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The Yellow Wallpaper
Feminist? Yes.
EARLY feminist? Ahem!
Just off to pedants' corner, me...
Feminist? Yes.
EARLY feminist? Ahem!
Just off to pedants' corner, me...
Jaybee said:Feminist? Yes.
EARLY feminist? Ahem!
Just off to pedants' corner, me...
DanHigginbottom said:Ah...MR James once more. If I may bore everyone who's heard me say this a hundred times, Oh whistle and I'll come to you, my lad remains the greatest ghost story ever.
Jaybee said:Mary Wollstonecraft?
Spookdaddy said:Anyone read The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman? Very creepy indeed. When I was at university it was held up as a work of feminist fiction - which it probably is. First and foremost though it's a bloody good "spook story" as EF Benson would say.
As with many works of fiction, "The Yellow Wallpaper" can be and has been subject to several interpretations and interpretive methods.
The story has been interpretated by feminist critics as a condemnation of the androcentric hegemony of 19th century medical profession. The narrator's suggestions about her recuperation (that she should work instead of rest, that she should engage with society instead of remaining isolated, that she should attempt to be a mother instead of being separated entirely from her child, etc.) are dismissed out of hand using language that stereotypes her as an irrational being and, therefore, not qualified to offer ideas about her own condition. Gilman indicated that the idea for the story originated in her own experience as a patient. Other feminist readings have pointed out the inequality of the marriage described in the story.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" is sometimes referred to as an example of Gothic literature for its treatment of madness and powerlessness. It has also been published in collections of horror fiction, which has led some to speculate that the women in the wallpaper were actually ghosts bent on driving the narrator insane, and not hallucinations. The strong feminist statements in the work itself, as well as those of the author, do not lend support to this interpretation.