some of the issues

Paula A. Treichler raises in her 1984 article, "Es-

caping the Se ntence : Diagnosis and Di scourse i n

2 69 'The Yellow Wallp ape r.'" Alt ho ugh she agrees with

Tre ichl er that "patriarchal discourse is oppressive to w omen, " she do ubts that wom en's disco urs e can replace it (315). She also agrees with Treichler that the "leve l of context " is the import ant diffe r­ enc e between male and femal e language :

••. attempts to contextualize language tend

to embed it so deeply in institut ional contexts

that di scussion shi ft s from language to discourse

to wider social issues so t hat problems pe cu-

l iar to langu age usage get lost. (315)

Not ing that the wallpa per "is em ble mat ic o f the aging and restrictive insti t u t ions of patriarchY"

(316), Neely remarks that the patient "is supposed to chan ge herself but is not allowed to change any thi ng else--not the wallpap er , the room, the house, the marriage" (316). Neely feels that m ale di scours e sentence s "women to a perp etual 'other­ n ess"' but that women's discourse m a y be "even

270 more circumscribed and less useful than that which

patriarchy all ows" (319). Furthermo re , "women's

discourse rem ains so intertwined with patriarch al

discourse it tries to displace that it is difficult

to be sure a femal e-centered discour se is th ere"

(321 ). In Neely' s opinion, the destruct ion of the

wallpaper can be vi ewed as bo th victory and defeat.

Scharnhorst, Gary. ..Q.Q.§:..r.l.9.t.t..!L .f� .r.Kl,. .D§_..O.!l.m.§:.D . Boston :

Twayn e, 1985.

This literary b i ography discusses Gilman 's complete

works chronologically an d thematically. Each period

of her life is discussed along with t h e work she

did during that period. This excellent sour c e book

pro vid es a sy n opsi s of most of he r works, their

historical b ackgrounds , an d Scharnhorst's crit ical

acumen.

--- · " M ak i n g He r F am e : Charlotte Perkins Gilman in

C alifo rnia." �.§:lif.Q�i�_Hi§t�ry. (Summer 1985):

192-201 , 242-243 .

Scharnhorst pr ovides a history of Gilman's work in

the Nationali st movem e nt and its effect s on her

sociological theorie s and work throughout h e r

life .

27 1 Shumaker , Conrad. "'Too Terribly Good to be Printed•:

Ch arlotte Gil man's 'The Yell ow Wal lpape r. '" Am�.r.!=

(1985): 588-599.

YW "Gilman expl o res a question that was--and in many

ways still is- -central b o t h to American literature

and to the place of w o men in American cul ture:

What happens to the imag in ation when it's defined

as fem in ine (and thus weak ) and has to face a

society that value s the useful an d the practi cal and

rejects everything else as nonsense? Second, this

conflict and relat ed feminist messag e b oth arise

naturally and effectively out of the action of the

sto ry because of the author's skil lful hand ling of

the narrative vo ic e" (590). Schumaker di scusses

the American male's trust in logic alone an d his

fear th at to use his imagination would be a sign of

weakness: "fear of the im agin ation bas been insti­

tutionalized th rough assigned gende r ro les" (592).

By defining hi s wife 's writing impuls e s as feminine

temper ament, John thinks b e controls his wife and

this experience in their lives . In his discussion

of associations, fo reshadowing, and humor, Shum ak er

e xplai ns ho w the patt ern of the narra tiv e provides

272 both as soc ia tion and foreshadowing. For example ,

in the p a ssage about Jennie ("She is a perfect and

enthusiastic housekeeper •••• There's s ister on

the stairs !") , he sho ws "h ow Gilman develop s the

na rrator's mental c o llapse" by imp licit ely contra s­

ting a previous p assage with a later one (597).

Dark humor is displayed in the central images : the

window, t he b arred pattern on the paper , the woman

behind th e paper. "In a sense , she bas di scov ered,

bit b y bit , an d finally revealed to John, the wife

he is attempting to create--the woman without illu­

s ions or imaginat ion who spe nds all her time

creeping" (598). Shum ake r ave rs that Ho wel ls agreed

the sto ry was "too terribl y good to be printed"

b ecause he unde rstood (and so did oth e r reade rs) on

some level what the story was about : "it st ruck

too deepl y and effectively at traditional ways of

seeing the wo rld and wom en's place in it" (598).

Trei chle r, Paula A. "The Wall Behin d the Yellow Wallpaper:

Response to Carol Neely an d Karen Fo rd." lY1��-��yg=

.i�.§_i.!l_.H.Q.m.Sl.ll.!§_.Li.t�.r�!�r� 4 (1985): 323-330.

YW In responding to Neely's an d Ford's assessm e nts of

her earlier essay, "Escapin g the Sentence: Discourse

273 and Diagnosis in 'The Yellow Wallpaper, '" Treichler addresses three issues pertin ent to " l anguage and feminist literary an aly sis": " ( 1) problematic as­ pects of the term 'women's discourse'; (2) problems with the noti on of a n ' a lternative d iscourse ' ; and

(3) the difficulty of interpreting the metaphor of

the yellow wal lpa per" (323). She cites seve ral d efini tions of t he term "wo men' s discourse," add res­

ses the issue of discourse in g ene ra l, and conclude s t hat patriarchal discourse and women's discourse inhabit th e same "t errain " at the same time; thus, women's discourse cannot be considered an actual alternative di scourse. "The two di sco urses do not

stan d apart from each ot her as two separate alterna- tives" ( 325) . "T he Yellow Wallpaper," therefore,

"does not p resent two cl ear al ternati ve discourses

but rather shows i n graphic an d claust rophobic de­ tail how the sa me terrain--language--may be differently inhabited " (327) . Patriarchal discourse in the for m of "the medical diagnosis an d its re p re­ sentation o f w ome n " c o exists with the nar rator's

att em pts "to produce a counter- diagnosis" in this

story (327).

