Feminism in The Yellow Wallpaper by Carlotte Perkins Gilman

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in Hartford Connecticut. She was a celebrated essayist and public speaker, she became an important early figure in American feminism. Although Gilman’s father frequently left the family for long periods during her childhood and ultimately divorced his wife, he directed Gilman’s early education, emphasizing study in science and history (4). She studied commercial art at Rhode Island School of Design where she met her husband, an artist named Walter Stetson. After the birth of her daughter, Katherine, she experienced a severe depression. They later divorced and she then married her cousin, George Houghton Gilman, he died around the time rest cure her doctor prescribed became the basis of her most famous story, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Gilman discovered she had inoperable breast cancer. After finishing her autobiography, she killed herself with chloroform in Pasadena, California. A review of the articles shows that the first one, Feminist Criticism ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, and the Politics of Color in America” praises contemporary feminism and its role in changing the study and the interpretation of literature. Lanser explains that in the time that feminism was rising, academic woman had discovered that “literature is greatly political and compassed by patriarchy ideology.” Lanser argues that books like “The Yellow Wallpaper were lost in time because of the ideology which determined the works’ content to be disturbing or offensive (417). For example, the editor of the Atlantic Monthly rejected “The Yellow wallpaper” because “I could not forgive himself if he made others miserable as I have made himself (417).” “How we were taught to read” Lanser says, is why a reader canno... ... middle of paper ... ...he impression that Gilman was “trying to drive people crazy,” But rather the intension that the author had set out to give her readers. I would have to agree with Seuss that the wallpaper was a form of language, it was how she was able to express how she was feeling. Works Cited Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski and Scott Darga. Vol. 117. Detroit: Gale Group, 2002. p40-181. Lanser, Susan (1989). "Feminist Criticism ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, and the Politics of Color in America". Feminist Studies 15 (3): 415–441 Suess, Barbara A. "The Writing's On The Wall" Symbolic Orders In 'The Yellow Wallpaper'." Women's Studies 32.1 (2003): 79. Humanities International Complete. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. Scott, Heidi. "Crazed Nature: Ecology In The Yellow Wall-Paper." Explicator 67.3 (2009): 198. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.

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