274 1986

Bassuk, Ellen L. "The Res t Cure: Repetition or Resolu-

tion of Vic torian Women's Conflicts?" .l'..b�-.f�=

JP.a.l�L_B.Q_g_y_j.J.l_ .W����_r_g_..QJ.ll .!i.!.l.r� . Ed. Susan Ru bin

Suleiman. Cam bridge : Harvard UP , 1986. 139-151.

YW I n this wel l-researched article, Bassuk descr ibes

"t he physical and psychological aspects" of s. Weir

Mitchell's rest cure, " explores the medical ratio ­

nale" fo r this treatment, and discusses "the symbol­

ic meanings of both the nervous symptoms and the

cure" (140). She specul a tes that the cure allowed

some Victorian women to regr ess to an infanti l e

st ate and th us to avoid sometimes o v erwhelming

househol d responsi bilities which they were not

e quipped to man age while also repre ssing their sex­

ual conflicts. She percei ves that this may hav e

been a transfe rence cure, transference implying that

"the patient de veloped an idealizing or narcissistic

trans fe ren ce to the t he rapist." At the same time,

earli e r unresolved pre-oed ipa l and oed i pal conflicts

we re reactivated in the physician-patient relati on­

ship. Transfer e nce, t hen, "becomes the vehicle of

c hange" (148). Having elicited hi s patien t's emo-

275 t ional loyalty, Mitchell relied on suggestion to

effect change by convincing he r "to exercise more

self-control and to abandon her symptoms" (1�9),

without exploring the conflicts underlying the symp­

toms .

Fetterley , Jud i th. "Reading About Reading: 'A Jury o f

Her Peers,• 'The Murders in the Rue Mo rgue ,• and

'T h e Yellow Wal lpape r.'" ..O.§..n..Q§..r_�..n..!L]��_g_!J}._g . Ed.

El izabeth A. Flynn and Patricia A. S chweickert .

Baltimore: Johns Hopkin s U P , 1986. 1�7 -16�.

YW B ased on t he p rem is e t h at w o m en c an an d do r e ad b o t h

women's an d men 's texts, but that men will not mak e

the effort to learn to read wo m en's texts, Fette rleY

examines in these three stories the results on

women 's liv es of men's refusal to att empt to "rea d"

t h em. She o b s e rv e s that "T h e Y e 11o w W a l, 1 p a p e r"

"makes clear the conne ct ion between male control of

textual ity and male do minan ce in other areas"

(159 ) , for John controls every aspect of his wife's

1 ife. "Gilman argu es that male control of textual i-

t y constitut es one of the primary causes of women's

madness in a p a t r iarchal culture. Forced t o read

men's texts, w omen are fo rced to become characters

276 in those texts" (159). Fac ed with John's real ity

a nd John's truth, the narrato r of Gilman's story

turns the wallpap er into a text John cannot rea d,

b ut she confirms John's text when she go es mad.

"Reading validates one's real ity and enforces one's

i denti t y" (152). "One is a com petent reader only of

texts that on e has written or can imagine hav ing

written" (155).

Guempel, Stephen Robert. " Charlotte Perk ins Stetson

Gilman , A Vo ice fo r Progress and Perfection : A

Rh etorical Analysis of Selected Addresses, 1883-

1892.11 Dis s. Louisiana State U and Agricult ural

and Mechanica l College, 1986.

Guempe l discuss e s the backgroun d, the structure ,

and the effe ctiveness of five early addresses after

a st udy of Gi lman 's life as The Apostle of Prog­

res s in which he gives "car eful attention to those

people , experien ces , and events in Stetson's life

that contributed in an importan t way to her develop­

ment as a spe aker and reformer" (4). The addresses

in clude "Bel ief in Go d an d the Use of It," 11 0 ur

Opport unity," 110ur Pla ce To da y , " "Our Social

Duties," "The Uni ty of Man," and "Poet ry and Life."

277 Haney -Perit z, Janie e. "Monum ental Feminism and Litera-

ture's Ancestral Hou se: Anot her Look at 'T he Ye llow

Wal lpaper.'" H.Q!!!�n' s_.S.t.Y.91:Sl.§....i..__ A1Ll.P.t�r.Q.i§.Qi.R.1.i.ngr..I

12.2 (1986): 113-128.

YW This author discusses the wallpa per with its "un­

heard of contra di ctions" as s ymbolic of both John's

discour se and the narra tor 's writing. Instead of

looking to the nar rator as a monument of the femi­

nis t movement, sh e thinks it might be more fitting

to read her as a .m�m�n�.Q �.Qr..i signifying one wo man' s

de ath "rather th an as a memorial that encloses the

body e ss ential to a viable literary critici sm."

Then she "woul d prov oke s y mpathy rather t h an identi­

fication a nd ••• would encourage us to apprehend

the turn to the imaginary •.• as a sign of what

may happ en when a possible operat ion of the femi­

n ine in .lgD.B�s.B!l is rep ressed." HaneY-Peritz pr e­

sents a good discussion o f Gilbert and Gubar's i n­

terpretation of the story in Ib�- M��H�� an_l,n_�b�-A.t=

.t.i...Q , Annette Kol odny's in her essay "A Map fo r Re­

Reading: Or, Gen der an d the In terpret ation of Lit er­

ary Texts ," and Jean Kennard 's essay, "Conv ent i on

Cove rag e or Ho w To Read Your Own Life."

278 New Yo rk : Columbia UP, 1986.

YW These e ssays are ab out "feminist readi ng and the

que s tion of reading 'woman' as a fi gure fo r

sexual di fference." They a re about reading and

woman as reader, writer, or a s read, "especially as

represented in an d by Freudian an d Lacanian psy­

choanalysi s." The chapter entitled "An Unne cessary

Maze of Sign -Re a d ing" gives a go thic reading of

"The Yellow Wallpaper," an d dea ls with the creeping

an d the y ellow smell as sy mbolic of woman' s sexu­

ality an d man's fear of the feminine.

Wilson, Christopher P. "Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Steady

Burghers: The Ter rai n of .H�.r.l.a.D_g . n H.Q.!!l.!l!!..! ... iL .S�.ll=

_g��§�--��- l���r_gi§�l�liE�.r�-���r��1 12.3 (1986):

271- 292.

Wilson explores literary dev ices Gilman use s in

��rl�.D� and H�r.l�n�'s "implicit commentary about

art, gende r, and pr operty," and he sug gests that

Gi lman' s effo rts to produce a lite rature that served

as a counte rpoint to the established "mascul ine

aest hetic" of cont emporary fiction often proved

"e lusive and paradoxical."

279 1987

Brown, Gillian . "The Empire of Agoraphob i a." B�.P.r���.D=

�g�.iQ.D£1 20 ( Fal l 1987): 134-1 57.

YW Much of Brown' s article centers on Bartl eby the

Scrivener's fear of open sp aces, but she also

observes that the narrator 's room in "The Yel low

Wal lpaper" "reit erate s the agoraphobic association

b e t we e n s e 1 fh o o d a n d d om e s t i c en c 1 o s u r e" ( 1 4 4 ) •

Gilman's chara cter is so uncertai n a b out her space

that she claims the space within the wa llpaper:

the unc ertainty of this woman's place, her

identific ation with both the wo m an she imagines

creeping behind the paper and the woman she

imagines "creeping along" "in the open country"

suggest that domest ic borders vary and waver,

that the wa lls and wo men move. (138)

Gi l man's narr ato r is a "wall -moving woman , " but

"shifting the walls th at situate the self, agorapho­

b ia is inevit ably not agoraphobic enough" (145).

Do yle, Laura. "T he Body Poetics: Language and Material-

ity in Modern Women's Nar rat ive." Diss. Brandeis U

198 7.

280 YW D o y 1 e c o m p a r e s t h e n a r r a to r' s v o i c e i n "T h e Y e 11o w

Wallpaper" with th at of Tristram i n Ir�§�r��-�b���y :

As in the d iffe rence bet we en deconstruction and

�.Q.r.i..t�.!' � .f�m.ll.l.i. ll� · in which practitioners of

the fo rmer are "at play" among the prop s of

the known world, an d practitioners of the

latter are of necessity at peril in spinning

ou t th e meanings of a beseiged counter-world,

so it is with Tristram an d Gilman' s narrato r.

(30

The text , like the wal lpaper, "'commits every artis­

tic sin'" (32), an d the w al lpaper is "a reflection

of the ch aracter's condition" (33). Doyle briefly

discusses the "m ot her-daughter relationship" wh ich

"exists in exile in this story " (35), conjectur ing

that "Ch arlotte is living out a cycle of mothe r­

daughte r alienation typica l of wo men in patriarchy"

( 3 6) •

Mich ael s, W al ter Benn. Ib�_yQ!g_���.I.lg�rg_��g-�b�-�g£1..�

�f-Ba����!.i.§m�__ Am�.!'.i..Q��L.i.!�..r�1Y.!'�-�!-th�-1Y.!'g_QX

1h�-��ll�Y.!'X· Be rkeley: U of California P, 1987.

YW In this book which explo res consumerism in the

works of such authors at the turn of the century as

281 Gil m an, Drei se r, Cr ane, and othe rs, Mich aels views

"'The Yellow Wallpaper' as a n endorsement of consum­

er ca pi talism [much more] than as a cr itique of it." He agrees with his understanding of Gilman's philosophy, whose role be sees as critical in the

"emergence of consume r culture ." He argues that the qua lity that "make s 'The Yellow Wallpaper' exem­

plary • i s thus its determina tion to see the s elf on its own terms, as a commodity, a subject in the mar ket" (28). He defines the work of writing as

"the wor k o f at once producing and c o nsumin g the s e lf or, what comes to t he same thing , wo rk in the market. What mak es 'The Yellow Wallpa per' exemplary for me is thus its determination to see the self on its own terms, as a com mo di ty, a subject in the market" (28). In his view "T he Yellow Wallpaper" is n ot so much a sto ry about the effects of Wei r

M it chell's rest cure, his "refusal to allow her to produce ," but about a wom an who is so committed to pro ducing that "it requires her to beg in by pr oducin g herself " (5 ). He c o ntinues: "For Gil- man, then, the wor k of writing is the work simulta­ neousl y of production an d co n sumption, a work i n

282 which woman's body is rew rit te n as the utopian body

of the market ec onomy." He emphasizes the point

that Gilm an viewed the fem al e body "not only as an

ob ject to be excha n ged ..• but as the very site

of exchange." In 11 The Yellow Wallp aper," then,

"be ing oneself depends on owning oneself, and owning

onese lf depend s on produc ing o neself" (13).

1988

Alle n, Polly Wynn. �M11�ing_]Qm��tj�_L1��rt��-�h�r1Q���

2�rki�§_U1l���-Ar�b1t���MrE1_I��iD1§m. Amherst:

U of Mass. p., 1988.

Allen explores Gilman' s fem inist/soci al ist theories

about arch ite cture that would free the woman t o

work outside th e ho me and make the home a haven for

the entire family to en joy. "Her vision o f an

alternative, woman- supporting landscape rem ai ns power­

ful enough to arre st the attention of would-be

planners, developers, and co mmunity activist s as the

end of an ot her century app roaches. " She deals with

Gilman's architectural vision as it is expressed in

both her fiction and her non-fict ion.

283 DeLamot te, Eugenia C. "Male and Fe male Mysteries in 'The

Ye 11 ow W a 11pap er ."' L�gg_..c.Y..:..__ _A_!l..Q.Yr.n�1-- .Q .f_ .Ni.IH� =

.t.e�n�.b=.C�.n.tY.r.Y A ID�.r.J:gg__n_J.i.2 .!!.l!l .D_!l.r.i.t�r.§ 5. 1 ( 1 9 8 8):

3-14.

YW DeLamotte observes that Gil man's heroine be comes a

Gothic writer as Gilman explo res the gen re from the

feminist pe rspective. The re sult is "a bold reve-

lat ion of the meanings conceal ed beneath wo men

Go thicists' preoccupation with kno wle dge and with a

set of int erre lat ed issues: sel f-defense ; the en­

counter with a hidden woman; speech and silence ; the

misprizing of the heroine; the horro r s of repeti­

ti o n; and the problem of freedom" (3). DeLamotte

discus ses male knowledge of w omen's psychologi cal

di sturbances and deduces that "the feminine m y ster­

ies [which male knowledge] cannot accommodate--are

at the center of Gilman's brill iant re-visioning of

the genre of women's Gothic" (4). In women's gothic

a woman vicariously lives adve nt ur es she could

never exp erience in realit y; "the Heroine's

suffering is the principl e action D�Qg_�§�-i�_i§_1h�

She contrasts

the narrator's fe elings about John to her feel ings

284 about the paper. She can be frank about her

feelings ab out the pap er , but not about John. Some

o ther rel evant sample qu otes from her article are :

"the difficulty of being known is the real subject

of Go t hic Par ano i a 11 ( 8-9 ) ; 11Go thic fear is a m ask

for anger " (1 1 ); "woman is shut up within her home

and shut up within herself in a 'circle of herself'"

(quot ing de Beauvoir, �D�-���QDg_��� 500). In DeLa­

motte's view th e end of Gilman's story is ambig ­

uous: "triumph and defe at , insight and insanity,

sel f-knowledge and self-lo ss" (13).

Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. ]'.Q_M.en's_L.eD.QJ. __ .Ih�

f1.e��-Qf_!b�_j.Q��D-HI1��r_iD_tb�1H�D�i��b-��DtYr�.

Vol. 1: .I.b.iLil�L.QL.th�_H.Q.!:.Q�. New Hav en: Yal e UP,

1988.

This volume prese nt s an "ov e rvi ew of social, litera­

ry, and linguistic interactions between men and

women from the middle of the ninet eent h century t o

the present" in a stud y of modernism's different

inflections fo r male and fem al e writers ( xii). The

autho rs discuss Gilman's sho rt story entitled "When

I Wa s A Witch" and her novel !:L� r1.en.Q briefly as

fusions of "feminism and fa nt asy" (89). They b e -

285 lieve B� r 1�D9 to be a revi sion of Tennyson's !h�

frin���� and Rider Hagg ard 's �h� .

He rndl, Diane Pri ce. "The Writing Cur e: Charlotte Per-

kins Gi lman , Anna 0, and 'Hyst erical' Writi n g ."

Bg�i���1-�Q ID� D�- ����j��-A����i��jgD_�2�r�gJ 1.1

( Autumn 1988): 52-74.

YW In this e s say , Herndl explores the "relation between

hysteria and feminist writing" {52), defining hy ste­

r ia as the "women's response" to "the male-defined

sig ni fying system" (53) an d citing the histo ry of

hysteria beginning with Freud' s analyses ( 53-54).

Herndl believes that psycho analysis is "mal e­

oriented" and "male-founded" and that it "pe rpe t­

uat e s sexual and psychologi cal stereotype s •• • "

(55). She di scus ses the "'metaphoric al' phallu s "

and the "phy sical penis" (55 ) and woman' s need fo r a

language to exp ress her sexuali ty. Sinc e the "phal­

lus becomes the privil eg ed symbol," and "not hing

penil e" equals "No thing" {56), the h y steric is the

woman who has no unconscious re p res ent ation of he r

sexuality and who therefo re exper i ences the no-

th ing dire ct ly, without the mediation of languag e

{61 ). The "hysteric lack s the spacial-temporal

286 di stance ga in ed from the framewo rk of language"

( 62 } :

A cure • ••wo uld focus on sh ift ing not only

the woman's repres entat ions of sexuality and

femininity from "nothing" to "something" but

w ould also w ork on changing the conte xt in

whic h she used langu age. (64}

Herndl cites the case history of Breuer's Anna 0 .

who bec omes her own "doct or-saviour" (68} and writ­

er but "published under the masculi ne pseudonym ,

Paul Ber thold, which suggests that he r 'new meta­

phor' for self may not, at first, hav e been a

part i c ularly feminine one" (67). He rndl observ es

that "w ri ting can become the other" (68}: "Denied

t he power to cr eate her own text, the narrator

beg ins to experience her sel f as text .••" (73).

She con cludes th at the na rrative in stabil ity at the

en d of the sto ry is not the "com munal voice " that

Treichle r finds, b ut the vo ice of no one, the vo ice

of one without s ub jectivi ty (74 }.

Marchalo nis, Shirley , ed. ���rQE�� n�_ fr2��E����-D�n��r�

rri��g§bi��-gE�-�ri�i�S-1�-�J��!��n!h= ��n!��-�m�r i­

�. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP , 1988.

287 Ma rchalonis conclude s that th e friendship betw een

Gil man an d Howel ls, was "in part a funct ion of

easily overint erpreted nat ural affinities" re-

sult ing in "m utual attract ion" an d "mutual rest raint. "

Ve eder, William. "W ho is Jane? The Intricate Fem inism

of Charlotte Pe rk ins Gilman." Jri�g��-gy�rt�rlx

44.3 (1988): 40-79.

YW Exa minin g "The Yellow Wallpa p e r" and Gilman's life

"in light of various psycho logical models tak en from

bo unda ry and object-relations th eorists, Freud, and

.• • Melanie Klein, " Veeder focuses on infant il e

tendencies that the heroine projects into her adult

life and on her increas ing ra ge as the story pro­

gresse s. H e discusse s Gilman' s feminism as dis­

pl ay ed in the story in the context of "the cult u­

ral, medi cal, and lit erary traditio ns of he r ti me."

19 89

Bruno, Maria. "Teaching 'Women in America': Some Notes

on Pedagogy and Charlotte Pe rkins Gilman." �h�£lQt��

£�rk!�§ Yil���-Ih�_HQ�g�_ED�-H�r-�grk. Ed. Sh eryl

L. Mey ering. Ann Arbor: UMI Resear ch Press, 1989.

109 -115.

288 YW Bruno views "The Yellow Wallpaper" as "an exce llen t

beginning" of a course to teach composition to the

American woman , whose "timidity is also based on her

real fear of male antagonism, coup led with the un ­

spoken or unrecognized need for a female audience to

valida te her perceptions and experi ences " (110- 111).

Gil man repres ent s in Brun o's course "a model of a

woman who defied the societal rest rictions of the

domesti c s phere , and who transcended patriarchal

definiti on (all the monks and kn igh t s and Hawt hornes

of her era) to emerge as the lead ing intellectual of

t he feminis t movement i n the twe ntieth century"

(111) . Overall, Br uno presents the dep ressing view

that mo s t women students still feel , prior to taking

her cou rse, that it is "imp roper" fo r a fe male to be

cr eati ve ( 111).

Davidson, Cath y N. Forew ord.

I��-�Qm��-�ng_fi�X-�Q��. Ann Arbor: UM I Research P,

1989.

David son observes that Gil man "was a w oman ahead of

.Q.UJ: ti me" a nd that she endured "the cruelest fate

of any artist--she outl iv ed her own po pularity, saw

her wo rk dismissed, watched herself fo rgotten, like

289 a si lent bystander at her own lite rary funeral"

(ix). Today, however, "T he Yellow Wallpaper " is

rightfu lly placed "among the most harrowing por­

traits of stultifyi ng, self-destroying marriage ever

written" (x).

De Koven, Marianne. " G endered Doublene ss and the 'Ori­

gins' of Modernist Fo rm." .l'.Y.1.§s_.SJ!.ll.91il§_..iiLH.21!1��

L..iJ!�r.s.t.Y.I'§ 8.1 (Spring 198 9): 19-42.

YW DeKov en presents rea dings of Chop in's .l'h�JHs��Di.D.B:

and Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" as example s o f

femal e moderni sm. In he r di scussion of Gil man 's

stor y, she deals with "the doubleness of female

mo dernism," pointing out the "Kafkaesque, proto­

Surrealist formal stylization that deploys the

gre at power of dream structure to enact s el f-contra­

diction" (28). The front and back patterns' of the

wal lpaper constitute "a self-defe ating du ality of

prison and prisoner" (34), a duality that in scribes

"the story' s double fi gure of amb ival ence about

female freedom" (35). Th e two patterns are actually

11 all one ," "the twin offspring of the narrator's

internal izati on of h e r o w n oppression. Th e self

stifled by the husban d's law erup ts onto the wallpa-

290 per." When that self , in turn, "beco mes too threat­

ening to the self that participat es in the stifl ing,

th e eruption itself becomes ironically the 'prison'

whose bars mus t be pulled down" (35). The woman who

escapes, then, is vi ctim as well as victor.

Feldstein, Richard. "Reader, Text , and Ambiguous Refer-

e nt i alit y in 'The Yello w Wa 11 paper. "' ..F�.m.i.n..1.£1.!!L.5lD.Q

.f�..Y..Q.b..Q.!.D�.l.Y§i§. Ithaca : Cornell UP, 1989. 269-279 •

YW Feldstein discusses the impo rta nce of the word

"wallpaper" as a hyphenated or un hyphenated word

[Gilman wrote the word as "wall-pa per"] as well as

the proper reference to the author of "The Yellow

Wallpa per," whe ther Charlotte Perkins, Charlotte

Stetson, or Charlotte Perkins Ste tson for no evident

purpo se. He chastises the narrator's husband John,

her brother, "and the likes of We ir Mitchell" (27 0).

Feldstein obser ves that the narrat or regard s the

mirror image s in the story as "fellow victims of a

phallic system that resembles the wall-pape r's re­

strictive outside pattern " (271 ).

291 Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. ]'.Q_.M,g..n..!..lL.L,g.JHLI.b�

ilg£�-�f-i.b�_H.2��.n_Hr!��r_1n_1.b�-1��.n�1�t���.ntMrY.

Vo l. 2: ��X£h.&.D.S�..§ . Ne w Haven: Yale UP, 1989.

This vo lume is a continuation of th e study of

mode rnism begun in Volume One in which the authors

associate sexual battle s with "radi cal 'sexc hanges,'

as wel l as with notably sexualized visions of change

and e xchange, in the lives an d wo rk s of bo th litera­

ry men an d literary wo men" (xi). They cover the

pe riod from the 1880's through the 193 0's. The

authors move from the im potent heroine in "The Yel­

low Wal lpap er" to Gil man 's other works wherein the

he roines are pathf inde rs: "Wh il e the heroine of

'T he Yellow Wallpaper' gnaw s at a double bed she

cannot seem to move out of the room she is made to

inhabi t, the men of E�Il�.ng are banished fro m the

bedroo m in a fantasy that goes so far as to elimi-

nate both desi re and di fference" (80). They al so

dis cuss Gilman's life an d her views on fem inism,

rel igi on, and se xuali ty as well as her works, espe­

cially ���1�.ng, which they again view as a feminist

revision of "the imperialist rom an ce made popular by

Rider Hagga rd" (71).

292 Golde n , Catherine. "T he Writing of 'The Yellow Wallpa­

Per': A Do uble Palimpsest. " �1.Y.9i�§_j,.n_j.m�.ri.s;.sU.l

[i.Qii.Q.n 17.2 ( Autumn 1989): 193-201.

YW Go lden det ect s two texts within the story, a domi­

nant text which she equates with the narrator' s

factual self and a muted text which she equates with

the narrator's fictionalized self. "I ndependent of

the muted text , the dominant text of her actions

incre mentally reveal s he r destruction" (197).

Hall, K. Grae hme. "Mothers and Child ren: 'Rising with

the Restless Tide' i n H� rl�.ng ." Qb�r1��1�-f�rkiD�

.QJ.1.m�.n.l__ .Ih� .H.Q.ID§: .n_ �D.Q_H�.r_ .H.Q.r� . Ed. Sheryl L.

Meyering. Ann Arbo r: UMI Research P, 1989. 161-

171.

Hall begins with a reference to G i lman's earliest

m emo ries of her purpose in li fe by stressing "the

value society places on motherhood," which is the

"religi on" of H�r1�.n.Q (162). M ost of the essay is a

sum mary of th e commitments of the Herlanders to

their altered virtues and tra ditions. Hall also

discusse s Gilman's intimate rel ati onship with Martha

Jessie L u the r , c it in g s e xu a 1 inn u en does fro m the

corre spon dence bet ween th e two youn g wom en, all

293 adumbrating Gilm an's satisfaction with the all­

female world whi ch she created in ��rla�� (166-1 67).

Jo hnson, Barb ara. "Is Female to Mal e as Ground is to

Figure?" .F� m.tni���-S:�g_.I'§..Y.Q.hQS:�S:..!.Y.ili.il . E d s.

Richard Feldstein and Judith Ro of. Ithaca: Cornell

UP , 1989. 255-268.

YW In di scussing the re l ati onship betw een "femini sm

and psychoanalysis" (255), Johnson juxtaposes Ha w­

t ho rne 's "Birthmark," Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-

p a per," an d Freud's "Fra gment of an Analysis of a

Case of Hyst eria," thr ee texts which examine "a

fe male patient subject to the therapeut ic ambitions

of a male do cto r " (255), to "pursue the conjunct ion

between the aesthetics of the figure-ground rela­

tionship and the th erapeuti cs of the male-f emale

relationship" (258). Johnson is also interested in

the un iversal ity of the "invisible men and women

trapp ed in the wal lpaper of the Western canon,"

those who are no t white or middle-cl ass citizens.

Kessler, Caro l Farley. "Brittle Jars and Bitter Jangl es:

Light Verse by Char lotte Perk ins Gilman." �hS:r..!Q!��

�r�i�§ �i..!�s��--�b�-H��s�_sn£_ Her_ H�rk . Ed. Sheryl

L. Meyering. Ann Arbor: UMI Re search P, 1989. 133-143.

294 Although Kessl er poin ts out some hu mor in Gilman's

poetry, she admits that most of the poems are more

didactic than entert aining. As examples of Gilm an 's

poetry, she cites from "Women of Today," "T he Modest

Maid," and "Wedded Bliss." In the last poem , for

ex ample, Gilman satiri ze s the devour ing prop ensi­

tie s of the male by j u xt aposing the imp robab le pro­

pos als of an eagl e, a lion, and a salmon to a hen, a

sheep, and a clam re spectively (136). After they

"wed," each fema le's life settles unhappily into

unp ro ductive inaction while the male soars, or

prowls, or swims, as the case may be. Kes sler ends

with "Feminine Vanity," which in culpates men who

adorn fe males in silk, velvet , fe at her, fur, jewels,

gold, perfum es , roses, and false hair .

Lanser, Susan s. "Feminist Criticism, 'The Yellow Wall-

paper, ' and the Politics of Color in America." E��=

4 15-4 35.

YW Prior to presenting her own interpretation of "The

Yellow Wallpaper," Lanser revie ws the critical

stances of six major interpreters of the short

story: Hedges, biography; Gi lbert an d Gubar, fe male

295 story : Hedges, bi og raphy ; Gilbert an d Gubar, female authorship; Treichl er , textual form; F etterley ,

Kolodny, and Kennard , interpretation. Since femi­ nists have d e constructed the dominant male patterns and reconstructed the neglect ed female exp e rience

(417), feminists shoul d acknowledge that their subject is no t "literature" but "ide as abo ut se x an d gender" (435). Lanser comments upon the "doubl e- vo i c ed" nature of the di s course ( 418), noting the

"crucial sh ift from narrator to autho r, from story to text" (419). She di smisses as inv alid th e assump­ tion that the sto ry is simply a "woman' s text" (424 ) primarily because "it is impossible to se p arate the text of a culture from the text of an indivi dual, to free female subjectivit y from patriarcha l text"

(424). Lanser boldly asserts that "t he patriar chal text a n d the wom an 's text are in som e sense one"

(42 4), that "t he narrator's t ext is also the text of h er cultur e" (424). Mo re appropriately, Lanser argue s , the story can be interpreted in the light of the "discour se of racial anxiety" (427). Sh e com­ pa r es the narrator with both Jane and Bertha, the mad woman in the attic in Bro nte's si..9:1H� �.Y.r� (428).

296 At this point in her discussion, Lanser prov id es

und eniable evid en ce that color existed fo r Gilman as

a political problem (429- 434), an d she draw s her

convincing, if fairly obviou s , conclus ion: "'The

Yellow Wallpaper' has been ab le to pass fo r a uni ve r­

sal text only insofar as white, Western literature s

and persp ectives c ontinue to dom inate academic Amer­

ican feminist pract ices ••. (434 ). The ugly· yellow

color and strong foul smell become unconsciously a

polit ical reference to the undesi rable yellow races

a nd the yellow peril; t h e text thus refle cts Gil­

man' s racist culture an d times.

Mey ering, Sheryl L. In troduction. �b�£19�t�-2�£�1D�

�jJ���J_-1��-�9���-EDg_B�£-�Qrk. Ed. Sheryl L.

M eyering. Ann Arbor: UMI Researc h P, 1989. 1-10.

YW Meyering discuss es briefly Gi lman's "legac y of imag­

inati ve writing" ( 1) an d not es that "T he Yellow

Wall p ap er" accurately repr e sent s the "patriarcha l

and lit erary tradition" of the aut hor' s time:

"C reative wo men we re trapped insid e the r igid nine­

teenth-century ideology of the 'women's sphe re, ' a

wo rld defined by domestic concerns" (2). M eyer l ing

observes th at Walter Stet son, Gil man's f irst hus-

297 band, rec o gnized the existence of Charlotte's own

double:

Stetson himself sees the tw o Charlottes only

too clearly, and thr oug hout the entire painful

courtshiP he tried to en c ourage the one who

wanted marriage , home, an d children, an d to

discourag e the "doppe lganger" ••.• (4)

F inal ly , Charlotte a greed to the marr iage and

"stead f astly atte mpted to let "the Princess"• [th e

Charlotte who wante d to marry ] prevail. •..Sh e

lavished on St etson her ap prec ia tion for his helping

he r see the lig ht an d truth about herself . He had

changed her na ture completely from the time of their

early courtship.•• "(5). Alt hough Gilman was self­

depre cating in the assessm ent of her own literary

merit s , Meyerli ng wisel y declare s that it is time

for critics to fo rm an independent judgment of her

ima ginative efforts (7-8).

Pe arc e, Lyn ne and Sara Mills. "Ma rxist-Fe minism." ��m1=

�1§1-���g! D�LI��!E!§�§ ���g!�g . Eds. Sara Mills,

Lynne Pearch, Sue Spaull, and Elaine Mil lard. C h a r-

lottesville : UP of Virginia, 1989. 187 -226.

YW These authors "suggest methods of reading texts

298 which are compatibl e with the po st-struct uralist

realisation [sic] t hat literature is not simple

[sic ] the x�fl���lg� o f the wo rld outside the text"

(190). In Marxist theo ry, the mirror ing of society in a microcosm bec o mes paramount in a lit erary w ork of significanc e (190), an d the authors express their in terest in "the doub le mirror which reflects it self to infinity" (191 ). One important Marxist concept essential to a further un de rst anding of "T he Yellow

Wal lpaper" arises from a stu dy of what a text does not expressly speak or imply, the "Machereyan 'not- said,'" or the "'unspo ken sub-text '" (192). This sub-text, the one offe ring no voice, becomes imp or­ tant in selecting an d interp ret ing the abs ence of a statem ent in a text. There fo re, while the text of

"T he Yellow Wal lpape r" offers no definitive details and is contradictory in its conclu sion, its lack of definiteness "constit ut es its proble mati sation of madness in materialistic terms" (19 2). They argue that the undermining effects of the text of "T he

Yello w Wallpa per," hails to women, interpolating them "into sympathy with the narrator" and causing them to misrecognize themselves and to arrogate to

299 themselves "the el ements of madness which the

protagonist is und ergoing": "Thus, in reading the

text , the connection betwe en madness and womanhood

is re-stated, in the same way as pat riar chal texts

r un together these notions of femininity, frailt y

and madness. It is thi s fal se re cognit ion which

ne eds to be challenged and resist ed" (216). The

contradictions in the text more approp riately indi­

cate "a larger social ph enomenon affecting middle

cl ass women in this peri od" (219), as opp osed to an

inhere nt weakness in wom en to become insane (2 16).

Rambo, Sharon M. "Wha t Diantha Did: The Authori ty of

Experience." �b�r1Q���-2�rkin�-Q�1mgni __ Jh�_HQ IDg�

g�g_.H�r H.2rk. Ed. Sheryl L. Meyering. Ann Ar bor:

UMI Re search P, 1989. 151-160.

Al though acknowledging the "preeminence" of "The

Yellow Wallpaper ," Rambo argue s that a study of this

KYD§���r�Q��n . the novel Hh��-�igD�hE_Q!g, "is a

particularly good starting point for rediscovering

Gilman's fiction. 11 She feels t hat "The Yellow Wall­

p a per" sho uld follow the no vel as a transition to

Gilman's other works because its au tobiographical

300 and fi rst person narrative offer s "t wo cont radictory

an d simultaneous opinions about the main chara cter

. " (153). Rambo de tect s two vo ices in the

story who disclose the true feelin gs of the narra -

tor : "The muted subtext says that the narrator's

tearing the wallpaper in order to release her double

is not madness" but sanity, and th e do minant text

reflects the so -called sanity of society (154). In

this excellent , and perha ps singular , reading of

t his serial novel, Rambo examin es the "richness" of

the text, the them e of mother as muse and daught er

as creato r, an d the structure of the novel.

Sc hw artz, Lynn Shar on. Introduction. 1g�-l�l1QH_�all��=

��r-�ng_Q�h�r_Hrj�1DE� . Ne w Yo rk: Bantam Books,

1989 , vi i-xxvi i.

YW Sc hwartz mana ges to capture the spirit of Gilman in

this brief sketch outlining her life, her ideology,

and the vast scope of her writing.

Wagne r-Martin, Linda. "Gilman's 'The Yellow Wal lpap er ':

A CentenarY." �hgrlQ��-��rkiD�-YiliD�Di-_ID�-�Qm�D

ii!HL.H�r-�gr,K. Ed. Sheryl L. Meyering. Ann Arbor:

UMI Res e arch P, 1989. 51-64.

YW In discussing the woman as mother in literature ,

301 Wagner-Martin cites "The Yellow Wallpaper" as a

st ory which dep icts "the young married woman as mother" (54 ). She notes the "dishones t rhet oric of the comfo rt i ng husband" by point ing out John's dis­

sembling wo rds and deeds because the wife is really

".hi�" and does not hav e her own s e 1 f (57). She cannot, therefore, find her own way. As the story ends, "sh e is worried abo u t . physically losing her way" (50). Wagner- Mar tin also notes that the

narrator's "escape into madness may have won her

continuin g argument with John," but, if so, it is

"only a Pyrrh ic victory because her present life is valueless to any one, particularly to herself" (60).

Then, however, she contradict s her argument that the narrator has ga ined a "Pyr rhic victory" :

She wins back her lan guage , and v anqu is he s her

hu sba nd--who has ne ither speec h nor action by

the end o f the story. He lies as if dead in

t he path of her highly functional movement, and

she simply crawls over him. (60)

Fa iling to acknowled ge outright that the na rrator's

victo r y is only momentary, Wagner-Martin attempts to recon cile her contradictory re adings by conceding

302 t hat the narrator has "silenced" John "temporarily at l east" (61). She evident ly argues that the nar ­ rator is victorious because sh e [the narrator ] with­ draws "into a world of her own making , a complete se paration from the pa triarchal existence that use d her to be the mo ther of an ancestral line over whic h she had no control . " (63).

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326 VITA

Margare t Vi ctoria De lashmit re ceived the B.S. in

E ducation with an endorseme nt in music from Me mphi s State

Univers ity i n May 1976, and the M.A. in Engl ish in August

1983, from t hat same institution. During the interve ning years she reared three children and taught language arts in the public school system and Engl ish at Memphis State

University. In August 1990, she re ceived the Ph.D. in

English from The Universit y of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Known as Peggy Je an De la shmit Salmon fo r most of her life, she decided to re name herself as a means of de ­ finin g herself. Her fat her named her, and thus defined her, at birth , an d her husband's name define d her fur­ th er after their marriage . Since Peggy is the diminut i ve of Ma rgaret, that name seemed appro priate; she took her beautiful mother's beautiful name Victoria as he r middle n ame. Victoria se ems especial ly apt considering the obs tacles she overcame on the path to ward full ad u lt­ hood.

327